BEFORE: I went looking for another coincidence today, like maybe it's Ruth Bader Ginsburg's birthday, or maybe the anniversary of some famous court case that she won, but no such luck - and that put me in a quandary, like how am I going to feel if I check the news today and find out she died? I just can't have that on my conscience. Fortunately, there's a news story today about how she's donating money to some bilingual Hebrew and Arabic schools in Israel. Whew, that was a close one.
Bill Clinton carries over again from "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" - as long as documentaries keep using footage of Presidents, my linking should be OK...
THE PLOT: The exceptional life and career of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who has developed a breathtaking legal legacy while becoming an unexpected pop culture icon.
AFTER: The first thing I naturally think of when I see the initials "RBG" is that it stands for "red, blue, green", the three colors that come together to constitute video and TV pictures - although I think more commonly that's abbreviated as "RGB". Still, the notion persists in my brain. Really, it's just a set of three letters, most people have three initials, but thanks to the connection to a certain Notorious rapper, people have drawn an unlikely connection between that rapper and history's second female Supreme Court Justice, and she's become quite cool lately thanks to the association.
One weird connection between yesterday's doc on Mr. Rogers and today's is that both central subjects are seen watching or commenting on the many parodies done about them on shows like "SNL" or "SCTV". Naturally, Mr. Rogers didn't hold any grudges against Eddie Murphy for his "Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood" sketches, but I wonder how he felt about the "Battle of the PBS Stars" sketch on SCTV, where Mr. Rogers (played by Martin Short) was seen in a boxing match with Julia Child (played by John Candy). Today I got to see Justice Ginsburg watching Kate McKinnon play her on SNL's "Weekend Update", complete with wild dancing, a rap-like breakdown and a couple of "Gins-Burns" insults. She was surprisingly OK with all of that. For the record, she doesn't mind the connections to Biggie Smalls, either, since they're both famous people born in Brooklyn, and currently she probably has more street cred than he does, what with being dead and all.
They made a biopic film about RBG too, back when she was just RB, or perhaps just Ruth Ginsburg, called "On the Basis of Sex", with Felicity Jones playing her. (Now, even though RBG was very attractive back in the day they still might have over-emphasized that in the Hollywood version.) The important thing about RBG is that she became the champion of sex-discrimination suits, because she believed, first and foremost, that the Constitution promised equal protection for all U.S. citizens, regardless of gender, and that didn't seem to match with what was going on in the real world. So there were test cases, where this female person in the Army wasn't receiving the same benefits as a man, or a male home-worker raising his son who wasn't receiving the same Social Security benefits as a woman would after his spouse died. And each case argued before the Supreme Court, each victory (she went 5-1 on this, not bad at all) got us one step closer to some kind of egalitarianism. (I'm willing to believe that there's still a long way to go, but every journey has to start somewhere.)
Now, of course, after outlasting a number of Presidents, like Bush the younger, the eyes of the nation turn once again to this Clinton appointee, to see if she can also outlast Trump. Apparently there was pressure on her to retire during the Obama years, to free up a seat for another liberal judge, but let's face it, that was never going to happen. She's gonna run till she drops, and also there's the chance that Mitch McConnell would have turned down any Obama appointee when he was a lame duck, because he stated, "We simply can't appoint a new Supreme Court justice in an election year." Which really meant, "We simply can't appoint a new Supreme Court justice in an election year unless there's a sitting Republican President." Suck my ass, Mitch McConnell, now that we know what a piece of partisan garbage you really are. Enjoy your retirement.
There's footage here of her testifying (great, like I haven't seen enough testifying this week...) at her own confirmation hearings, really just charming the hell out of Joe Biden and Teddy Kennedy. She got confirmed by a vote of 96 to 3, which is just ridiculous, and that may be the last time that our Senate ever agreed on anything, if you think about it. Ginsburg's granddaughter went to Harvard Law School, and was part of a class that was 50% female - contrast that with Ginsburg's class, which had only 9 women out of over 500. Yeah, I'd say she made a difference. She may not be allowed to cook at home, but damn can she adjudicate.
She's in her 80's and survived two bouts with cancer, but she works out with a trainer and says she feels healthy. She's got an "odd couple" friendship with Antonin Scalia, even though they differ in court they bond over a shared love of opera, and though a male friend probably can't take the place of her late husband, it's probably great to have a friend who can joke around in a similar way. Totes adorbs.
Also starring Ruth Bader Ginsburg (last seen in "Capitalism: A Love Story"), Arthur R. Miller, Orrin Hatch, Gloria Steinem, Brenda Feigen, Nina Totenberg, Ann Kittner, Harryette Helsel, James Ginsburg, Jane Ginsburg, Lisa Beattie Frelinghuysen, Mary Hartnett, Wendy Williams, Sharron Frontiero, Kathleen Peratis, Stephen Wiesenfeld, Harry T. Edwards, Ted Olson, Eugene Scalia, Lilly Ledbetter, and archive footage of Samuel Alito, Joe Biden (last seen in "Capitalism: A Love Story"), Stephen Breyer (ditto), Tom Brokaw (ditto), George W. Bush (ditto), Jimmy Carter (ditto), Katie Couric (ditto), Anthony Kennedy (ditto), Sandra Day O'Connor (ditto), Barack Obama (ditto), William Rehnquist (ditto), Antonin Scalia (ditto), David Souter (ditto), John Paul Stevens (ditto), Clarence Thomas (ditto), Harry Blackmun, Hillary Clinton (also last seen in "Won't You Be My Neighbor?", Peter Jennings (last seen in "13th") Rachel Maddow (ditto), Colin Jost (last seen in "How to Be Single"), Ted Kennedy (last seen in "History of the Eagles"), Rush Limbaugh (last seen in "Vice"), Thurgood Marshall, Joseph McCarthy, Kate McKinnon (last seen in "Rough Night"), The Notorious B.I.G. (last seen in "Quincy"), John G. Roberts, Lesley Stahl, George Stephanopoulos, Donald Trump (last seen in "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold").
RATING: 6 out of 10 dissenting opinions
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