Great Women's Films
Hollywood Movies About Women's Issues that Go Beyond the Chick Flick
May 3, 2007
Fabulous films about women’s issues are hard to find. The majority of Hollywood films have male protagonists and deal with issues that are important to men. So if you’re looking for a great film about women’s issues, here are some suggestions.
Set it Off (1996). Four young African American women (Jada Pinkett, Queen Latifah, Vivica A. Fox, and Kimberly Elise) live in the projects and try their best to improve their situations. A series of violent and unjust events lead the women to conclude that the system is too broken for them to succeed through honest means. So, they become bank robbers. Set It Off a rare statement on how hard it is to break the cycle of poverty.
Thelma and Louise (1991). Thelma (Geena Davis) and Louise (Susan Sarandon) are best friends who set out on a weekend getaway to escape their mundane lives. When they stop at a bar, Thelma is nearly raped, and Louise shoots the assailant. The women spend the rest of the movie running away from the law. Thelma and Louise veers away from Hollywood sentiment of and instead focuses on issues like domestic violence, sexual harassment, and independence.
Real Women Have Curves. (2002). Ana (America Ferrara) is a full-figured and brilliant Latina who wants to attend Columbia University. However, her immigrant family expects her to go to work. Ana’s resentment is compounded by her oppressive mother, who berates Ana about her weight. Ana goes to work in her sister’s clothing factory, which essentially is an L.A. sweatshop. The film focuses on issues like body image and the exploitation of women in the workplace that rarely grace the big screen.
Norma Rae (1979). Sally Field portrays Norma Rae, a blue collar textile worker who courageously finds it in herself to lead a union effort against her exploitative bosses. The film focuses on labor issues, as conditions in the factory are deplorable and the workers are too frightened to unionize. It also deals with issues of domestic violence, as Norma Rae has suffered from many an abusive lover.
Far From Heaven (2002). Directed by Todd Haynes, this artistic film is patterned after the melodramas of the 1950s, except that it portrays the idyllic expectations of the 1950s as hypocritical and empty. Julianne Moore plays Cathy Whitaker, a prominent housewife whose idyllic life crumbles after she discovers that her husband is a closeted homosexual. She then befriends her African American gardener and earns the scorn of the community. Cathy’s platonic friendship has more consequences than her husband’s adulterous affairs, which is an interesting commentary.
Adam’s Rib (1949). In this comedy, Hepburn and Tracy play an affectionate married couple who are both successful lawyers. Tracy becomes the prosecutor in a case where a woman is accused of trying to kill her husband, and Hepburn joins the case to defend the wife. This causes disharmony in their marriage and quite a bit of debate about the “battle of the sexes.”
Thirteen. (2003). Tracy (Evan Rachel Wood) is the daughter of a struggling single mother (Holly Hunter). Tracy is a studious, well-behaved adolescent, but not far underneath the surface is a girl who cuts herself. She befriends popular, wild Evie (Nikki Reed), who introduces Tracy to a wild world of alcohol, drugs, and theft. The realism of Thirteen can be attributed to actress Nikki Reed, who co-wrote this largely autobiographical film.
The Color Purple. (1985). Based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Alice Walker, he Color Purple is a story of Celie (Whoopi Goldberg), an meek and oppressed young African American woman who lives in the South in the early 1900s. Celie is raped by her father and gives birth to two children, whom her father steals and gives away before marrying off Celie to a similarly oppressive man. Celie’s world changes when she befriends her husband’s unconventional lover Shug, who helps Celie become a stronger woman.
