I
went to see ‘Suffragette’ last month and although I enjoyed it, I do have some
reservations about its production. For one thing it seems sad that Meryl Streep
got to be Emmeline Pankhurst (even if she was only in it for about five
seconds). As a feminist, Emmeline and her daughter Christabel have always
heroines of mine and it seems a pity that in order to attract the American
market we had to hand over one of our greatest female role models to the US.
Not that I have anything against Meryl Streep; she’s a fantastic actor, but she
got to play Maggie. Did we really have to hand over Emmeline as well?
It
also occurred to me that it’s high time we had a film based on the fantastic
Pankhurst women. When I was younger I was always more than a little smitten by
the fragile prettiness of Emmeline and Christabel, but as I‘ve got older I’ve
learnt to appreciate the more principaled charms of Sylvia, who believed that
universal suffrage and economic equality were the right of everyone, regardless
of gender or social status. Emmeline and Christabel, much as I love them, had
some fairly dodgy views on exactly what sort of person should be allowed the
vote. Adele, the younger sister, is rarely spoken of and I can see why. She had
some extremist views herself and argued with her mother and sisters so violently
she ended up emigrating to Australia so as not to be in the same hemisphere as
them. There were also two sons who rarely get mentioned, one dying at the age
of four, the other as a very young man. The life and times of the fighting
Pankhursts have enough material for several films. Surely one film isn’t beyond
the British Film Industry?
Finally
for me personally, the film got me thinking about a novel I wrote some years
ago with a suffragette as the central character. I got stuck halfway through and
put it aside in favour of other projects. But seeing the film has re-galvanised
my enthusiasm so I had another look at it and am hoping finish it off in the
New year.
Jacqueline Farrell writes historical and paranormal
romances with The Wild Rose Press. Her two paranormal novels ‘Sophronia
and the Vampire’ and ‘Maids,
Mothers and Crones’ can be purchased from Amazon. Her
latest novel, a historical romance, ‘The Scarlet Queen’ is available from Amazon and all good e-book stores. Follow her on twitter @jacquiefw1 and on her
website www.jacquelinefarrell.co.uk
2 comments:
I, too, enjoyed 'Suffragette'. I loved the way that the filming of Emily Davison's funeral morphed into a contemporary 1913 newsreel of her actual funeral. It was very moving.
I thought it was a good movie too, but I think there's scope for a movie about the Pankhursts
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