The Prestige TV Podcast - 'Mrs. America' Season Review

Episode Date: May 27, 2020

'Mrs. America,' starring Cate Blanchett and Rose Byrne, is a master class on TV based on historic political events, and because of that, it sometimes hits too close to home. Hosts: Alyssa Bereznak and Kate Halliwell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hilton, for the stay. Hello and welcome to TV concierge, a daily podcast where Ringer staffers helping navigate the crowded TV landscape. I'm Alyssa Bresnack, and today I'm joined by Kay Hallowell to discuss Mrs. America starring Kate Blanchett and Rose Byrne, which actually just aired its finale today.

Kate, give me a one-sentence pitch or your tweet-length review of why people should watch this show. As people know, I'm a huge Cape Blanchett head. So I suppose my pitch would be Mrs. America is a fantastic, entertaining depiction of history, starring Cape Blanchette and with a supporting performance by Rose Byrd's glasses. And lots of amazing blue eye shadow on Cape Blanchette in this show. Incredible styling on this show. It's not the main point of this podcast, but it's not the main point of this podcast, but it's not not the main point of this podcast.

Right. I think that's a good segue into talking about like why this show is a great show about history and how this is kind of a masterclass in how you do that. But to review what it's about because it is about a historical event, it's about the ratification or the attempt to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment in the 70s. And so therefore it has great makeup, great hair and great clothing. They chose a really good era to do a history show off. Right. I mean, you know, we have these really the examples of incredible history shows recently, like the Crown and American Crime Story and things that have really taken off. And I do think this isn't the same category of being a mix between kind of, you know, this fictionalization of historical events being educational, but also being incredible to look at and incredible to watch and entertaining. And it's a tough balance. And I think Mrs. America nailed it.

Yeah, totally. And this is the time of like Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan. And but actually, the. The main character, who is played by Kate Blanchett, is Phyllis Schlafly. And she was originally considered a fringe conservative voice in the Republican Party, but ended up building a movement that helped mobilize conservative activists across the nation. So it's also very much rings true, I think, to our current political landscape. And that's part of the reason it's so good. What were the moments of the show, the political moments of the show that stood out to you as, oh, this is really resonating.

Like this feels like a subtle reference to our current day times. There was a little too much for my comfort that resonated with this. Obviously, you know, it's about this second wave of feminism and their efforts to make it inclusive and to deal with the men that are in power. And it's too similar to today for being, you know, 50 years later. And it was subtle with it at times. And then I think it was unsubtle about that at times, which I think worked. But I would say the intersectionality when they're, you know, we got a lot about Phyllis,

but we also got a lot about Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug and these efforts to, you know, these white feminists that were obviously leading the movement, but their efforts and sometimes lack of effort to make it inclusive and include women of color. And there was a big debate about whether lesbians were welcome in the movement. And it's these same things that we're having today. You know, we have the trans exclusionary feminists. We have, you know, the women of color that don't feel welcome in the movement. these discussions. And I just think it was, you know, they were having these discussions.

And we're having these discussions now and we haven't seen a ton of progress. So obviously, you know, Phyllis was the main sort of, you know, anti-hero, definitely not a hero, villain of the story. But it was definitely the, I think, the feminist parts of this that I think resonated the most with me. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. The intersectionality was definitely one thing. And I appreciated that they went into the issues that Democrats were struggling with as well as the issues that the Republicans were struggling with. I thought the misinformation aspect of it was interesting. There was one episode where they're talking about the size of their rally. They're putting out into their paper newsletter, which I suppose is like the version of going viral back

the analog version. And they're exaggerating the size of their rally. And I think one member of the Eagles Forum, which is the name of this women's conservative group, says, are you sure that's the number of people and they were all just like, yep, yep, that was a number. Yeah, that feels a little too accurate to today as well. And yeah, even just like little things like they call them the libers. And it was like, oh, it was just like, you know, trigger the libs and like things like that. I was like, and, you know, Phyllis Schlafly campaign for Donald Trump. So like, I don't know why we're surprised that we're seeing parallels here. But, you know, it was definitely a lot that

resonated with what we're seeing today. What I also appreciated about this, though, is that it was about humans. It was about like personalities and characters and their relationships. And so we saw a lot of dynamics of like female relationships. We saw a lot of dynamics of female male relationships in the 70s. And there was such empathy toward even a character like Phyllis Schlafly, who I think to any sort of progressive individual would immediately sort of register in this villain tone. Like I think about the beginning of the series where she comes out on stage in a bathing suit model, in front of all of these men. And you can tell she's uncomfortable.

Like there are so many moments like that where she's working really hard to be recognized as a legitimate voice in the conservative party. And she has to make all these female concessions. She has to smile. She has to sort of tolerate any sort of womanizing or rudeness or just sort of discounting of her abilities. What were some things that came up for you in terms of the human aspect of the show? Yeah.

I think Phyllis especially has been kind of the subject of debate about whether they humanized her too much because obviously she was this just abhorrent person who set almost single-handedly as the show proved set back the women's movement. But yeah, I mean, what you learn through watching the show is that a lot of these conservative activists, including her, were feminists. They didn't think they were, but they were. She's a professional lobbyist. And she's just lobbying for the right to stay home and lobbying for the patriarchy. And so there's this really interesting parallel of like she's doing all these things that the feminist are fighting for and she wants to benefit from that. And we get that in the finale as well, you know, not to, not spoil anything, but she works for the Reagan administration. She works to get

him elected and then he doesn't reward her for that. And she ends up in the kitchen peeling apples. And like that's what she's worked for this whole show. But she's humanized in a way where like you see these layers and you see just the the dichotomy of what she's trying so hard to achieve and then realizing that that works against her and works against all women. So I do, I think they did a really good job with Phyllis Laughley. I think, you know, it's been controversial and people are like she was a garbage person and they should have shown her more as a garbage person, which I can definitely understand. But I was really impressed with not only Kate Lanjet, who I love, obviously. I think she did a great job. And I look forward to her

winning whatever virtual Emmys we were doing this year. But yeah, I think they did a great job with her. I think they humanized her in a really, really interesting way. Yeah, I think about her relationship with Alice, who's played by Sarah Paulson, because that is really kind of a philosophical journey, of all the characters in this series, I think Alice is probably the one he changes the most. And she starts as someone who's really concerned about the Equal Rights Amendment because she feels it threatens her position as a housewife. And maybe she's a little bit insecure about what she's accomplished versus these other people or whether or not she might be seen as useless or be kicked out and not get alimony, whether her daughters will get drafted to Vietnam, like all of these sort of larger fears. And through participating in this forum, she gets a sense of independence and she actually learns. Like she's exposed by going to this convention in Houston to all these different people and realizes they're not really the enemy and they're trying to work together to help each other and not embarrass her.

But no one can hear that. And towards the end, she really does sour on Phyllis. And I think that that was the most fascinating relationship because she wanted to support, for instance, other friend who was in kind of a weird abusive relationship. And it was very clear that philosophically had a certain idea of what the world was and often ignored what was going on around her in order to sort of push forward her agenda. Yeah, I agree. I thought, first of all, Sarah Paulson also great. And I think Alice was the only major fictional character on the show, which I do think you can tell. I think she's used as kind of this convenient storytelling device,

because we don't see a lot of these, you know, these uber feminists or these uber conservatives changing their point of view very much throughout the show, which makes sense, obviously. But she was kind of used as this bridge. And I think Sarah Paulson was like the perfect choice for this. If you're going to write a character for anyone and like make something up for anyone and have kind of this bottle episode that she has, I mean, who else? But Sarah Paulson can pull that off. Yeah, like her taking anxiety meds and just sort of wandering the halls of a convention, like singing kumbaya.

I didn't expect a drug trip episode in this show. But we got it. We got it. I mean, it is the 70s, so consider that. That's true. That's true. Maybe I should have expected it. You mentioned that this kind of show hits a little too close to home. Like, what was the feeling it left you with? I felt really, like, exhilarated watching it because I felt like the writing and the storytelling was so great. But I did feel a sense of doom. Do you think that this show was trying to say that? I don't know if it meant to, you know, give us a sense of doom, but it also did for me. You know, it was, it was really exciting to watch and just really engaging. But, you know, the final episode, it's like, it shows all the real time consequences, as if we weren't already seeing them of what Phyllis has done

and what the ERA, you know, they go through all the historical facts of the ERA and where it stands and it's likelihood of being ratified in the future. And it's just like, it's probably not. And then, you know, we open up Twitter and we look at the news and we're like, yep, like, here we are, you know? Sure. And I felt like they were, I mean, I'm not to try and spoil this, but the whole series is out and I don't, it is history, so it's not necessarily spoilable. But at the end, they do this clip where it's like showing people still fighting, but they also say that the strongest the women's movement ever was was in the 70s, almost to kind of like shit on the women's movement now. Like what, I mean, how do you, like, what is your, what are your thoughts on like ending a historical

series on a future note? Because I've noticed that's almost like a theme now, especially in our super polarized landscape of entertainment. It reminded me of Black Klansman. Exactly. The Spike Lee movie, the end of that where he cut to all the protests and things like that. And I think it's meant to be sobering. And I think it works. I mean, I don't really want to come out of this being like, but it's okay.

Like, I'm going to put on my pussy hat and like go save America. Like, you know what I mean? I think it's realistic. And whether we like it or not, I think it works for the end of the series. Yeah. Well, on that extremely sobering and somewhat depressing note, thank you, Kate, for joining me to talk about This is America. You should all check it out on Hulu. Enjoy more ways to save at Ralph's, like low prices in every aisle.

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