In 1972, Brooklyn schoolteacher turned Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm becomes the first black woman to run for president in this frustrating political drama that misses an opportunity to fully celebrate a trailblazing historical figure…
Summary
*Spoilers*. 1972. Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress, embarks on a long-shot (and ultimately doomed) run for the US presidency. Supported by a team of faithful followers, including her low-key husband, and working with a shoestring budget, Shirley takes on the establishment to spread her “give politics back to all the people” message. She faces political resistance, discrimination, personal conflict, and turmoil within her team as the campaign moves towards the Democratic Convention, where a candidate will be chosen to take on Republican incumbent Richard Nixon.
Review
*Spoilers*. In 1968 (the height of the Vietnam War and Civil Rights Movement), Brooklyn school teacher Shirley Chisholm (Regina King), the daughter of immigrants from Barbados, became the first black woman elected to Congress. She faced pushback from bigoted colleagues who took umbrage at her equal pay, and had to fight the House leader over her appointment to the agriculture committee. She later worked to alleviate poverty, end the war, and promote gender and racial equality. In 1972, she decided to run for president. At this point, we are about 10 minutes into the film…
This biographical summary highlights one of the main problems of Shirley, namely that it fails to place its protagonist into her historical context. We are “told” a lot about Ms. Chisholm but this does not translate into satisfying drama. When we first meet her, she is “formed”. Already a leader and trailblazer, she is unafraid to go up against the establishment and stand her ground, proud of being black and of being a woman. While there are some instances during the film of her façade cracking, such as her reaction when her husband Conrad (Michael Cherrie) balks at being pushed into the background and a rift with her sister Murial (Reina King), we are never in doubt that Shirley will push on, regardless of the outcome of her presidential bid.
This leads into the second problem, which is that writer/director John Ridley chooses to focus on a dramatically unsatisfying episode of Shirley’s life. Her presidential bid becomes more of a docu-drama, in which Shirley’s political operatives weigh up which states they should target and mutter about delegate counts. There are moments of drama, such as an attempt on Shirley’s life by a deranged stranger and the frustration her single-mindedness causes among her team, as they try to navigate the political landscape and to refine her messaging. However, the lack of real stakes is always apparent.
Significant events which merit far deeper consideration are almost sidelined. These include the landmark legal case in which one of her team, Robert Gottlieb (still a law student at the time), successfully challenged the ‘big three’ TV networks (NBC, ABC and CBS) over Shirley being barred from the televised debates. We don’t even get to see Shirley up on the stage going toe-to-toe with her rivals, though we’re told she’s a terrific debater. Likewise, the fallout among Chisholm’s black supporters after she visits bigoted Alabama Governor George Wallace in hospital when he was paralysed in a shooting becomes a damp squib. Even the implications of Chisholm courting the support of the more radical Black Panthers is not really explored, beyond a testy meeting with the movement’s leader, Huey Newton (Brad James).
However, amid all of this is a regal performance from King as Shirley. King holds the screen throughout, infusing Ms. Chisholm with the right balance of strength and vulnerability. Her layered performance makes up for some of the deficiencies in the drama, suggesting the struggles Shirley went through before we meet her. There is also great support from Cherrie as her supportive but frustrated husband; the late Lance Reddick as her long-time advisor ‘Mac’ Holder; and Terrence Howard as her confidante Arthur Hardwick Jr. Rounding out Chisholm’s team is Lucas Hedges as Gottlieb, Christina Jackson as young single mother Barbara Lee, who Shirley takes under her wing, and Brian Stokes Mitchell as wily political operator Stanley Townsend.
In the end, Shirley’s presidential bid fizzles out at the Miami Democratic convention with a not-unexpected last-minute bait-and-switch over delegates involving duplicitous fellow black candidate Walter Fauntroy (charismatically played by André Holland).
We then get the obligatory “what happened next?” text, in this case letting us know, among other things, that Shirley continued in Congress for the next decade, divorced Conrad and married Hardwick. We also get a lovely cameo from the real Barbara Lee, a long-time US Representative. However, this section simply emphasises how Shirley ultimately misses the mark, narratively and dramatically.
Overall, while it is well-acted, interesting in places, and worthy in its intentions, Shirley feels like an episode in a longer TV mini-series, an approach which may have better served the life, struggles, and many achievements of Ms. Chisholm.
Watch Shirley on Netflix (subscription required)
Writer takeaways
1. Choose the strongest narrative arc: The most successful biopics tend to home in on a single episode in the subject’s life. However, it is important to choose the strongest episode that highlights the subject’s struggles, amplifies the many facets of their character, places them into their historical context, and emphasises their impact on the world. A good recent example is Rustin (2023), in which we follow protagonist Bayard Rustin as he organises the landmark 1963 March on Washington, D.C.
2. Think about your format: If there is just too much material to comfortably fit into a feature (looking in your direction, Oppenheimer (2023)), maybe your story lends itself to a broader, streamer-friendly mini-series. Likewise, if your mini-series idea is more filler than killer, streamlining it into a feature might be the best way forward. In this case, a series following Shirley from Brooklyn schoolteacher to her latter achievements as a multi-term Congresswoman via her presidential bid would have been a deeper and far more satisfying piece of work (especially given the strength of the cast).
3. Remember the stakes: One of the big let-downs in Shirley is the lack of stakes. While her run for the presidency was notable, it was always a loser. Not only did Shirley fail in her bid to move the needle for the Democratic race, the process ultimately led to the re-election of Richard Nixon. She was a successful member of Congress at the start and continued as such post-election. There is no question that Shirley was a trailblazer but choosing her presidential run as the focus of the film drained the story of the personal and political stakes needed to maximize the drama.
Go further
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Find out more about Shirley Chisholm: