Two movies of two very different women have captured my attention this week – Marilyn and Maggie. On Christmas Day, when Bob was saving lives, I went to our local art theatre, Vinegar Hill, to see “My Week with Marilyn.” Michelle Williams embodies Marilyn Monroe, she doesn’t just play her. It’s a marvelous bit of film making, made even more special by my husband’s distant relation to Arthur Miller (her husband at the time). Stranded in Britain to film “The Prince and the Showgirl” Marilyn is at her most vulnerable. 
When she asks her young 3rd assistant director, “Who’s side are you on?”, we are offered a glimpse into her psyche. A not so pretty side of a sexy, movie star on the brink of fame who cannot help but view her life and loves as one continual battle for survival.
A female warrior of a different kind, Margaret Thatcher will be portrayed by our grande dame of tinsel town, Meryl Streep, in the upcoming “Iron Lady.”
The year was 1979 when a British grocer’s daughter stormed the House of Commons. Women’s Lib was fairly new across the pond and Maggie ignored it, preferring to joust with the her male opponents wielding her rapier wit and a pocketbook. Like Marilyn, she was an outlier who forged ahead despite a cultural inclination to keep her in one place. Say what you will about her policies, and she was a Conservative of the first order, Maggy was a relentless and formidable leader.
I was riding on top of one of those open-air, red London buses when I sensed her power start to slip. Thatcher made a deal with Reagan to allow our planes to take off from British air fields and bomb Libya. It was the first time I felt like an ugly American abroad- fear was palpable. The British people didn’t want to promote war. “I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another,” Thomas Jefferson
Thanks to the Flapper, I’ve been a pacifist my whole life. I saw enough of Vietnam. Thank you President Obama, for ending the war in Iraq. Let them have their civil war, we had to have ours. And I think I’d get along famously with Meryl, another Jersey Girl. What I didn’t know is that she is fighting to build a National Women’s History Museum in Washington, DC.
http://www.nwhm.org/
We may not be able to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, but we private citizens can sure as hell put our blue suede shoes on the ground to build a museum!
MountainMornings 