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The Iron Lady: The Margaret Thatcher Movie We Don't Need
The Iron Lady just opened in London where, let's hope, it generates some serious critique. The critical silence in the US has been astounding only made worse by the praise, not just for the film but for its subject, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, played in the movie by Meryl Streep.
Newsweek's holiday double issue slapped Streep as Thatcher on its cover, hailing "The New Thatcher Era." The feature story in summary reads: "Margaret Thatcher was the infamous Iron Lady the Brits love to hate. This month's bio starring Meryl Streep proves she was right all along."
Streep's already winning awards and accolades and Oscars are probably on the way. People are saying the film's no whitewash because it shows the former Prime Minister in her dotage, fighting dementia - three decades after she came to power. Director Phyllida Lloyd has described the treatment as operatic. Streep's called it revealing. The two collaborated before on the musical Mamma Mia! The truth is, in Lloyd's hands Thatcher's iron isn't just rusty, it's melted down and depoliticized, made feminist enough to root for and ultimately sad enough for some to sniffle at. The Iron Lady is Thatcher -- The ABBA Version. It's the last thing we need, ever, and especially at this point.
Think of Thatcher and I think of hungry people. Irish hunger strikers, first of all, ten of whom starved to death for status as political prisoners on her watch. Thatcher insisted anti-government rebels in Afghanistan were "resistance fighters," not terrorists, but it was a different story for the Irish. Indeed, in Thatcher's time, there was to be no story, no effort to understand the reasons for the conflict in Northern Ireland; certainly there was to be no discussion or consideration in public of why anyone might pick up a gun, or place a bomb, or starve themselves to death.
Long before the USA PATRIOT Act and the 9-11 demonization of asking “why,” Britons were starved of information about the so-called "troubles." Under an ever-expanding Prevention of Terrorism Act, British journalists were forced to report to police any contact with any "known or suspected terrorist." Irish parties to the conflict were banned from speaking on radio and TV yet Thatcher's government could tell the public any lie it liked. When British secret service snipers shot and killed three unarmed IRA members (two men and a woman, Mairead Farrell,) on the island of Gibraltar in 1988, Thatcher's government released an official story about crossfire and a gun fight and a bomb planted near an old people’s home. Video footage of an impressive little military robot supposedly defusing an incendiary device played on the evening news. It was all a crock. Lloyd's film shows the IRA's bombings and bloodshed but not the denial and the deadly government tactics which likely delayed peace talks for a decade.
Think of Thatcher and I think of the hungry people who started showing up in villages in Yorkshire and Scotland and Wales where work was scarce because Thatcher's experts decided nuclear power was a better energy source than unionized coalfields. Miners went on strike - for a year. Their wives and children collected soup-kitchen money from their churches and their neighbors and when they ran out, they went down to London where they tried to tell their story of helmeted horsemen charging the ranks of union strikers and police bashing men's heads in. But Londoners didn't believe them. They'd heard the miners were greedy and dangerous and a threat to their jobs. After all, “trade union power is the true cause of unemployment," said Thatcher. The 1984 strike by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) gets a couple of seconds on screen in Lloyd's film, but there’s no explanation, no follow-up and no consideration: does anyone wish now that they’d listened to the miners then?
"There is no such thing as society. Only individuals.” Thatcher also said. With more spending by successive Thatcher governments on police (so-called "law and order") and less on just about everything else, "no society" became true soon enough. The Iron Lady shows Prime Minister Thatcher over-ruling her “wet” male colleagues over waging war with Argentina. A few hundred far-off Falkland Islanders were worth fighting for, she famously decided. A take-control feminist? The film ignores the families in Toxteth (inner city Liverpool) and Brixton (a largely black neighborhood in London) whom Thatcher found it quite acceptable to sacrifice. Cabinet papers released by the National Archives just now under a 30-year rule reveal Thatcher's closest advisers told her that the "concentration of hopelessness" on Merseyside was “very largely self-inflicted” and not worth government repair.
Thatcher didn’t – actually – evacuate Liverpool in the aftermath of the 1981 inner-city riots. She led something more insidious. With her professionally crafted “grocer’s daughter” image, Thatcher gave class-conscious Britons permission to dismiss real human difficulties with a blow-dried bourgeois smirk: Unemployed? Get on yer bike! Said her administration. Got a problem? You’re the problem! In Maggie's world, deprivation is your own damn fault.
Nor did Thatcher give people permission only to look away. Under Thatcher and egged-on by her, those who could leave troubled towns and troubled people did, and so did government. We’d “mind the gap” (between the train and the platform) on the London Underground, but we came not to mind the gap between the rich and the rest, the north and the south; the possibilities people had if they needed things to be public and the possibilities they had if they could pay for the private stuff – the private health care, the private school, the private house. Today, in a new time of budget wars, The Iron Lady’s depiction of draconian cuts as feminist guts is chilling. What Thatcher called “harsh medicine” meant one thing for the poor and another for the very powerful then, and it still does. In both instances, there is hell to pay in social fabric.
I don't remember if Lloyd's Lady quotes the real lady's most famous phrase: "There is No Alternative." Certainly TINA deserves star billing. Thatcher’s quip about globalized capitalism has defined our epoch. People can debate the successes and failures of “the Thatcher era” all they like. One thing’s for certain, we don’t need a new one because the old one’s still here. The consequences of the politicies Thatcher pioneered and made respectable - deregulation, privatization and globalization - can be measured in public costs and private profits on both sides of the Atlantic. More damning, even, is the enduring cultural habit of denial (looking away;) and the political practice of silence; shutting the problem people up.
Grow the gap between government and the governed and you get what we have: a burnt-out world driven by the super-super-rich where some are stealing others blind and billions are alienated or angry, sure that government has nothing to offer but a bash on the head.
Lloyd’s soft-pop version deals with none of this. Ironically, the "deeds matter" Thatcher herself would probably be the first to dislike this shrunken, personal-over-political fantasy of her inner life. Lucky for us, we don’t need to worry about her. We need to worry about us. We are not demented. There are alternatives. There always have been. What we need (among other things) are more movies about the women - and maybe a few of the men -- bringing those to life.
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31 Comments so far
Show Allthatcher always looked like a linebacker in drag to me, sort of like barby bush - bush daddy's wife - reagan was insane plain and simple
odd they both succumbed to alzheimer's - reagan while in office and the old bag shortly after she left
these days global warming has been morphed into climate change
in the 70's thatcher was pushing climate cooling
"There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia – where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.
The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. "
http://www.denisdutton.com/cooling_world.htm
as we look at england and the us today we see the same thing - a sewer of unemployment and homelessness punctuated by no health care
i'm sure both reagan and thatcher would be delighted that things turned out so well...
" they both succumbed to alzheimer's - reagan while in office and the old bag shortly after she left"
Amazing that these are what media proclaims as "celebrities" and "world class leaders".
I smell skunk oil.
Laura Flanders makes outstanding points about this prime minister-- the one about "there is no such thing as society" is right at the top of the list. Intellectuals worth their salt including evolutionary psychologists, anthropolists, and other observers of the human condition would heartily demur from such pure hokum and dogma, and this would surely be the case among British ones-- better that we should have a movie about John Major, the successor to this prime minister easily, the man who opened back channels to Sinn Fein upon getting in as prime minister and paved the way to a diplomatic settlement in Northern Ireland through talks instead of confrontation and who put a freeze on the Thatcherite madness for a time even though he was a Tory.
What is most incredible about the "there is no such thing as society" comment, is it reduced World Wars I & II to soccer riots. Incredible as well is the complete inability to understand government is a social institution. Being so, unwittingly Maggie was declaring herself to NOT be Prime Minister!
Laura Flanders makes outstanding points about this prime minister-- the one about "there is no such thing as society" is right at the top of the list. Intellectuals worth their salt including evolutionary psychologists, anthropolists, and other observers of the human condition would heartily demur from such pure hokum and dogma, and this would surely be the case among British ones-- better that we should have a movie about John Major, the successor to this prime minister easily, the man who opened bak channels to Sinn Fein upon getting in as prime minister and paved the way to a diplomatic settlement in Northern Ireland through talks instead of confrontation and who put a freeze on the Thatcherite madness for a time even though he was a Tory.
Maggie Thatcher also abolished the Lambeth and London local councils which dissented from her policies on the poll tax. Con servatives never really believed in democracy anyway.
Hooray! How soon people forget the permanent damage done by Margaret Thatcher and her soul mate, Ronald Reagan! Memories of the miners, the Blanket Men (Bobby Sands and his compatriots), the Falklands, and Brixton are still chilling. The echoes of budget cuts, militarism, and coddled rich people are still shaking the windows of the 99%. Margaret Thatcher engaged in a Tory version of the Blitz, and the damage has yet to be undone. Reagan unleashed the hounds of Neo-liberalism on the working people of the US, and we're still reeling. It's going to get a helluva lot worse before it gets any worse.
Just more hagiography from superficial people. Although you must admit, figures such as Thatcher and Reagan present certain cartoonish aspects for film makers... too bad you can't get financing if you show much of the real story.
I strongly recommend to readers (like myself, who was too young at the time to process the reign of Thatcher) an outstanding documentary by Adam Curtis called "The Living Dead":
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-314906531328011893#
It is a far more fascinating and entertaining look at this figure.
I think I'll put "The Iron Lady" on my "do not see" movie list at all costs, since it clearly makes Margaret Thatcher out to be a much, much nicer person than she actually was. (get the drift, people?) No, really...this film seems like a really gross distortion of what Margaret Thatcher really was about, and I'm not about to go see a film that's clearly in sympathy for her, given the things that she did while in office.
When Thatcher was in power I was lead graphic artist for ABC News. When the Falklands war began my department geared up to cover it. As it turned out, unlike any other war coverage up to that point, we covered the visuals with hardly any video from our splendid camera crews. Thatcher had sealed off the island and some of our most persistent producers and photogs had been severely roughed up trying to get on the scene. I don't think war coverage has been the same since. She made imbedded reporting (propaganda) the new norm. She and her pal Murdoch mark the beginning of the end of honest war reporting in the MSM. Shame on Streep for not knowing any better.
Theres a very good reason Thatchers crew sealed off the island, one nasty incident was the finishing off of the Argentinian wounded at Goose Green, bayoneted to death as they lay on the ground. This factoid of a war crime slipped out on a talk show when that brain damaged (lost a quarter of his brain from a sniper) Marine lieutenant mentioned how he got shot while sticking his bayonet through a wounded kids neck and the kids pleading.
And the alleged disposing of American mercenaries taken prisoner by the British, too embarrassing to be taken as POWs and seen by the worlds news.
War is hell, its never a game.
QUOTE odd they both succumbed to alzheimer's - reagan while in office and the old bag shortly after she left UNQUOTE
Agree -- but maybe Bill Casey would say better than a brain tumor?
Sad that Meryl Streep would have taken this on -- or played any role in putting
it together.
Thatcher deserves only to demonized for what she actually was.
The other day, I accidentally ran across an interview of Meryl Streep that was about this movie in some magazine. I don't care how "fine" her performance is, I refuse to see this movie. Rest assured that the masses of Anglophiles here Stateside - liberal and conservative - are going to "like" it (for one reason or another), though, and come to appreciate the "real" Thatcher, if they didn't already.
As a somewhat related aside: ever notice how anyone with a British accent - including cockney - is automatically considered "sophisticated" or "cool" by the average white American? But people with African, East Asian, other European, Indian, Middle Eastern, South or Central American accents are usually more "suspect" or somehow more "foreign" than the person with the British accent?
The use of British or Australian accents to elevate a message gets very tiring. I cannot wait to see a Boricua from the Bronx broadcasting the news.
Thank you! Someone else has noticed this! You're right - Australian accents, too! And, yes, why not a Boricua from the Bronx? It's gotten to the point that whenever I hear a British (or Australian) accent on the TV or in movies, I start to get a little suspicious - what are they trying to sell me? What's also hilarious is when Hollywood makes a film about another European country (for instance, France), and then all the actors and actresses in the movie talk with British accents! I'm sorry, but I can not willingly suspend my disbelief in those cases!
Saying Neil Kinnock is the best prime minister Britain never had is as bad as saying Jimmy Carter was the best president we ever had. Please. He was a transition figure for Labor. He wasn't even a good James Callaghan in the least. Kinnock purged the Miltant tendency from Labor, those the Thatcherites had called the "loony left." We don't need more of that. Aneuran Bevan was the best British prime minister Britain never had and today it would be Dianne Abbott. She is also the best party leader Labor never had. Lose some, Labor! Lose some more. Gee how some never learn. Tony Blair, Thatcher's illigetimate son was easily worse than she. He cut the social safety net and did so much more harm. John Major was doing a good job with his party in power. One more election for the Tories wouldn't have harmed anything and a real Labor government would have been elected.
Accents! Oh you must be "talking about the Yank accents" except for Ivy League educated New Englanders and a few others sounding similar such as those from Hyde Park and also Ivy League. In the UK those use BBC English don't have an accent. That's just plain bull. It's the true standard English for everywhere. Do look it up. English! Where does it come from? " Surprise!" The UK. People spoke English just fine before anybody ever set foot in Jamestown. Actually they did better as well and still do especially north of the border in Scotland, the best part of the UK.
Yes, Tony Blair was awful. Also, I realize what you're saying about accents, but my point was that Stateside, there is a distinct bias toward Anglophilia and another distinct bias against other "ferners." Personally, I've witnessed a lot of this in the southern part of the U.S. (the "South"). Here's a book that explores the history of the feelings some Southerners have for the Scots (and for some, the British and the Irish): http://www.ibiblio.org/uncpress/chapters/ray_highland.html .
As an aside: ironically, many Southerners I grew up around had Native heritage, as well. I've written about this before on CD in some comments, earlier, but I'll repeat it here for convenience. It's interesting that, although Southern culture has been influenced by Native traditions, most families kept secret their Native heritage if they could pass as "white" for a long time. Otherwise, they'd be condemned to being labeled as mixed race by their white peers. Now-a-days, it's becoming more acceptable to claim Native heritage in the South.
Anyway, Anglophilia over here is why Tony Blair's support of the 2003 invasion of Iraq was so publicized. Also, remember that many military bases in the U.S. are concentrated in the South.
"J Edgar" went down in flames; I predict that this movie will too, for two reasons:
1. People who actually know history won't want to spend two hours to see such evil people celebrated;
and 2. The vast majority of the public doesn't even know who these people are, and would rather watch things go "Boom!" anyway.
What's next, Meryl? The Sarah Palin bio-pic? Or does Tina Fey have that one sewn up? Perhaps Michelle with the crazy eyes? Now there's a challenging role!
Ah, Hollywood. Forsaking art for business, and failing even at that. Boom!
Yes, good to read that it will go down in flames most likely. They will probably shower themselves with "oscars" as was the case in some recent, boring english royalty movie, but let them rim each other to their cold-hearts delight because who really gives a damn about them.
Margaret Thatcher was a Horse's Ass when she had her brain, only horse shit remains, and in the end she / it will go down into the flames; of hell.
" Much that is evil in this world has to do with that woman " Labour MP Tam Dayell in Parliament. Among her many evil deeds was the use of £ 28 Billion North Sea oil money in a bizarre failed social engineering experiment shifting UK jobs to the Pacific Rim, and investments in Reagans USA. Also, not ONE policeman was charged in the aftermath of the Miners Strike despite irrefutable evidence of wrongdoing.
Thatcher was an embarrassment to feminists.
I listened to Meryl Street being interviewed and she casually mentioned that perhaps some of Thatcher's opinions were not quite the same as hers, but putting that aside......She dismissed this "small" detail as if she was talking about the different colour of nail polish they preferred. Thatcher's rigid ideology (and all the other right-wing laissez-faire capitalist mentalities in power) manifested in government policies which did a great deal of harm to many then and led to the huge melt-down we are experiencing now. She should be portrayed as a Ms. Hitler with Sarah Palin's brains.
My former high opinion of Meryl Streep has plummeted. I'm very disappointed in her.....
"My former high opinion of Meryl Streep has plummeted. I'm very disappointed in her....."
seethroughbs: I'm disappointed too. On the other hand, I also understand that Meryl Streep, being such a great actor, would want to challenge herself to play this role. That's what great actors do.
I lived in the north of England throughout Thatcher's reign. I'll not be paying to feel my blood pressure rise and see what is probably a travesty of an accurate reflection of this woman, who I usually call "devil incarnate". But thank you Ms Flanders for your words on the topic.
Neil Kinnock (the best PM Britain never had) said, in 1983:
"If Margaret Thatcher wins on Thursday, I warn you not to be ordinary, I warn you not to be young, I warn you not to fall ill, I warn you not to be old."
(With a name change the warning sounds eerily familiar here in the US in 2012 - doesn't it?)
While I admire the acting craft involved, enough is enough. She should have left off with Julia Childs, who was at least an original and interesting human being. What is it with these movies about Thatcher or the FBI guy who dressed in women's undies? There has to be more to a film than an uncriticial extended impression of someone about whom I could care less on a personal level.
Next, they'll be making uncritical films of Condoleezza Rice and Madeleine Albright and touting them as feminist icons!
Liberals fuel the rise of big institutions and mass ignorance, then wonder why those institutions become hijacked by fantical power-junkies. How could a fanatical power-junkie possibly resist such a prize? It can't. So it proceeds, and grows into ...a monster. Way to go, liberalism! Keeping the door open for crazed tyrants!
Once and for all! The Scots are British. All the people of the UK are British not English, completely separate and only fits when simply making the point that the UK was a product of and dominated by England and the English as the empire came into being under the "butcher's wrapper" as one Irishman once put it. Fine! But at least the British and even the English specifically have learned their lesson from that-- not true of the USA nor Germany even today. Just think Angela Thatcher or Maggie Merkel and her Frankfurt big banking pimps. As one Englishman put it so well back in the 1990s German power eiites were saying "If we can't rule you with tanks, we'll rule you with banks"-- Prussianization of Germany and even Europe is still a threat, but an economic one today-- with the Prusianization of the Middle East continuing with Israel playing the role of imperiialist Prussia.
One wounded Argentine bayoneted by the Brits! Really! What's the source for such? Surely the US right wing playing footsie with that regime would have played that up while downplaying the rape and cold blooded killing of US nuns in El Salvador santiioned by that government in 1980 when Jimmy Carter cut off aid to those jack asses.
all the wounded or dead bodies on the ground after the battle, the talk show host asked him how he got shot by the sniper, he mentioned how they were finishing off or making sure the dead were dead, and boom headshot. Its in the BBC archives.
Its a scene you cannot forget, even 25 years later.
I have not seen the film- but I would imagine, after reading Laura's excellent article- that the film engages in serious whitewashing. Perhaps we are all tragically flawed- but our ability to act from the heart and demonstrate the courage of compassion-define us. Conscience is not a luxury-to be dispensed with when inconvenient-but a moral imperative.
Thatcher's popularity in her first three years sank as low as 20% - she was as good as gone.
Then some evil dictator (supported by the US) in Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. With that "victory" her popularity soared to 84%.
The hoi polloi loves war (especially when they don't have to risk their lives, e.g., Iraq (2003).
Great Britain better hope this "globalization" thing works out, because they are a country of 60 million that can only support a population of 18 million without importing resources.