by Marlena Elias
July 31, 2001
The wrong woman got the Oscar for Best Actress. Now don't get me wrong, I adore Julia Roberts and her performance in Erin Brockovich was fabulous! The problem is, I hadn't seen the movie The Contender until well after the Academy Awards. Joan Allen is truly deserving of the Oscar for her performance. I was so completely sold on Julia Roberts winning the best actress Academy Award that I completely forgot that Joan Allen was even in a movie until the night of the Oscars. They showed a clip from Joan Allen's movie The Contender and I almost remembered seeing a preview for it on TV.
One night Ethan came home with an armload of movies and The Contender was one of them. The instant the movie starts you are faced with a rather unusual tragedy that sets the tone for the movie. The basis of the film is this: the VP dies in office and must be replaced. Up for nomination is Joan Allen who must go before a committee to be approved. What they do to her is truthfully a nightmare and a verbal lynching. Joan Allen's talent has always been subtlety and with an undercurrent of grace. Her role in this film had me riveted to my seat and in awe of her considerable talent.
Should anyone be up for consideration of replacing the Vice President, they come under close scrutiny. Since the character in the movie is a woman, they torture her, goad her, provoke her, and basically make her look like some kind of sex-crazed, home-wrecking liberal baby killer. The head of the committee doing the interviewing is Gary Oldman, and oh my god, does he play a conservative to the hilt. He pads the committee with other conservatives and a smattering of Democrats. They totally went out of their way to crucify Joan Allen's character.
Allegations are made against her, which came from her college days and have nothing to do with her competency, but yet is used to judge her character now. Her argument regarding the accusations is this: I refuse to comment on the allegations. Well this causes all kinds of trouble for her; the President (played by Jeff Bridges) and his top advisor are begging her to fight back and her response is: It is simply beneath my dignity to respond. WOW! She never caved under pressure from THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, she simply said, if I were a man this would be looked upon as a fraternity initiation and not some major sex scandal. Because she is a woman she was placed under a microscope and was treated as a whore. No matter what was thrown at her, she remained dignified and pretty much kept her calm. WOW!
What a giant step she took for womankind by not buckling under pressure. By not reacting in a "typical" female fashion, she proved that she was worthy of the nomination. The President calls a joint session of Congress to make a dramatic speech and then asks Congress to vote. She is jogging while all this is happening, convinced that the President will call for another nominee, since she has offered to step down twice. Her husband is driving along next to her with the window open and the radio tuned into the live proceedings. I'll leave it at that.
I'll admit to being an "armchair" feminist. I'm all talk from the sidelines, but no action in the trenches. This non-action puts me in the majority of people, which I despise being a part of. Again, being an "armchair" liberal with conservative slants, I have no business complaining when I've made no effort to do anything about what bothers me. Watching Joan Allen in this role as a former Republican turned Democrat because she felt her party no longer represented her ideals was absolute inspiration. She never caved to pressure or popular opinion. This is the kind of movie that makes me want to stand for something instead of sitting for nothing.
At the end of this movie the screen goes black and a single sentence is flashed on the screen: "For our daughters". I think they included me in that sentence. <EM>
