Film Recommendation: The Other Boleyn Girl (and women's agency...)

I stayed up way too late last night watching a movie. Was it worth it? Yes, for the most part. I got caught up watching The Other Boleyn Girl, based on the novel by Phillipa Gregory. I've read a few of her novels in the past, and I found them enjoyable; not as thoroughly embedded with history as, say, Follett's or Sharon Kay Penman's novels, but decent historical fiction nonetheless. The film did not disappoint. The costumes were lush and costly-looking, the cast was stellar (Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Eddie Redmayne, among others), and the events fairly reasonable to follow, even when clearly departing from what we've learned in history texts. 

What I'm mostly thinking about it the lack of any agency for women, both as portrayed in the film and throughout history. It's not a secret that women have been (and still are, in some ways) chattel or bargaining chips, disposable commodities and useful for only their wedding and bedding possibilities. What's particularly disturbing to me is the way that the Boleyn girls, both Mary and Anne, were used by their family--both father and uncle-- to further their own fortunes. It's not a surprise when women were married off to form political and financial alliances, but the way the film approaches using these young women is uncomfortable. Not as marriage material-- no, as the king's bedmates. Forcing daughters --even the newly married one-- to become palace whores, in hopes of bearing the king a bastard son and thus raising the family's status, is despicable. 

Yes, the son in the family is also married off advantageously, but he is not forced to forego his morals and act in the role of illegitimate "fertile ground." He gets in enough trouble just by being part of this tawdry scheme, against his will but still, complicit by association.

Given the way that some of the more "radical right" folks are stripping away women's agency, with promises of yet more limitations to come, makes this aspect of the film even more chilling. We have fought, both physically and politically, for women's rights in developing nations for generations, but now we, as a country, seem to be somewhat content with doing the same to our own women and girls. Women's health care, education, career opportunities, and their self-respect are all under siege. To watch the young women in the film have no say whatever in being used as physical pieces in a dirty game only highlights for me the way that women are being reduced to second (or third?) class status in our own times, in our own country. 

I hope for much better, not just for me and my own, but for all people. Free agency, and free will, should not even be in question. Simple logic: women are here, and they are people, and they deserve the same respect and access to all that is possible in our country and in the world. 

Take a look at the film, and let me know what you think!

Have a good day,

C