Summer Movie Review: RGB

For those who don’t know, RBG is a documentary about the life and work of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Before seeing the movie I knew very little of the supreme court justice other than that, since the Bush administration, she’s been one of the more liberal judges. Since I was born 1994, the most that I would hear about her in the news was her dissenting opinions in a Republican majority court. I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that, because of my lack of knowledge regarding the accomplishments of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I was worried that the film would be more about celebrating a woman being in power, and put more of focus just on the fact that she is a woman than on the actual work that she’s done. Fortunately this was not the case and I found the movie to be incredibly informative about her accomplishments as both a judge and a lawyer fighting for women’s (and a little bit of men’s) rights in the seventies and eighties. The movie broke down each one of her court cases in order to talk about her accomplishments and the progress she made for women’s rights in America.

Surprisingly, I thought that the movie managed to avoid having a hard partisan view. While it was very politically change, it did not seem to separate the left and the right so much. If the there was any enemy in the movie, it was not a political party, but rather ignorance of the abilities and hardships of women. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was portrayed as something of a teacher, educating those in power rather than fighting against them. Even when the movie got into the Bush years and on, when Ginsburg became the voice of the dissenting opinion, it was still entirely focused on her and her beliefs rather than those that she opposed.

I also thought that it was very important that the movie talked about her friendship with Antonin Scalia. Showing the relationship between these two people on opposite ends of the aisle helped further the movie’s message that the problem was not with people, but rather with ignorance (this blog is about films, not politics, so as much as I’d like to, I’m not going to give my personal opinion on this idea. I will only say that will all the opposition between people because of their political ideas, this was a refreshing look at politics).

As well as informing the audience of her work, the movie does a good job of showing a side of Ruth Bader Ginsburg that many might not know about. It was fun watching her act in an opera, workout with her trainer, speak and interact with crowds of youth, and watch herself be portrayed on SNL. RBG was both informative and entertaining, and is movie I definitely recommend to anyone who is interested in Ruth Bader Ginsburg or the work that she has done.

-Silas