Something else was mobilizing many people in the news media last week other than the COVID-19 virus. It was none other than Hulu’s premiere of “Mrs. America,” a tell-all on conservative icon the late Phyllis Schlafly.
There was no way that Hulu — famed for its dystopian series “The Handmaid’s Tale” about what might happen if biblical literalists took over America — was going to give Schlafly a fair shake. After all, Serena Joy, the sadistic Christian wife figure in “Handmaid” who preaches that women’s place is only in the home, is modeled after Schlafly, according to Margaret Atwood, author of the book on which the movie is based.
Indeed, Serena Joy, has been called “Phyllis Schlafly on steroids.” However, I wanted to see how “Mrs. Amerca” portrayed Schlafly, a larger-than-life personality whose strength lay in her Catholic faith — something nearly ignored, at least thus far, in the series. Maybe she is supposed to be a white evangelical?
Only the first three episodes have been aired (successive ones will be released on Wednesdays) and I’ve watched them all. The show’s creators missed the religious angle by a mile. There’s only a very slight allusion to Schlafly’s faith, other than a grace said before meals. Most Catholic homes in that era — and some even now — would have had some devotional paintings on the walls at least.
There were a bunch of reviews about the show, some of which revealed a major journalistic failing in that the main writer, Dahvi Waller, admits she didn’t bother contacting Schlafly’s family to check for accuracy. She explains to Vanity Fair that she didn’t want the family’s views to prejudice her own. Translation: She didn’t want to be bothered by the facts.
I found Waller argument beyond incredible. Would she have attempted a biopic of Michelle Obama without consulting the Obama family? The 2015 Netflix film about British singer Amy Winehouse had tons of input from her family. Waller has said she didn’t interview family members of any of the women’s lib activists portrayed in the film either, but the film is not about them. It’s about “Mrs. America,” that is, Mrs. Schlafly.
So it’s fallen to Anne Schlafly Cori, one of Phyllis’s two daughters (out of six children) to explain to the Federalist what the show got wrong.
Cori mostly addresses the bizarre marital rape scene in the first episode as totally false. I would have asked her whether the Schlafly household really did employ black maids in the early 1970s; a ploy the show uses to portray Schlafly as racist.
Look, the woman was married to a rich St. Louis lawyer; so most families in that position had maids to help out with the food prep and all the kids. My own grandmother, who lived in the Philadelphia suburbs and had six girls over a 19-year-period, also employed black maids from time to time. That was not unusual in that era.
Also, didn’t the Schlaflys ever go to church? So far, “Mrs. America” has not shown this.
The one person who seemed to get Schlafly’s faith was Cate Blanchett, who has the lead role. The St. Louis Post Dispatch quotes her as saying:
Blanchett figures Schlafly’s unyielding personality came from her Catholic faith. But she wasn’t one to use it as a shield. Instead, she faced her detractors head-on.
When entertainer Anita Bryant was hit in the face with a pie, “she grabbed her husband’s hand or her boyfriend’s hand and started weeping and praying,” Blanchett says. When the same thing happened to Schlafly, “she turns around without missing a beat and says, ‘Well, I’m glad that pie wasn’t cherry because it would have stained my dress.’”
The Salt Lake Tribune found some good in the series and noted how Latter-day Saints lined up behind Schlafly as well.
But I’ve not seen a lot of Catholic publications react to the series other than this piece by the National Catholic Reporter that was more upset with how how inaccurately Phyllis’s sister-in-law Eleanor Schlafly is depicted — because the author knew Eleanor.
So if the film got a minor figure wrong, imagine the inaccuracies in there about the title figure.
For more on Phyllis Schlafly’s Catholic beliefs, check out this 2016 obit by the Reporter.
Most of the reviews about the series, such as this Atlantic piece used their ink to slam Schlafly. In return, Michelle Malkin (who was inspired by Schlafly) wrote the following in RealClearPolitics:
Anti-patriot hatred never rests. Hollywood has launched a new character assassination vehicle targeting the late great Phyllis Schlafly. "Mrs. America" debuts on FX on Hulu this week with liberal actress Cate Blanchett starring as the traditionalist Catholic conservative activist who defeated the so-called Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and went on to helm the influential Eagle Forum until her death at 92 in 2016.
Blanchett, who also served as executive producer on the project, denies any bias against Schlafly and points to the entire movie staff's refusal to speak with any of her family members as proof of its neutrality. But blocking input from those who knew the phenomenal matriarch, lawyer and author of more than 20 books conveniently allowed the Tinseltown fable-tellers to fabricate calumnious scenes out of thin air -- including a fantastical depiction of Schlafly's devoted husband, Fred, forcing the female conservative icon to have sex against her will.
I was in high school when Schlafly became famous in the early 1970 and never was a big fan of her belief that women find their greatest fulfillment at home with their families. It never resonated with single women like me and still doesn’t. What did resonate in the Hulu series was the nasty treatment by sexist men that Schlafly and other women had to endure. Not a lot has changed there.
Schlafly’s ability to mobilize to defeat a constitutional amendment is an impressive feat no matter what side of the line you stand on. As Slate said:
Mrs. America’s implicit argument is that Schlafly does not get enough credit for being one of the best grassroots organizers and political visionaries of the 20th century; that her organization and vision were so toxic doesn’t mean they weren’t also powerful and prescient…
Initially, that movement doesn’t take Schlafly seriously. The ERA is crashing through statehouses, and momentum, political will, and righteousness are on their side! What’s this fringe lady in Illinois gonna do?
Meanwhile, Schlafly is steadfastly fixated on her goal and wrangling a group of women who are comparatively similar—white, religious, conservative homemakers—to do it
It was those same ‘white, religious, conservative homemakers’ who elected President Donald Trump in 2016 and who continue to oppose abortion nearly 50 years after the Supreme Court legalized it.
When will the left wake up and actually listen to some of these women? I have to credit Hulu which, unlike Netflix or HBO, is at least making an effort to explain Schlafly to the masses. Their lens is skewed, but hopefully some light will penetrate the ignorance out there.