Skip to footer

'RBG' is a love letter to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

( PG ) ( Monitor Movie Guide )

Directors Betsy West and Julie Cohen trace Ginsburg’s life and career from girlhood through marriage and law school to her current position as perhaps America’s least likely pop icon.

|
Alex Brandon/AP
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg applauds after a performance in her honor after she spoke about her life and work during a discussion at Georgetown Law School in Washington on April 6, 2018.
  • By Peter Rainer Film critic

“RBG” is ostensibly a documentary about 85-year-old Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but it feels more like a love letter. Directors Betsy West and Julie Cohen trace Ginsburg’s life and career from girlhood through marriage and law school to her current position as perhaps America’s least likely pop icon – the Notorious RBG, as she is affectionately nicknamed by a vast legion of youthful progressives.

The film makes clear that the soft-spoken, diminutive Ginsburg fought early and hard for gender equality in the courts in her own steadfastly clearsighted way. She’s the opposite of a late bloomer. The roll call of on-camera idolators, including Gloria Steinem, NPR’s Nina Totenberg, and Bill Clinton (who appointed her to the Supreme Court in 1993), is predictable, but we also hear praises from the likes of Orrin Hatch and a contingent of other conservatives. And then there is her famous friendship with the expansive Antonin Scalia, her legal and temperamental antithesis, which is a wonder to behold. It’s nice to know that, even in the upper reaches of today’s Washington, D.C., friendship can still eclipse ideology. Grade: B (Rated PG for some thematic elements and language.)

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to 'RBG' is a love letter to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Movies/2018/0504/RBG-is-a-love-letter-to-Supreme-Court-Justice-Ruth-Bader-Ginsburg
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe