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STAND UP AND BE COUNTED from
Secret Storm (undated, but probably 1975-1976)
(Editors Note: A film review of the movie "Stand Up and Be Counted"
which explored how women were changed by the women's liberation movement.)
There's
a flick playing around the neighborhoods that everybody should check
out. It's called "Stand Up and Be Counted", and it's about
women's liberation. The story takes place in Denver and the main characters
include a career girl, her sister and her mother. The sister is very
into both the ideas of women's liberation and building a movement.
The mother belongs to a women’s liberation group for older women.
At the start of the movie, the career girl does not like women's liberation
at all, thinks her sister is sorta nuts and that the movement is rather
extreme. The movie shows the changes she goes through and how she
comes to understand, support, and be a part of the movement.
That’s
the strongest point of the film - it shows women going through changes,
and how painful the realizations that you're oppressed - that your
husband doesn't listen when you talk, that your boss just doesn't
give a shit about your working conditions, that even though he 'helps',
the housework is still women's work - how painful these realizations
are.
It's
so easy to see your self in the women in the film. It's amazing
- they say things we've all said to each other, to our children,
and to our husbands and boyfriends. You can really feel what they're
feeling too. The heaviest scenes come down with this mother of
three little kids and her husband. He never has time to talk to her,
he doesn't take her ideas seriously (much less her emotions). She
does all the housework, takes care of the kids by herself, you know,
the whole bit. One day the baby-sitter finds some really good sketches
of women's fashions that she had done over the years. The sitter
convinces her that they're good, she takes them to some designer
and he offers her a job, working at home, in her own time. She
tries several times to tell her husband about it, but he never has
time to listen. After about a month, he tells he was fired three
weeks before and has just been offered a job in New York City, that
she will have to stay behind with the kids and sell the house, since
he has to move RIGHT NOW. She starts off with trying to tell him
that she has a job and that she could support them until he found
another job in Denver, but he just doesn't listen. Besides, she
says, she doesn't want to live in New York City (what a place to
raise kids!). Many tears later; he leaves for New York, still not
understanding why she is holding out. You can tell that she decided
that she wasn't going to simply pick up and leave Denver on a moment's
notice, that she was going to start to think about what she wanted.
With
one exception, the film mainly dealt with women's liberation and
how it relates to our relationships with men - fathers, boyfriends
and husbands, not with the part of women's liberation that deals
with building a new society for everyone. But what it does it does
well.
The audience
reaction is amazing. You can see men shrinking in their seats at
certain scenes, and getting really hostile at other. And then there
are points where all the women clap and you can feel the unity
among the women in the audience. Of course, where you watch the
credits at the end, there's only one woman on the crew. Well, we'll
get to that next time around.
Everyone
should go and see Stand Up and Be Counted. Bring sisters,
mother, brothers, husband or boyfriends. Everyone will have
strong feelings about it and there sure will be a lot of discussion.
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