TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. HBO has a new documentary also streaming on Max about the formation, contents and legacy of one of the more influential and controversial magazines of the 20th century. The magazine was called Ms., and the documentary is called "Dear Ms.: A Revolution In Print." Our TV critic David Bianculli has this review.
DAVID BIANCULLI, BYLINE: Ms. magazine was launched more than 50 years ago, with a test balloon sneak preview issue that had to break even if the magazine were to keep publishing. HBO's new documentary "Dear Ms.: A Revolution In Print" takes an inventive approach in explaining what made this particular publication and its contents so unusual and meaningful. The documentary is divided into three parts, each telling a different aspect of the Ms. magazine story, and each is told by a different director, each with her own specific perspective. One major theme of the documentary is that the women's movement, like many political movements, contained activists from all over the spectrum. Giving voice to three different voices in "Dear Ms." is one way to reflect that. But another major theme of the documentary is how important and groundbreaking it was to identify and publicize concerns that women had in common. In the program's first part, director Salima Koroma examines the genesis of Ms. magazine. Original staffer Letty Cottin Pogrebin remembers the meetings that led to the articles in that first issue and even the magazine's name.
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LETTY COTTIN POGREBIN: We assigned. We got that manuscript. We edited. We put into production. It was a blur of glorious hyperactivity. And, you know, we were still batting around a title. We had a lot of maybes, maybe going to be Sojourner (ph), Lillith (ph), Bimbo (ph). Sister was thrown out because it sounded like a nun's magazine. But Ms., it's a synthesis of misses and miss. Ms. was the all-purpose business nomenclature for women whose marital status you didn't know. Ms. seemed to me perfect.
BIANCULLI: A feminist magazine aimed at and run by women, from today's perspective, seems like an obvious, even brilliant idea. Back then, though, it was seen by many as a threat or a mistake or both. Take, for example, ABC News anchor and commentator Harry Reasoner.
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POGREBIN: We put 300,000 copies out on the newsstands and hoped that they would sell over the course of eight weeks.
See if people are interested. See if maybe people might use the subscription card. Maybe it'll get a little news.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HARRY REASONER: The first edition of Ms., described as a new magazine for women, is at hand, and it's pretty sad. It is so clearly just another in the great but irrelevant tradition of American shock magazines. I was talking to a couple of other chauvinist pigs over the weekend, and one of them wanted to bet. I'll take five issues and under, he said. You take the field, and I'll give you 2 to 1. He got no takers.
BIANCULLI: Reasoner was wrong, and later in the documentary, he's shown admitting as much. Magazine founder Gloria Steinem, on the other hand, gets to look back with no small sense of pride.
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GLORIA STEINEM: I have to say, I think we were smarter than we thought we were (laughter). I feel good about this issue. A lot of these articles could still be relevant.
BIANCULLI: The first part of "Dear Ms." recounts the early feminist voices championed by the magazine, such as Shirley Chisholm, the first woman to run for president of the United States, and Alice Walker, published in Ms. before she wrote "The Color Purple." Part 2, directed by Alice Gu, examines the magazine's reach and impact. The first editor of Ms. magazine, Suzanne Braun Levine, explains how its 1977 cover story on sexual harassment gave name to an issue that soon became a central part of the national conversation. Three years later, it was the basis of the 1980 hit movie "9 to 5," starring Dolly Parton as a secretary rebelling against her chauvinistic boss.
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SUZANNE BRAUN LEVINE: If something doesn't have a name, you can't build a response to it. You can't talk about it. You can't rebel against it.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "9 TO 5")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Let's don't get excited.
DOLLY PARTON: (As Doralee Rhodes) Get your scummy hands off of me. Look, I've been straight with you from the first day I got here, and I put up with all your panting and staring and chasing me around the desk 'cause I need this job. But this is the last straw.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: In the movie "9 to 5," women get even. In real life, many women can't afford to confront the boss. But women are reporting sexual harassment, more than ever before.
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LEVINE: The minute it had a name, things took off and changed.
BIANCULLI: And in Part 3, director Cecilia Aldarondo looks frankly at some of the issues that divided women in the movement and even women on the magazine's staff. One of them, Lindsy Van Gelder, recalls the sexual revolution that was brewing in 1972. Not only was Ms. magazine released that year, but so were such attention-getting porn films as "Deep Throat" and "Behind The Green Door."
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: I was the last generation to grow up without porn. I was born in 1944. Porn really hit the mainstream in 1972.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: (Singing) Turning one by one...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: It was the golden age of pornography, they called it.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: (Singing) When the Earth (ph) was young.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Porn chic - you thought it was kind of liberating to go to these porn films.
BIANCULLI: The magazine dealt with that issue and others in the decades since in ways that were anything but consistent or unifying. But the complexity is what makes this documentary so intriguing and, from the very first issue, what made Ms. magazine so distinctive.
GROSS: David Bianculli is a professor of television studies at Rowan University. He reviewed the new HBO documentary called "Dear Ms.: A Revolution In Print." It's also streaming on Max. Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, our guest will be R&B singer, songwriter, musician and producer Raphael Saadiq. Before going solo, he led the group Tony! Toni! Tone! and formed the group Lucy Pearl. He's produced recordings by D'Angelo, Whitney Houston, John Legend, Erykah Badu, Alicia Keys and Beyonce. I hope you'll join us.
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GROSS: To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at @nprfreshair. FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Briger. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Hope Wilson is our consulting visual producer. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our cohost is Tonya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ANNIVERSARY")
TONY TONI TONE: (Singing) Tomorrow will come and, girl, I can't wait. It's our anniversary. Anniversary. The first thing I'll do is run straight to you. It's our anniversary. Anniversary. It's our anniversary. It's our anniversary. Yeah. Anniversary. It's our anniversary. It's our anniversary. Yeah. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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