{"id":31339,"date":"2019-01-11T03:47:22","date_gmt":"2019-01-11T11:47:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=31339"},"modified":"2019-01-09T14:42:49","modified_gmt":"2019-01-09T22:42:49","slug":"how-rgb-got-her-start-in-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2019\/01\/11\/how-rgb-got-her-start-in-law\/","title":{"rendered":"How RGB got her start in law"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Marty Ginsburg (Armie Hammer) and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Felicity Jones) arrive at court in On the Basis of Sex<\/em>. (photo from Focus Features)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A news flash for members of the tribe who\u2019ve\nbeen kvelling over a Jewish woman on the U.S. Supreme Court for fully a quarter\nof a century: Ruth Bader Ginsburg long ago matriculated beyond a symbol of\nethnic achievement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year\u2019s hit documentary, RBG<\/em>, noted\nthat Justice Ginsburg is an enormously popular role model for women in their\nteens and 20s, and she has achieved pop culture celebrity to boot. The latest\nfilm \u2013 released recently in Canada and, as of press time, still playing in\nMetro Vancouver \u2013 is On the Basis of Sex<\/em>, which applies the Hollywood\ntreatment to Ginsburg\u2019s beginnings as a smart but struggling lawyer and\nsituates her smack in the mainstream. To coin a Lincolnesque testimonial, now\nshe belongs to the masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Director Mimi Leder and screenwriter Daniel\nStiepleman (who happens to be Ruth and Marty Ginsburg\u2019s nephew) frame On the\nBasis of Sex<\/em> as an underdog saga. And, like a lot of underdogs in Hollywood\nmovies, our heroine has a superpower that she only discovers \u2013 and masters \u2013 on\nher journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The movie is effective, and ultimately\ninspiring, in a way that doesn\u2019t remotely challenge viewers other than to ask\nthem to follow clever legal strategies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The film opens with Ginsburg\u2019s first days at\nHarvard Law School, where her husband Marty is in his second year. Immediately\nand repeatedly, she (and the viewer) is reminded of her second-class status as\na woman in a man\u2019s world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It takes awhile to reconcile the confident\nJustice Ginsburg of public record with the somewhat skittish character that\nBritish actress Felicity Jones creates. On the one hand, as a wife and a mother\nwho \u2013 like every other aspiring woman professional of the time \u2013 never wears\npants, Ginsburg is plainly a grownup. But she\u2019s patronized by everyone from the\nlaw school\u2019s WASPy dean (a villainous Sam Waterston) to her husband (a stalwart\nArmie Hammer), and she risks being seen as a rabble-rouser (it\u2019s the late\n1950s) simply by standing up for herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the film does not conceal or finesse\nthe Ginsburgs\u2019 Jewishness, it presents casual misogyny and the entrenched old\nboys\u2019 network, not antisemitism, as the obstacles Ruth needs to navigate.\nConsequently, she has to devise ways \u2013 both direct and elliptical \u2013 to raise\nthe consciousness of every ally, including her devoted husband, before she can\neven challenge potential adversaries. While Marty certainly recognizes his\nwife\u2019s brilliance, he\u2019s a product of his upbringing and the times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the Basis of Sex<\/em> or, as it\u2019s\nreferred to at your favourite corned beef dispensary, \u201cRBG: The Early Years<\/em>,\u201d\ndevotes considerable screen time to the couple\u2019s relationship and, for many\nviewers, that will serve as the emotional heart of the film. Others will derive\nmore pleasure from Ginsburg finding her footing and her voice as a scholarly\nattorney.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Stiepleman noted in an interview during a\nrecent visit to San Francisco, \u201cComing out of law school, [Ginsburg] had three\nstrikes against her: she was a woman, she was a mother and she was a Jew. Any\none of those things alone, law firms had taken the risk. It was the three\ntogether that made her unhire-able in their eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unable to find a job practising law, she takes\na teaching position. Through a combination of determination, persistence and\nluck, she comes across a unique case that addresses the inequities of gender\ndiscrimination. The complainant, who looked after his mother but was denied the\ntax deduction for caregivers, is a man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier in the film, there\u2019s a crucial chain of\nevents when her husband is diagnosed with cancer. Ginsburg not only took care\nof him (and their small daughter), but got them both through law school. That\nexperience as a caregiver gives her both the empathy and the understanding to\nidentify with and persuade her would-be client, as well as to research and\nargue the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lengthy courtroom scene that comprises the\nfilm\u2019s last 20 minutes or so is genuinely effective and even emotional, despite\nthe formulaic staging and the fact that we know Ginsburg will prevail. At the\npivotal moment, we witness a character coming into her own, grasping her\nabilities and realizing her destiny. And with that, the underdog becomes a\nsuperhero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the Basis of Sex<\/em> is rated PG-13\nfor some language and suggestive content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael Fox<\/strong> is a writer and film critic living in San Francisco.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marty Ginsburg (Armie Hammer) and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Felicity Jones) arrive at court in On the Basis of Sex. (photo from Focus Features) A news flash for members of the tribe who\u2019ve been kvelling over a Jewish woman on the U.S. Supreme Court for fully a quarter of a century: Ruth Bader Ginsburg long ago […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31340,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[787],"tags":[4242,2251,8622,8621,3021],"class_list":["post-31339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tv-film","tag-history","tag-law","tag-rbg","tag-ruth-bader-ginsburg","tag-women"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}