Suffragette - Bringing history alive and making it relevant

As a progressive, Socialist and Feminist, it is with some shame that have to admit knowing very little about the movement for women's suffrage that swept across the United Kingdom in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  Obviously I know the headlines, that there was a movement called the Suffragettes whose direct action eventually brought about the introduction of votes for women in the early 20th century.  But aside from that - almost nothing.

I assume that I am in a vast majority of British people, and as such the production and release of Suffragette as a major film was welcome.  Starring Carey Mulligan in the lead role, she brings the required star presence the ensure that the film got reviewed more than just as a historical curiosity - well, her and Meryl Streep obviously.  Here Mulligan plays Maud Watts, a washer woman from East London living an ordinary working class life who experiences molestation at work at the hands of her boss and as a result gets swept up into the Suffragette movement.

This is a film that deftly tells a story of one woman's ordinary experiences, and by extension the ordinary experience of women throughout the decades and centuries that eventually lead to the birth of modern feminism.  It's a story of how political change is enacted - via political or direct means.  It's a story about the sacrifices made by those acting to create chance, as they are shunned by their own communities and families.  It's also a story about the role the police take in such matters, how does a police officer who largely agrees with your cause react to knowing it's his job to brutally repress it?  All of this ties in with contemporary protest movements, the daily realities of raging against the machine were the same then as they are today.

Let's turn momentarily to the casting of Meryl Streep as Emmeline Pankhurst.  Initially I was a little miffed that this part went to the American Holywood A-lister, for such a small role why not cast a British actress and allow her to take the limelight.  But then the power of using Streep becomes clear, because Pankhurst's celebrity amongst the Suffragettes is conveyed by Streep's screen presence and our reaction to her.  Similar to the way that Scarlett Johansson's casting in Under the Skin added to the unearthliness of her alien presence in suburban Glasgow, when Streep comes on screen we don't need anyone to tell us that this is an important moment in the politicisation of Maud Watts.

So my message to you Britain is to get out there and see (well, stay in and rent the DVD of) Suffragette.  It tells a side of history that I guarantee few of you are aware of.