A friend of mine sent me this historically-minded music video that a student of her husband’s brought to class recently. While I don’t follow Lady Gaga’s career all that closely, I’m fascinated by the visual details in this production. They were clearly based on some of the photographs and ephemera of the woman suffrage movement which are preserved at the Library of Congress.
For example, compare the picketing scene in the video to this photograph from the LoC collection:
Women suffragists picketing in front of the White house (February 1917)
I’m also reminded of Katja von Garnier’s Iron Jawed Angels (HBO, 2004) which used anachronistic music to great effect as part of the soundtrack to tell the story of Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party. It remains one of my favorite popular-culture uses of the struggle for female suffrage, which doesn’t gloss over the internal fissures along age, class, and race lines.
Do you have any favorite depictions of the suffrage movement (in the U.S. or elsewhere) in popular culture? Share ‘em in comments!
I liked this video and I thought it was really well done and striking, BUT — it struck me forcibly, watching, that everyone was white. I understand the historical argument, that the movement being honored was indeed dominantly white. But (1) this is a music video, not a documentary, and (2) when they transition to the modern day, when the performers appear in modern dress, they couldn’t have brought in some non-white faces then?
This spoiled the video for me.
…and, and, the history of women’s suffrage isn’t all white, couldn’t they have found some episodes involving non-white leaders to reference?
I think the women and “negro” male vote movements were combined at one point, then got angry with each other and cut ties…leaving ethnic women out of it all together. So the historical whiteness is probably apt. However, yeah, they could have put some brown women in the modern day part though.
Excellent parody of that video.