Tag: Ruth Bader Ginsburg

On the Basis of Sex

Posted on by victorfraga

It’s 1956 and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Felicity Jones) is one of the nine female students at Harvard Law School. In this suited and booted world of more than 500 male students, a dress raises many eyebrows. Ruth has to carry the heavy burden of the proof of competence. It’s as if she bore the weight of every single American female on her shoulders. The sex discrimination isn’t subtle. The dean Erwin Griswold asks her and the other females: “what made you decide to take a place that could have gone to a male student?”

Parallel to her studies, Ruth has to look after her young daughter Jane and her ailing husband Marty (the heartthrob Armie Hammer, who bears very little physical resemblance with the real-life Marty), who had been diagnosed with cancer. She also takes classes on behalf of her husband (he’s also a law student). Miraculously, Marty survives and both of them graduate in law, having transferred to Columbia University at the end of their studies.

We than move to 1970. The remaining three quarters of the film focus on the landmark Charles Maritz case, a Denver man denied caregiver tax reduction for looking after his mother because he of his sex (the word “gender” wasn’t widely used back then, hence the film title). Ruth decides to embrace the seemingly dead-in-the-water case because she believes that by fighting gender discrimination on behalf of a man she would set a precedent for both sexes, and achieve a milestone in the history of gender equality and women’s rights. Back then, discrimination on the basis of sex wasn’t just legal, it was also normative. We soon learn that nearly 200 laws across the country were constructed upon gender bias.

From now on, you can work out the rest. Underdog that no one takes seriously embraces an impossible cause and makes history, against all odds. Almost everyone discourages Ruth, including her closest associates and male peers at the American Civil Rights Union. Even the notorious feminist judge Dorothy Kenyon dismissed her cause. Her old Harvard dean resurfaces and he is particularly offensive, and committed to upholding the conservative legacy of justice. Only her husband and daughter believed that she could succeed.

The dialogues are very sharp and punchy, a real American law history masterclass. The debate becomes increasingly angry and sharp-tongued in the final quarter of the movie, when it becomes mostly a courtroom drama. Ruth fights the Moritz in the Supreme Court, the same institution to which Bill Clinton appointed her 23 years later, and where she still works to this date, aged 85.

On The Basis of Sex raises a lot of legal and philosophical questions. What should change first: minds or the law? Is there an equivalence between race and gender equality? How fast and how often should the justice system and the law be prepared to change? And perhaps more significantly: is gender discrimination ever justifiable? One of the Supreme Justice reminds Ruth: “the word ‘woman’ is not mentioned a single time in the American constitution”, to which she promptly replies: “nor is the word ‘freedom'”.

I do, however, harbour a few reservations about On The Basis of Sex. Firstly, the movie opens with a “This film was inspired by real events”. I find that a lame excuse for historical inaccuracy, and a very awkward device given that this is a biopic of a real person, and all the characters are identified by their real name. It’s the equivalent to saying: “this is based on a real story, but we have romanticised infused it with so much saccharine that at times it might be hardly recognisable”.

But this isn’t the biggest problem. My major concern is about the idolisation of a judge, be it a progressive or a liberal one, at least while they are still alive and active. The real Ruth appears at the end of the film walking up the steps of the Supreme Court like a monarch or a celebrity. Judges should remain solemn and away from the spotlight. Read my review of Oscar-nominated RBG (Betsy West/ Julie Cohen, 2019; still showing in selected cinemas and also available on VoD), where I explain in more detail exactly what I mean, and why I think that films like these two represent a sheer perversion of the justice system.

On the Basis of Sex is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, February 22nd.

RBG

Posted on by victorfraga

Her speech is soft and tender, a little nasalised and highly avuncular – the perfect voice to read a night story to a child. The woman behind the voice, however, is very different. She’s firm and stern, her nerves and her body made of steel. And it’s not night stories and fairy tales that you will hear coming out of her mouth, but instead some of the most decisive and iconic court sentences in the history of the US.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born in 1933, and she is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the US. She was the second female in history to be confirmed to the court. President Bill Clinton appointed her in 1993 – he became star-struck after a very short conversation. Her achievements, however, began much earlier. RBG investigates Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s entire life, from cradle to present (Ginsburg is still very active at the age of 85).

In her early 20s, Ginsburg had to juggle her Law studies at Harvard, her two-year-old daughter and also her ailing husband Martin D. Ginsburg, who suffered from testicular cancer. She only slept two to three hours a day, we learn. Harvard registered a single-digit number of females amongst its 500 students, and Ginsburg was one of them. There was an enormous amount of pressure on these females, whose behaviour was expected no less than sterling. Ginsburg succeeded. Not only she graduated and became a successful lawyer, but also her husband made a full recovery. She often credits Martin’s positive attitude towards her career as instrumental in her achievements. The husband was more than happy to share the housework and to watch Ruth shine on her own merits. He joked: “she’s not allowed into the kitchen”.

Ginsburg focused on the equality agenda early in her career and long before she became a judge, in the 1970s. She argued and won the Frontiero vs Richardson case, which challenged a statute preventing females from claiming housing allowance. Perhaps more significantly, she argued and won the Weinberger vs Wiesenfeld case, where she represented a widower denied survivor benefits under Social Security. By arguing in favour of a male client she demonstrated that the equality agenda was fundamental to people of both sexes, not just to females.

After becoming an Associate Justice, Ginsburg continued to focus on the equality agenda. Yet she was not perceived to be a radical judge, but to sit roughly in the middle of the ideological spectrum instead. As the Bush years kicked in, however, Ginsburg quickly shifted to the left and is now firmly established as one of the most powerful progressive voices of the US. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the documentary opens with Republican voices (Bush, Trump, etc) using very strong and misogynistic terms to describe her: “witch”, “evil-doer” and “vile” amongst those.

There is no doubt that Ginsburg is an exceptional human being, and also a very affable one. Her large teeth and broad smile are contrasted against large and yet timid eyes hiding behind gigantic spectacles. Her backbone is stern, her posture erect, her head tilting slightly forward as if giving into the weight of her glasses. She blends rigidness with femininity in the right dose. She’s quietly formidable. Someone you’d love to have a drink with and also trust to make the right decision under the most extreme circumstances. Yet there’s something that makes me very uncomfortable about Ginsburg, and also about this documentary per se.

Despite (or perhaps precisely because of) her charisma, Ruth Bader Ginsburg should step away from the spotlight. The making of RBG is in itself a sheer perversion of justice, or contempt of court. Judges should remain discreet and solemn, particularly if they are still active. Such demeanour would never be permitted in the UK. Justice Denis Henry is probably the closest we ever got to a celebrity judge on this side of the pond, but the treatment that he received was nothing comparable to Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Ginsburg has been nicknamed The Notorious RBG, and become a regular television appearance. Her image is printed on shirts and mugs, a little bit à la Che Guevara. She has become a diva, a celebrity and a cult personality.

We might applaud such perversion of justice when the judge sits on our end of the political spectrum (such is the case with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which whom I share many beliefs). However, we should be more cautious. The idolisation of individual judges could have disastrous consequences. I come from a Brazil, home to a judge called Sergio Moro. Similarly to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, judge Moro is treated like a hero, like a celebrity. Unlike Ginsburg, however, judge Moro is a fascist. He’s personally responsible for an extensive lawfare campaign that culminated in a coup d’état, the political imprisonment of Lula and the sheer destruction of Brazilian democracy. None of this would have happened had he remained solemn and discreet, like a judge should.

If you wish to idolise and celebrate an active judge, why not make a fiction film instead?

RBG is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, January 4th, and then on VoD on Monday, January 7th.