Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Mrs. America’ On FX On Hulu, Where Cate Blanchett Plays Anti-ERA Activist Phyllis Schlafly

The women’s liberation movement of the early 1970s was filled with colorful, larger-than-life personalities, from Gloria Steinem to Bella Abzug to Flo Kennedy. But the anti-ERA movement had some big personalities as well, none more prominent than Phyllis Schlafly. The new series Mrs. America takes a look at the feminist movement from the super-conservative Schlafly’s perspective, with the activist played by none other than Cate Blanchett.

MRS. AMERICA: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Sparklers are put on a baked Alaska that’s also topped with tiny American flags. As the dessert is brought out, a woman in a bathing suit asks two other women if her breasts look OK.

The Gist: The event is a star-spangled fashion show, a campaign fundraiser for Illinois congressman Phil Crane (James Marsden). The year is 1971, and one of the final models is Phyllis Schlafly (Cate Blanchett), wife of prominent attorney and Republican campaign backer Fred Schlafly (John Slattery) and a pretty intense campaigner and lobbyist in her own right. She’s fiercely independent, having run for Congress, supported Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign with her book A Choice Not An Echo, and is so far to the right that she thinks Richard Nixon is way too liberal.

Despite that fierceness, and despite the fact that she and her DAR friends think that the encroaching Equal Rights Amendment that’s being considered by Congress is unnecessary and will actually put the nation’s women in peril, she still suffers the same indignities women have had to face since, well, forever. Crane brings her on his TV chat show to talk about the SALT treaty, telling her to smile, and she shocks him with commentary about how Nixon is making a mistake. When he brings her to D.C. to lobby Goldwater (Peter MacNeill) about SALT, the men in the room tell her to take notes.

At first, Schalfly downplayed concerns from people like her friend Alice (Sarah Paulson), who are scared the ERA would force women into the draft or deny them alimony if their husbands left. But the more she’s dismissed about her knowledge of foreign policy and nuclear treaties, the more she becomes interested in defeating the ERA. She gets especially upset when she sees ERA advocates like congresswoman Bella Abzug (Margo Martindale) getting through to conservatives like Crane and Goldwater, who feel that supporting the amendment is a small price to pay to get the Democrats to work with them on tax reform and other bills.

But when she gets back from D.C., she decides to not run for Congress like she originally thought she might, and dives headlong into the effort to defeat the ERA. During a DAR meeting, she derides activists like Gloria Steinem (Rose Byrne) and Betty Friedan (Tracey Ullman) as women who can’t find a husband, which devalues their worth… a notion that shocks her perpetually single sister-in-law Elnor (Jeanne Tripplehorn). She sends her newsletter to the conservative women on her mailing list deriding the ERA and rallying support.

Meanwhile, back in D.C. in early 1972, the feminist movement, led by Abzug, Steinem, Friedan and Jill Ruckelshaus (Elizabeth Banks) are celebrating Shirley Chisholm (Uzo Aduba), the first black female member of Congress, and her entrance into the presidential race. Someone passes around Schlafly’s newsletter, and it gets dismissed, with drinks spilled on it. Little do they know how big of a challenger she’s going to be.

Our Take: Mrs. America, created by Dahvi Waller (Mad Men, Halt and Catch Fire), takes advantage of its massive, excellent cast, making sure each massive star gets their own chance to make the scenes they’re in fascinating to watch. But if it weren’t for two-time Oscar winner Blanchett as Phyllis Schlafly tying it all together with a fantastic performance, the show would be considered more disjointed than it seems now.

What do I mean by that? Well, while the show is mostly told from Schlafly’s perspective (more on that in a moment), it’s covering both sides of the early ’70s women’s liberation movement, placing big stars in the position of playing historic figures. When that happens, it gets to be a lot. Is the show going to be an examination of both sides, or one over the other? Is Schlafly going to be made into some sort of Snidely Whiplash-style evil character versus a heroic portrayal of the feminist side?

We doubt that, and that’s mainly because of Blanchett. While we’ve never been fans of Schlafly’s politics, we appreciate Waller telling the story from her perspective, showing us why someone who was as independent as Schlafly was would still take a super-conservative stance against feminism. After all, as we see in Blanchett’s performance, it’s not like she isn’t wounded by slights that are directed at her solely because she’s a woman. But, for some reason, she’s the type of person who has succeeded by fighting against those slights twice as hard as they’re thrown at her, and she feels that other women should do the same instead of having equality legislated into being. That’s a layered perspective, and not all actors can pull off making such a character multi-dimensional. Blanchett can with just a pensive look or glint in her eye.

As the series goes on, we hope that we can explore a little more of the pro-ERA side, but it may just be the case of having a lot of stars who shine when they’re on screen but not provide much depth to their characters because there just isn’t time. It’ll be a shame if that happens, but Blanchett’s presence makes that idea more palatable.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: As the pro-ERA faction celebrates Chisholm’s presidential announcement, we see a closeup of Schlafly’s portrait on the masthead of her newsletter, the ink smeared because a drink was spilled on it out of indifference.

Sleeper Star: Tripplehorn does a great job as Elanor Schlafly, sobbing to Phyllis that she throws herself into the family foundation because no man has seen fit to marry her, and now she’s firmly in middle age. We’ll see how her role plays out as she starts to rail against Phyllis’ view of single women. Also, we’re looking forward to seeing Niecy Nash as feminist attorney Flo Kennedy.

Most Pilot-y Line: We’re not huge fans of the prosthetics that Slattery was given to transform him into Fred Schlafly; we know from his many roles that Slattery can play old, white and privileged just fine without heavy makeup.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Blanchett’s Emmy-worthy performance makes Mrs. America one of the more watchable shows that have come out so far this year. The show’s mostly light tone belies the serious and, unfortunately, still contemporary issues being examined. But that light tone also makes the show a fun binge, whether you’ve run out of things to watch during lockdown or not.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

Stream Mrs. America On FX On Hulu