Alice, Rosemary and Pamela cross into enemy territory at the National Women's Conference in Houston, where they come face-to-face with Feminist leaders.Alice, Rosemary and Pamela cross into enemy territory at the National Women's Conference in Houston, where they come face-to-face with Feminist leaders.Alice, Rosemary and Pamela cross into enemy territory at the National Women's Conference in Houston, where they come face-to-face with Feminist leaders.
Uzo Aduba
- Shirley Chisholm
- (credit only)
John Slattery
- Fred Schlafly
- (credit only)
Jeanne Tripplehorn
- Eleanor Schlafly
- (credit only)
Bria Henderson
- Margaret Sloan
- (as Bria Samoné Henderson)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThis is the only episode to not be named after one of the characters in the show and the only episode to focus on a fictional character instead of a character based on a real person.
Featured review
Alice's Adventures in Feminism
"Mrs. America" is an entertaining slice of American history overall, focusing on the women's liberation movement of the 1970s and including a stellar cast headed by Cate Blanchett as Phyllis Schlafly, the right-wing anti-feminist who led the movement that stopped the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, but for this comment, I want to focus on episode eight, "Houston," of the mini-series. Initially, I thought it a weak run-up to the series upcoming conclusion--not least because the wonderful Blanchett is barely in it, nor the underappreciated Margo Martindale. In the episode, the STOP ERA movement, absent Schlafly, crashes the 1977 National Women's Conference to little effect, with most of the focus this time being on the fictional character Alice played by Sarah Paulson, who has a drug-induced introduction to second-wave feminism. I suppose this is a way for the show's makers to glorify the women's movement despite the main protagonist being the woman who prevented the most-publicized piece of the movement, the ERA, from being ratified. After all, despite a sometimes sympathetic, or complex, view of Schlafly, there's no doubt as to the show's left-wing leanings, as reinforced by 40-plus years of progress taking place on other issues covered in the series--gay rights most of all. Note the fictional character's name of "Alice," though, and the source of this episode's ficitonalization of history may become apparent.
Although, it may just be because I see Lewis Carroll's influence in all sorts of unexpected rabbit holes since reading his Alice books. Nevertheless, the housewife Alice in this show faces difficulty adjusting to the political world she finds herself in, which is akin to reading the Alice books as a child's view of the absurdity of adulthood--constantly struggling with what appears to her to be nonsense. Ditto the Alice here, who flubs a TV interview and fails to deliver a speech she planned to give, or to do anything really to aid her organization's cause. She even must room with ERA-supporting African-American females. She, then, drinks some pink booze and takes a "Christian" pill. Just as Carroll's Alice drank and ate, including mushrooms, to make herself larger and smaller, so to do the drugs this anti-feminist Alice consumes alter her perspective. They lead her down a rabbit hole of feminist focus groups and gatherings. She receives communion from a woman, which Alice says isn't allowed, but she nonetheless consumes more food and drink here, as well as at a film screening and a singing of a "socialist" and "patriotic" song with lesbians. She even meets Gloria Steinem (as played by a chic Rose Byrne).
Appropriately, Alice only escapes this trip via a dream--of the Queen of Hearts herself, Schlafly, admonishing her. Alice wakes up to Schlafly further speechifying on the boob tube, before she travels to Schlafly's counter-conference "Pro-Life, Pro-Family Rally," where Schlafly really admonishes her, but for the relatively trivial, to fix her face. None of this makes for a particularly enlightening history lesson--fictional narrative motion pictures usually don't--but I found it a surprising, yet rather fitting, transmutation of Carroll's text, from stuffy English Victorian childhood to groovy 1970s America adulthood and the fight over feminism.
Although, it may just be because I see Lewis Carroll's influence in all sorts of unexpected rabbit holes since reading his Alice books. Nevertheless, the housewife Alice in this show faces difficulty adjusting to the political world she finds herself in, which is akin to reading the Alice books as a child's view of the absurdity of adulthood--constantly struggling with what appears to her to be nonsense. Ditto the Alice here, who flubs a TV interview and fails to deliver a speech she planned to give, or to do anything really to aid her organization's cause. She even must room with ERA-supporting African-American females. She, then, drinks some pink booze and takes a "Christian" pill. Just as Carroll's Alice drank and ate, including mushrooms, to make herself larger and smaller, so to do the drugs this anti-feminist Alice consumes alter her perspective. They lead her down a rabbit hole of feminist focus groups and gatherings. She receives communion from a woman, which Alice says isn't allowed, but she nonetheless consumes more food and drink here, as well as at a film screening and a singing of a "socialist" and "patriotic" song with lesbians. She even meets Gloria Steinem (as played by a chic Rose Byrne).
Appropriately, Alice only escapes this trip via a dream--of the Queen of Hearts herself, Schlafly, admonishing her. Alice wakes up to Schlafly further speechifying on the boob tube, before she travels to Schlafly's counter-conference "Pro-Life, Pro-Family Rally," where Schlafly really admonishes her, but for the relatively trivial, to fix her face. None of this makes for a particularly enlightening history lesson--fictional narrative motion pictures usually don't--but I found it a surprising, yet rather fitting, transmutation of Carroll's text, from stuffy English Victorian childhood to groovy 1970s America adulthood and the fight over feminism.
helpful•54
- Cineanalyst
- May 26, 2020
Details
- Runtime50 minutes
- Aspect ratio
- 2.00 : 1
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