‘The Iron Lady’ a Misogynistic Historical Fantasy
by Sam SorboIf you, like me, think Meryl Streep is an incredibly gifted actress, “The Iron Lady” will not disappoint you. But if you have any rational recollection of Margaret Thatcher, well, I can’t recommend you watch this negative, extremely biased production. If you do, get ready for some invented, manipulative drama.
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Most of the film annoyingly examines Demented Thatcher in her later years. Oh, the lingering, gratuitous shots of Streep in her confused wanderings! Why should we gaze inside this (completely fabricated) frail, crazy character? It’s the only way to tear her down. The filmmakers, seemingly confused about her actual, incredible successes, focus on her dementia and femininity while categorically denying her capability.
The grand economic prosperity Britain experienced during her service is covered briefly as flashing newspaper headlines, which strangely look damning from the liberal viewpoint–“Maggie’s Millionaires” and the like (what the liberal philosophy fails to recognize is that when the rich get richer, the poor get richer, too). There is no Reagan, save for a brief hallucination of dancing with him. There is a passing shot of Gorbachev. And the Falklands incident is dealt with as a tragic piece of history that she somehow managed to emerge from well. Predictably, the Armed Service personnel were for a war, while everyone else, including the United States, advised her not to escalate.
In her miasma, Demented Thatcher recollects her past as a series of political triumphs that simply serve to emphasize her failure as a human being. Maggie was reviled by most everyone who came into contact with her, including family and cabinet members. Her husband, (the love of her life), was affectionately civil to her – but only in her hallucinations. In real life he often called her “MT,” a not so veiled reference (by the filmmakers) to her presumed emotional state. How else could a woman break the backs of the unions in Britain but by reckless conceit and a complete absence of sympathy? Through all her accomplishments, her family is not depicted as being proud of her for a moment. Even her own daughter screams that everything is always about Mum’s political aspirations. Her husband leaves for South Africa, and the hallucination later asks how long it took her to notice he was missing. It is an extremely poignant scene when her son calls from South Africa to say he won’t be coming to visit. She seems only mildly fraught by his rejection. She’s the Iron Lady, after all. She must be a cold, heartless b*tch.
This misguided film also asserts that she was a creation of the men around her; she’s only a woman, after all, so there must be some explanation. Reverence for her father’s political viewpoint drives her to serve. When Denis proposes to her, she explains her devotion to public service and vehemently proclaims she won’t die cleaning a teacup in the kitchen sink (It’s almost like a religion to her – disgusting!). When she finally decides she must run, “just to shake things up,” she herself doesn’t actually believe she will win the Prime Minister’s seat. She has two (male) handlers who do. They teach her to talk more like a man and make her change her hair. They also suggest that she lose the double strand of pearls around her neck, which she adamantly refuses, explaining they were a gift from her husband and calling them “the twins.” It’s cute; she confuses an inanimate object (jewelry) with her loved ones. She’s such a girl.
The pretext for the movie is that she finally decides to clean out the late Denis’s closet, prompting her hallucinations of him, and several times throughout the film she fights with him and commands him to leave her alone. But at the end of the film, when her hallucination walks away from her, she is distraught. She breaks down, lost without her man (the one she didn’t notice was gone when he was alive, for those keeping score). Oh, the irony we find when we construct it!
After painting her as a frigid power monger and a pawn of the men who influenced her, the filmmakers then ask us to believe she suffered dementia long before she left office (there was always something wrong with Maggie…).
But then she really wasn’t to blame for what she did, was she? Yet we are encouraged to fault her. It’s the typical liberal conundrum.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the preoccupation the director shows with Maggie’s shoes. There are so many shoe-shots in the film, it’s downright laughable. When she leaves number 10 for the last time, the shot lingers long enough on Streep’s walking feet it made me wonder if there was a shoe fetishist behind the camera. She wasn’t Imelda Marcos, after all.
And the final scene of the movie: Maggie washes out her teacup in the sink. How tragic! Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah! The filmmakers could not resist that final, petty, hate-filled blow.
Because Streep is a consummate professional and not a historian, “The Iron Lady” is almost convincing. But if you know an iota of history, you’ll recognize it as a misogynistic piece of fantasy, concocted to retell the story of one of the greatest women in recent memory from the liberal/progressive/feminist viewpoint. I suppose anything else from Weinstein, Streep, and the “I Hate Maggie” Left Coast would be disappointing.
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33 Comments
Thanks for saving me the trouble (and the fifteen bucks)!
The left is the domain of the misogynist male chauvinist, racist people. How funny, as this movie shows an attempt to change history to fit the narrative.
Paul Johnson, in his book, Heroes, credits three people for the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Communist-run Warsaw Pact nations: President Reagan, Pope John Paul II, and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. In the late '70's, the US was in a recession (a "malaise" as then-President Jimmy Carter called it) and Great Britain's economy, held hostage by Marxist-led unions, was even worse. Communism seemed ascendant and inevitable even though there was strong evidence that the economies of the USSR and its eastern European satellites were stagnant and sclerotic. Due to the determined and resolute leadership of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, the USSR as well as the Communist regimes that controlled the Warsaw Pact countries didn't make it into the '90's. While Meryl Streep's performance in this film may be "brilliant", in the end this film will be seen as a highly manipulative piece of work on the order of D.W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation" (aka "the Clansman"), Sergei Eisenstein's "Ten Days that Shook the World", or Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will".
One quibble—Streep is not a talented actress—we have been given that line from the media for over three decades (I first heard it in high school). She affects mannerisms and accents, but is always busy showing us that she is an "actress"—a real talent draws you in, with talent, nuance and emotion, not mannerisms taught in Acting 101.
Typical liberal crap. They believe strongly in fiction and equally strongly reject reality. It filters equally from their education to their stupidity to their mental illness,
This is exactly what I pictured this movie being– and why I'll never watch it.
I disagree to an extent. I think she's a good actress, but not worthy of the fawning praise she has received over the years. Certainly no Ingrid Bergman.
I am a bit surprised by how much (negative) attention this movie is getting — but pleased and encouraged by it.
In a number of ways, many indicated above by Sam Sorbo this flick is clearly characteristic of what is wrong in the entertainment/arts world. It appears that (most of) the people engaged in such work, have taken it on as their responsibility to denigrate our ideals and discredit the motivating archetype of western civilization — to wit, the heroic and admirable individual.
Usually the target of their disdain is a man, it being important to them that men not be admired qua men. But as we saw in the flash flood of libel, slander, insult and just general animosity directed at Sarah Palin, the left seems to hold an especially fierce and intense hatred toward conservative women. (I also think that those two facts are related, but I don't have the time to go into that here.)
All this needs to be answered. Pushed back. Writing like that above is very welcome and helpful.
I knew this was going to be a hit piece as soon as I heard who was directing and starring in it. I'm sick of dropping good money on movies just to get sucker punched.
I will never pay to see her, matt damon, ben i cant act afflack or any other pseudo intellectuals.
Can we please now have biopics a.k.a cinematic anal probes with a hard twist on the actors who have done biopics like this one? When do I get to see the justice of that?!
Agreed. She's always been the usual suspects' darling. A very good actress, no doubt, but give me Barbara Stanwyck anyday. And, of course, Robert Duvall. Also, I believe that, in spite of some questionable role choices he made, Heath Ledger was another one. His performance in "Dark Night" was one of the most amazing cinematic things I've ever seen.
How is it that when a great self made woman who led an entire country is mimicked by an actress in a movie, that actress then becomes someone who is honored more and held in high esteem than the original?
If you, like me, think Meryl Streep is an incredibly gifted actress, “The Iron Lady” will not disappoint you.
I'm with Katharine Hepburn on this one … Streep is over rated. "… click click click as the wheels turn in her head…"
But if you have any rational recollection of Margaret Thatcher, well, I can’t recommend you watch this negative, extremely biased production.
Oh, so I have TWO reasons not to watch it. Thank you for a very useful review
Thank you, Mrs. Sorbo! I wasn't planning to see this film, and I absolutely will not now that I've read your review. The incredible achievements and impact of Lady Thatcher are not something I would ever trust the leftist entertainment media to portray with respect. They will do anything they can to discredit and demean the amazing life and work of the former Prime Minister. If there is anything positive that can be said about Mrs. Thatcher's dementia, at least we can be assured that it means she'll never have to watch or comment upon this pathetic film and the frigid actress they've chosen to portray her.
We miss you, Maggie!
Agreed. I think Streep is a gifted mimic, and clinical in her method of acting. But talented? No. She's cold and removed from the characters she plays. there's no heart there.
what the liberal philosophy fails to recognize is that when the rich get richer, the poor get richer, too
hahahahahahahahahahahaha! Yeah, just like now!
agreed- especially regarding Heath Ledger. I caught The Brothers Grimm on cable the other day, and did a double take—did not recognize him at first, and he was totally believable, even acting with Matt Damon–making the D man look good is enough to sink any performance, but Heath survives.
Mrs. Sorbo—you did some nice work on Chicago Hope, but unlike Mrs. Gummer, your looks attracted more attention than your acting. Meryl (and her made up first name) parlayed faint attractiveness/borderline homeliness into a career….then again, Bette Davis did it as well, so there is something to be said for that path.
I just hate the media dubbing anyone the best at anything, politics or acting (which tend to blend, don't they?)
The people who "honor" Meryl Streep more than Lady Margaret Thatcher are liberal/progressives who didn't like (or hated) Lady Thatcher in the first place (in part because she would not surrender territory inhabited by British citizens to a country ruled by a brutal and corrupt military junta). Said same people are the ones who've put their hopes and dreams in a socialist/statist idealogue now in the White House.
There is a list of well-known movies I will never, ever watch: Thelma & Louise, Brokeback Mountain, Ali, W, Rendition, Avatar. Now I have an addition to make to this growing list, The Iron Lady.
J Edgar did not make the list?
Oh ya I forgot about that one. Thanks adding now.
You are right about Avatar. I mistakenly let the wife pick the movie for movie night, every other scene was WTF? I put it with the Titantic. I don't get it. Spoiler alert. Personally. I thought the movie was over when Giovanni Ribsi at one point stated the land was worth 1 billion an acre. My thought: They got to go.
"Most of the film annoyingly examines Demented Thatcher in her later years."
Truth in advertising? Most of the ads I've seen for this film totally avoid that fact. It looks like a film about Thatcher during the most important years of her life when she was Prime Minister.
As a conservative theatre teacher (with a unicorn living in the back yard), this has been a very frustrating season for me. Between the acidic vilification of Margaret Thatcher in the Broadway musical Billy Elliot that I brought a bunch of my students to see (and then spent half the bus ride home explaining the concept of bias and a primer on the UK coal industry circa 1980s), and now this movie . . .
Sadly, most students today are getting most of their world view from the entertainment industry: whether it's the Daily Show or this type of movie . . .
In the next couple of years we'll have an electorate who are basing their votes on complete fabrications that we their parents passed off as bad entertainment, and they absorbed subconsciously as gospel.
Don't forget Monster with Charlize Theron.
I disagree strongly with this characterization. I thought Streep's performance was amazing. The voice, the gestures, the strength of the Thatcher's character were beautiful. When I saw the film on Sunday (in North Dallas with a clearly right-leaning crowd), the audience burst into applause on three separate occasions. They laughed at the playful husband and wife dialogue. My wife, who has little interest in politics and was quite unfamiliar with Thatcher, wants to read her book. As a high school kid with a picture of Reagan and Thatcher in my room, the film was much better than I expected. See the film without looking for bias and I think you will be pleased.
I must confess that I saw Monster on TV. It had the usual glorification and justification for criminals Hollywood deems "romantic." and that bothered me. She was one of the few female serial killers and a blonde so Hollywood was impressed, and in their view, the abuse she had sufferred at the hands of hetero men excused her crimes. Theron's characgter was the revengeful angel for all suppressed women. I googled the real life killer Monster was based on and of course it was much more a case of drug fueled greed and desire for an easy buck and cheap thrill then any at least conscious desire for revenge on men. But Hollywood can make any type of deviant behavior glamorous.
John Stossel had a great segment on 20/20 about this movie. Stossell pointed out how sick it was that Theron never spoke to any of the victims or mentioned them in her acceptance of multiple awards. Babwa Wawa tried to take Hollywood's side and failed miserably. Some goof (Nick Broomfield) that made an awful movie about Sarah Palin has made two movies about this awful lady. The real 'evil person' in the left's sick minds was Jeb Bush for not taking this guilty lady (even they admit) off of death row.
Did you read the article? She compliments Streep's acting in the very first sentence.
We on the right are so starved for attention, that we're sometimes willing to overlook the negatives in any film about one of our heroes. I haven't seen the movie, but I'll take Michael Medved's (equally cautioning) learned opinion, and this writer's, over yours.
Btw, I would like to compliment the author of this piece on her writing skill. Well done!
"what the liberal philosophy fails to recognize is that when the rich get richer, the poor get richer, too"
Not so much
http://www.u.arizona.edu/~lkenwor/inequalitygraph...
My mother and I saw the movie this afternoon. I thought it was wonderful. The makeup, costumes and hair Streep had were fab. I thought it presented her in a good light. She was a lady. She was strong. But "The Help" should win Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
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