Iron Jawed Angels

This movie was nothing like I had expected, I didn’t know anything about it going in and usually movies assigned for a class can feel like a waste of time but this is a movie that I would watch again. I really enjoyed the use of humor especially between Lucy and Alice, it made a very serious subject matter really entertaining, but then I thought maybe that was a method of the filmmaker’s to hold attention by making light of such a serious issue. And then the comedy gets ripped out of the story while the suffragists serve their sentences in the work prison. That section of the film was incredibly moving and really well done, it illustrated in so many different ways their unity, for example when Lucy has her hands cuffed above her head so the rest of the women place their hands above their heads. And I could have interpreted this wrong but I felt as if the suffragists won the female guards over, that Alice and Lucy’s determination and endurance to withstand whatever mistreatment the warden threw their way gained the respect of the guards. I had no idea the physical pain and suffering that these women went through to get them the vote and my vote means so much more to me after seeing this film. I really appreciate the women we saw portrayed and the ones we didn’t for working so tirelessly to get me what I take for granted, but I won’t take it for granted anymore.