Meryl Streep, where have you been? Our lady of all things dramatic and regal has yet to appear in a film in 2017. Her last was Florence Foster Jenkins in 2016. However, beginning November 3, the New York Historical Society will play a short documentary narrated by the Oscar winner called We Rise. The film occurs in conjunction with a NYHS exhibition called Hotbed, which focusses on the women's suffrage movement in New York.
According to a press release, the 17-minute film "explores a riveting chapter in New York and American history during the early 20th century as the city was emerging on the world stage." Specifically, the documentary trains its lens on Greenwich Village as a hotbed of feminist thought in the 1910s. The film will also include the song "We Are Here" by Alicia Keys.
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As a part of the Hotbed exhibition, which will take place on the fourth floor of the museum, the NYHS will recreate the "atmosphere" of a Greenwich village cafe at the time, replete with magazines, flyers, and books advertising the political movements of the time.
It's very on theme for Streep to narrate a movie about women's suffrage. She starred in the 2015 film Suffragette, and, well, she's Meryl freaking Streep.
"Men should look at the world as if something is wrong when their voices predominate," she told Time Out London in 2015. "They should feel it. People at agencies and studios, including the parent boards, might look around the table at the decision-making level and feel something is wrong if half their participants are not women. Because our tastes are different, what we value is different."
In the same interview, when asked what lessons suffragettes could teach us today, Streep responded, "Don’t give up or give in in the face of patronising ridicule, amused disdain or being ignored." (Perhaps that's why she agreed to participate in a sequel to Mamma Mia?)
Fitting advice. The exhibition Hotbed will be on display the New York Historical Society from November 3, 2017 - March 25, 2018. The film We Rise will be ongoing.
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