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As if Oscar winning actress Brie Larson needed to prove her feminist credentials any further, she’s now signed up produce and star in a film about the first woman to run for president of the United States.
No, not Hillary Clinton. Trailblazer Victoria Woodhull who ran for the office way back in 1872 for the Equal Rights Party. Hey, maybe they should make a comeback.
Like Larson, suffragette Woodhull was passionate about promoting social reform. She was the ultimate long shot candidate – after all, women didn’t get the right to vote in America until 1920.
But the feminist icon remains an inspiration to many, including Larson, who has said she wants to bring about social change with her films.
“That’s the reason why I make movies. You hope that it reverberates outward and that it changes people’s opinions and hopefully for the better,” she recently told Vanity Fair.
Larson’s reps did not immediately respond to ENTITY’s request for a comment on how this new, as yet untitled, movie – first reported by Deadline Hollywood – fits into her feminist plans but the actress has taken on empowering parts before, such as with her Oscar winning performance as a rape survivor in “Room” and a fearless photographer who is just as tough as any of the men in new action film, “Kong: Skull Island.” Among her upcoming roles is the title character in superhero film “Captain Marvel.”
But the 27-year-old is increasingly being seen as a superhero for feminists everywhere having used her growing fame to advocate for women’s rights and victims of abuse.
She resolutely refused to clap for Casey Affleck when presenting him with his best actor Oscar last month, in what was widely seen as a response to sexual harassment allegations made against the “Manchester by the Sea” star in the past, allegations he vehemently denies.
At the 2016 Oscars she hugged each of the sexual abuse survivors who had appeared on stage with Lady Gaga when she sang survival anthem “Til It Happens to You.”
She has also not been shy to take outspoken political positions on social media even thought it has lost her some fans who have been quick to dismiss her as part of the “Hollywood elite.” But Brie doesn’t care.
“I’d put it all on the line and be an activist for the rest of my life because it doesn’t feel right to me to be quiet,” she told Elle.
All this makes her the perfect person to bring to the screen the story of non-conformist Victoria Woodhull, who among her many other achievements founded the first woman run stock brokerage on Wall Street and was among the first women to found and edit a newspaper. Her running mate in the presidential campaign was another equal rights advocate, abolitionist Frederick Douglass. The movie from Amazon Studios will follow her rise to prominence and historic election campaign.
Woodhull may not have won the presidency but she certainly blazed a trail for feminists like Larson to follow.
