Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/30780
dvd watch Feminist films now available for home viewing Bhutto Duane Baughman, Johnny O’Hara, directors She was Pakistan’s best hope for democracy until the fate- ful day in December 2007 when she was brutally assassi- nated, two weeks before the election for prime minister that she was expected to win. This documentary presents an in-depth look at the rise and tragic fall of Benazir Bhutto, the charismatic woman who led Pakistan from 1988 to 1990 and 1993 to 1996—the first woman prime minister of a Muslim nation. Freed from having to wear a burqa by her father as a teenager and sent to Harvard, where she absorbed feminism and liberal politics, Bhutto set hunger, housing, women’s rights and health care as her top priorities for Pakistan. This glowing portrait does not fully delve into the charges of corruption that plagued Bhutto, but the stirring archival footage of Bhutto and the evidence of her personal sacrifice for her country make her heroism indubitable. Widely available after May 10. —AMANDA LITMAN Waiting for “Superman” Davis Guggenheim, director Who will save U.S. schools? This much-talked-about doc- umentary follows several young students and their parents who, after failing to find satisfactory education in public schools, turn their sights on getting into charter schools via a lottery. While Superman delivers potent stories of individual students, its negative representation of teachers unions and the public school system has drawn criticism from professors and unions alike. Scholars may deplore the film for playing loose with the facts (a Stanford study showed that charter schools performed the same or worse than public ones) but cannot deny the invaluable discus- sion of how to save the school system. Widely available. —KYLE BACHAN www.msmagazine.com Top Secret Rosies: The Female Computers of World War II LeAnn Erickson, director Who knew that the first “computers” were people— specifically, young women recruited during World War II to do the number crunching needed to calculate weapons trajectories? While Rosie the Riveter was featured on magazine covers and praised in song, young female math- ematicians labored in secret. As the electronic computer age began, these same women became the first program- mers, yet still worked anonymously; publicity photos of the project showed only men. This lost history is finally told through the vivid recollections of pioneering women who were vital to winning the war and launching the computer age. Widely available. —DAVID DISMORE Made in Dagenham Nigel Cole, director Based on the true story of the 1968 British Ford Dagenham car-factory strike, the film begins with a sim- ple walk-out. It becomes an all-out strike for women’s rights when fictional Rita O’Grady (Sally Hawkins) demands that the women machinists be given equal pay. Though at first unsure of her role, O’Grady comes into her own as a political activist as the 187 striking women face pressure from their families and friends and from the American leaders of Ford to break the strike. Help comes in the unexpected form of Barbara Castle (Miranda Richardson), the first and only woman to have held the office of secretary of state for employment. Far from unsuccessful, the Dagenham strike helped pave the way for the 1970 Equal Pay Act, which equalized pay and con- ditions of employment in the U.K. Widely available. —DAHLIA GROSSMAN-HEINZE SPRING 2011 | 61