“Well-behaved women seldom make history.” This quote from Laurel Thatcher Ulrich has to be one of my favorite quotes of all time. It also aptly describes three remarkable women featured in the new documentary Tough Old Broads. Filmmaker Stacey Tenenbaum (Pipe Dream) pulls focus on three very different women that all have one thing in common. They made history. Yet the doc isn’t what you might expect. This is both to its archival advantage and its cinematic detriment.
Kathrine Switzer was the first woman to run in the Boston Marathon. Sheila Watt-Cloutier is an advocate for the Inuit and was responsible for making the connection between climate change and human rights. Sharon Farmer was the first woman and the first person of color to hold the position of Director of White House Photography. Each now in their 70’s look back on their story, their history, and we are invited to reflect with them on the achievements, the struggles, and the victories it took to get where they are.
It is clear that neither Switzer, Watt-Cloutier, or Farmer defines themselves by what they might be known for. It’s a criminal minimization to whittle their lives down to a singular accomplishment and Tenenbaum uses these notable moments to reflect on lifetimes of perseverance and overall impact. Switzer has since started 261 FEARLESS, a non-profit organization that creates running clubs around the world to unite women. Watt-Cloutier has won numerous awards and authored the book The Right to Be Cold: One Woman’sStory of Protecting Her Culture, the Arctic and the Whole Planet. Farmer‘s work can be viewed at the Library of Congress, the William J. Clinton Presidential Library, The National Museum of African American History & Culture of the Smithsonian Institute.
Tenenbaum allows us to hang with these titans of history as if to normalize their achievements and to put them into the human perspective of a life lived with purpose. The question remains, “what is the purpose?” Tenenbaum answers and I will leave that for you to discover.
I personally connected with Farmer the most. An outsider artist/archivist, Farmer has been through it and then some. She fought for equality with the weapons of photography and art and was able to enjoy a place of power and prestige within the United States government during the halcyon Clinton era. Later in the doc, after considering her life, she stands in a park in Washington D.C. the day after Donald Trump wins his second term as President. Armed with a camera and the eyes of experience she is concerned. No one is out expressing their reaction to the results. It’s a poignant moment that provokes introspection.
I was ready for a rousing call to arms with Tough Old Broads. What I got was a quiet message of calm, elemental determination. The message here isn’t to cause a scene, but to persist in what is correct. After a life of busting through barriers these three women don’t scream from the rooftops. Instead they teach the slow and steady determination to fight for what is right.
Stacey Tenenbaum’s Tough Old Broads isn’t the doc I was expecting. It might have been the doc I needed.
7 of 10
