Who Does She Think She Is
8.2 /10 1 Votes
Genre Documentary Duration | 8/10 IMDb Writer Will Dunning | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Tagline A woman still has to choose between what she loves and who she loves. What if she didn't? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Society has long pressured women into an either/or situation: Either you raise a family, or you pursue a career. This documentary features five women who do not accept such a division but instead strive to balance their artistic pursuits with raising children. Rather than being detrimental, the challenges of each pursuit reinforce and enrich those of the other. This is examined within the larger context of womens representation in the male-dominated art world.
Contents
Who Does She Think She Is? is a 2008 American documentary film about the societal push for women to choose between art and motherhood and the struggle a group of female artists face in attempting to reconcile both parts of their lives. Pamela Tanner Boll, who co-executive produced the Academy Award-winning documentary, Born Into Brothels, directed this film.
In a half-changed world, women are often forced to choose: Mothering or working? Your children's wellbeing or your own own? Responsibility or self expression? Who Does She Think She Is?, a documentary by Academy Award winning filmmaker Pamela Tanner Boll, features five fierce women who refuse to choose. Through their lives, we explore some of the most problematic intersections of our time: mothering and creativity, partnering and independence, economics and art. Along the way, the film invites us to consider both ancient legacies of women worshipped as cultural muses and more modern times where most people can't even name a handful of female artists. In the end, the diverse women in the film demonstrate that our creativity and our caregiving are not mutually exclusive, but deeply connected. In fact, their co-existence might just be the key to finishing the job. Written by Courtney Martin
Plot
The film follows five women, ranging in age from 27 to 65 from all over the United States as they chart a path to create their individual type of art.
Reviews
A review on WildRiverReview.com praised the film saying, "It’s not every documentary that compels me to stay up writing most of the night and that weighs heavily on my mind for days. But then again Who Does She Think She Is? is not your average documentary."
A more mixed review from laist.com said the film contains "revelatory moments that can make the audience truly understand the depths of the issue being discussed," but that it was also "clumsily" composed.
A New York Times review called the film "engaging," while a review in Slant Magazine said the film provides an "unnecessarily restrictive definition of what an artist is and what she does—and who she does it with."
References
Who Does She Think She Is? WikipediaWho Does She Think She Is? IMDb Who Does She Think She Is? themoviedb.org