Thatchered at the Movies

Last weekend we screened "The Iron Lady"--just before Meryl Streep won another Academy Award for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in it. It's been on my mind ever since.

The film's portrayal of Thatcher in a mildly demented old age, looking back on her life, had--as so many of Streep's performances do--the uncanny effect of making me sympathetic towards a woman for whose policies and legacy I have only previously felt profound disagreement and distaste. The best type of both acting and filmmaking.

Scenes in the film remind us of that period in history, prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, all of it feeling very long ago in some ways and, in light of the current Republican primaries, not long ago enough. Reagan was just elected on this side of the pond and arm-in-arm he and Maggie began implementing what is now known as "Thatcherism" in England and "voodoo economics" in the U.S.: slashing taxes for the wealthy and using these revenue losses to eliminate social services and other job providing economic stimulus programs, while increasing defense spending and in general creating bloated national deficits and severe recessions.

The film nicely portrays this as a true philosophical divide: will services be provided by government or by private business? What it does not ask--because Thatcher herself, as slyly portrayed by Streep, did not, as we know from history, care--is who is left out in the cold and who benefits when services are left to private business. Thatcher, the dutiful daughter "of a Grantham grocer," was much the Darwinist on this note: only the fittest and meanest, like herself, survive.

The scenes of the IRA bombings are shocking today, and reminiscent of a time when we thought the Irish "troubles" would never end, could never be resolved. Yet they appear to be over. But mostly, I'm still thinking about the movie because of the questions it raised for me: would a movie like this ever be made about Reagan or any other male leader of the western world? (Answer: no. Unsettling realization, 30 years on: a woman is still a woman is still a woman--not a head of state.) And will we ever give up on economic policies that have been proven not to work?