As Emmy nominations approach, Vanity Fair’s HWD team is once again diving deep into how some of this season’s greatest scenes and characters came together. You can read more of these close looks here.
There’s a sense of dread permeating the push for equality in Hulu’s Mrs. America. Despite the disco-dazzling 1970s setting and fearlessness of the women leading the charge for the Equal Rights Amendment, anyone aware of the actual history knows the effort will not succeed. Today, four decades later, the ERA is still awaiting passage.
The show is one of those rare narratives about an unraveling instead of a victory. Over the course of the series, Gloria Steinem (Rose Byrne), Shirley Chisolm (Uzo Aduba), Bella Abzug (Margot Martindale) and Jill Ruckelshaus (Elizabeth Banks) bring about real change and progress, but fall short of their highest hopes. Meanwhile, the antagonists, led by Cate Blanchett’s ruthless anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly and her goody-goody allies (Melanie Lynskey, Jeanne Tripplehorn, and Sarah Paulson) succeed in using their own independence and power to thwart the legions of other American women. They not only refuse to help others up the ladder; they kick the ladder away when they’re at the top.
Directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (best known for Captain Marvel and Half Nelson) oversaw the four episodes bookending the series, and their challenge was to find the right note of hope in the story by creator and showrunner Dahvi Waller. “We knew that it was going to be a tragedy, and knew that everybody loses at the end, including Phyllis,” said Boden. “But Ryan and I felt very strongly that that wasn’t the whole story, and that there needed to be something that looked forward and said, there’s still the struggle. It didn’t end. The struggle continues.”
“In the epilogue, there’s a great sign, a recent sign at one of the rallies, that said, ‘I can’t believe we still have to protest this shit,'” Fleck added. “Which is so true. Here we are. It’s still happening.”
The directors also had to deliver a sense of comeuppance for Schlafly, who became the victim of her own victory. If there is tragedy in her conclusion, it’s tragedy for those she has held back and harmed. All along, Blanchett’s Schlafly argues that women would be happier with only the duties of mothers and housewives, free from the burden of the workplace and career ambitions. Then in the final scene, she is crushed to be passed over for her dream job in the Cabinet of president-elect Ronald Reagan. Her husband (played by John Slattery) offers only feeble comfort. Trying to get back to a sense of normalcy, he asks when dinner will be ready.
From there, a long, wordless sequence plays out as the camera follows Schlafly through the routine. She goes to the basement for supplies, gets out her dishes and utensils, and sets quietly to work. Even her frilly flowered apron is similar to one Schlafly wore in real life to promote images of domestic bliss. The camera lingers on her working the kitchen for a long time. “That’s the short version of that sequence,” Fleck joked. “I remember we did like three takes of it, and they were all six minutes long of Cate chopping apples. So yeah, you got a condensed version.”
Schlafly never says a word. There’s no one else with her. On the soundtrack is the haunting but somewhat obscure song “Little Weaver Bird,” recorded in the 1950s by Molly Drake, and released by her family in 2013. (Her son was the late musician Nick Drake and her daughter, actress Gabrielle Drake. ) Molly, who died in 1993 at age 77, never published any music in her lifetime.
The mournful lyrics about the toils of a tiny nest-building creature eerily matches Schlafly’s own mindset.