Phyllis Schlafly

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In Phyllis Schlafly biopic on FX, evangelicals got all the acid -- but Schlafly was Catholic

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“Mrs. America,” a nine-part biopic on Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly and her philosophical opposites in the 1970s feminist movement, ended last week on Walt Disney’s FX Channel. Depressingly, the show never got down to the religious convictions that drove this cultural pioneer.

I last wrote about the show here in the hopes that this infotainment extravaganza might get better. It did not. You could see this in the shows. You could see this in news coverage of the series.

Instead, this media event became a lesson on how blue-staters (and I live in one such locale) perceive the universe. Conservative — and usually religious — characters were one-dimensional jerks while the folks on the left were interesting, complex people with much inner turmoil. The latter group was always true to their nobler selves whereas Schlafly was never true to anything except her own scheming self.

As I watched episodes week by week, I was surprised that conservative and religious-market media — Catholic media, for example — weren’t tracking this rewrite of history, despite accusations being lobbed at Schlafly such as her being in bed with the Ku Klux Klan.

Never mind that even Slate said evidence was sketchy at best that Schlafly colluded with that group. The Klan was anti-Catholic and Schlafly was Catholic. But let’s not let the facts get in our way, in a series that many news outlets took seriously as a commentary on that era.

The real heroes of the show were the founding members of the National Women’s Political Caucus such as U.S. Reps. Bella Abzug and Shirley Chisholm, author Betty Friedan, Republican operative Jill Ruckelshaus and Gloria Steinem, co-founder of Ms. Magazine. Their beliefs and assumptions — including an unstinting advocacy on behalf of abortion — are never questioned, whereas Schlafly is continually portrayed as a racist who specializes in weird put-downs of her black housekeepers. Has anyone offered on-the-record, journalism-level proof that there incidents ever happened?

Schlafly does have a biographer, David Critchlow, but no one checked with him before airing the show. Here’s what he told The Federalist about all the factual errors in the series.

The show took such liberties with reality that even the Los Angeles Times ran fact-checker pieces after each episode explaining what was made up and what was true.


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Hulu and the press give Schlafly top billing in new series. Her Catholic faith? Say what?

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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?


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Journalists (and clergy) fail to note that Schlafly won a political battle, but lost larger war

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Journalists (and clergy) fail to note that Schlafly won a political battle, but lost larger war

You know that feeling you get when you are trying to think of a name -- a person or an institution, perhaps -- but you just can't get it to pop into focus? The hard drive in your mind spins and spins and you can see hints at the data you're seeking, but not the real thing.

Trust me, this happens more when you pass 60 years of age.

It's even more disconcerting when this happens while you are on the air doing radio or a podcast, as I was again earlier this week chatting with "Crossroads" host Todd Wilken. (Click here to tune that in.) We were talking about the late Phyllis Schlafly and the fact that she was the rare moral and cultural conservative who won a major political -- repeat "political" -- battle in the public square. However, she lost her larger war with the most powerful principalities and powers in our land. As I wrote in my earlier post:

... She won her battle against the ERA, but lost the much larger war with Hollywood, trends in public education and the all-powerful worldview of shopping malls from coast to coast.
Of course, Schlafly's other major accomplishment in life was helping create a large space for religious and cultural conservatives inside the big tent of the modern Republican Party. In many ways, she was -- as a wealthy Catholic woman who was Phi Beta Kappa in college and later earned a law degree -- a unique rebel against the GOP Country Club establishment that found many of her causes embarrassing (and still does).
This is one place where I thought the mainstream obits missed an opportunity to probe a bit deeper. No one is surprised that the left hated this woman.

Now, I was trying to think of a young, popular, post-feminist figure in American pop culture who stands for the whole concept that being "hot," "edgy" and even "nasty" is a sign of empowerment, if not enlightenment, for girls.

In other words, I was trying to think of Taylor Swift. Since I am old, what came out -- as you'll hear in the podcast -- was a reference to Madonna. Talk about embarrassing.


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Schlafly was hated by cultural left, which means her obits featured classic, 50-50 reporting

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If you want to learn how to write obituaries about controversial figures, all you need to do is pay close attention to articles written about leaders on the cultural and moral right. They are sure to include a 50-50 mix (or close to it) of warm quotes from the person's supporters and stinging attacks from critics.

This is not the approach that one sees when a controversial figure dies on the cultural left. If Gloria Steinem died today, one would see obituaries packed with tributes, stacked up against one or two (at most) quotes from her many critics. Most of all, the story would emphasize -- as it should -- her many victories in life, the times when she spoke out and was proven right.

We can leave all of that to another day, since, in this case, we are talking about the death of Phyllis Schlafly. That means we are looking at classic, 50-50 journalism about a figure who was truly and utterly loathed by the left and, thus, by most journalists and pundits. By the way, it's wise to avoid glancing at Twitter, where can find a wide and deep river of acidic speculations on the left about how Schlafly will fare in the afterlife.

But consider the top of The Washington Post obituary, which includes a highly ironic summary paragraph:

Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative activist, lawyer and author who is credited with almost single-handedly stopping the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and who helped move the Republican Party toward the right on family and religious issues, died Monday at her home in St. Louis. She was 92.
Her daughter, Anne Cori, said Mrs. Schlafly had been ill with cancer for some time.
A champion of traditional, stay-at-home roles for women, Mrs. Schlafly opposed the ERA because she believed it would open the door to same-sex marriage, abortion, the military draft for women, co-ed bathrooms and the end of labor laws that barred women from dangerous workplaces.

The Post team offered that list without comment. It would have been easy to find scholars and pundits willing to note that most of Schlafly's wild predictions don't sound quite as crazy these days.


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