Crystal Lee Sutton: Labor Heroine (cross-posted at Feministe)
Crystal Lee Sutton, originally of Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, died of cancer September 12 at the age of 68. She was instrumental in the 10-year fight to unionize the J.P. Stevens mill, where she once worked for $2.65/hr. You may remember her as “Norma Rae”, as portrayed by actor Sally Field in the Oscar-winning film of 1979.
Crystal moved on from the J.P. Stevens mill after becoming an organizer for the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union; she eventually returned to school and graduated from Alamance Community College, who maintains her records of the organizing battle and a website about her life. She was initially denied coverage by her insurance company for treatment for her cancer; her husband worked two jobs to help pay for her medical care. The North Carolina State AFL-CIO is also accepting donations for her medical bills.
“It is not necessary I be remembered as anything, but I would like to be remembered as a woman who deeply cared for the working poor and the poor people of the U.S. and the world.” –Crystal Lee Sutton
Rest in peace, Sister.
Lu Lutta Continua.
headnod: Uniongal
Sunshine Cleaning
Through Feministe, I found a really cool website featuring the undersung sheroes of the film industry, Women and Hollywood; author Melissa Silverstein pumps the hell out of woman-centric films (preferably, those written and/or directed by women). There’s such a dearth of good films by and for women, that I find myself going to this website often to get tips on what to see. If we want our stories told, we need to support the people doing the telling when we can. As my daughter gets older, she is expanding her taste in film beyond cartoons and films based on comic books. Film is an interest we share together, and she is always interested in films about women….I think it’s a way of exploring how she wants to be when she grows up. That, and she’s had a keen sense of women being shortchanged for years. She used to point out the lack of female characters in storybooks in preschool, drew pictures of animals (and pity the fool that said, “what’s his name?” or “what’s he doing?”), and marched through the Body Worlds exhibit at the St. Louis Science Center last year intrigued with the bodies but disgusted at the lack of female presence (“there are only four females in this whole show! Just four!”). Heh, no…I didn’t drill her into doing that……she did it on her own, practically from the moment she could speak. She’s nine now, and growing up fast. She’s always had a handle on the various ways women and our contributions are diminished, but she’s reaching an age where she’s impressed with the ways in which we challenge and change those misconceptions and misrepresentations. I make a point of showing her art (in all its forms) by women to give her models for creating and imagining……resistance, truth, beauty, evolution, revolution…..models I didn’t have at her age. She will be one of many making this world a better place.
A couple of weeks ago, we went to see the film Sunshine Cleaning written by Megan Holley and directed by Christine Jeffs. It’s the story of Rose Lorkowski (Amy Adams), a struggling single mother whose glory days as the high school cheerleading captain dating the quarterback are long gone; she now spends her hardscrabble days working as a maid and trying to make the ends meet. Besides raising her bright, too-imaginative-for-school eight year old, Oscar (Jason Spevack), she also feels responsible for her younger sister Norah (Emily Blunt), a perpetual slacker who still lives with their eccentric dad, Joe (Alan Arkin).
Rose has been the adult in that family ever since the death of their mother. While her salesman/hustler father never met a get-rich-quick idea he didn’t like (or want to try), Rose kept it all together, spending her life seeking normalcy—a convention that has always eluded her. She practices affirmations in the mirror to jump start her psyche in the morning; verbal coffee for the day ahead.
Her only escape is the evenings at the motel with her married, cop boyfriend, Mac (Steve Zahn)—the quarterback who didn’t pick her for his team. After Rose complains about the need to get her son into a different school, one that won’t label his nonconformity as disability, Mac turns her on to the idea of starting a crime-scene cleanup business. “You wouldn’t believe how much money they make!” So, with no training, no knowledge, no start-up money, no contacts (save for Mac, who lets her know where the latest atrocity occurred and who to speak to about getting the job)—Rose jumps in with both feet, dragging her reluctant younger sister along for the ride (“do you want to live with Dad forever?”).
It’s…..messy. Like life itself. Rose finds her guardian angel in the form of Winston (Clifton Collins, Jr.), the owner/propietor of the cleaning supply house she frequents; Winston lends her his study manuals for the certification exam (that she didn’t know she needed!) and doesn’t report her for the egregious code violations that the upstart “Sunshine Cleaning” has already committed. It’s tough. But so is Rose. And so too are Norah, and even Joe.
As Rose and Norah clean up the final tragedies of the lives of others, they learn how to clean up the unfinished business in their own; burying what is finished in the past, and moving toward the light in their futures. “Sunshine Cleaning” isn’t just about smoothing over the surface, spit-and-polish to cover up after the casualties—it’s about how people themselves are assigned stations as the detritus of this life, and how those who are still living don’t have to accept it. This is a film about—and for—survivors.
In Lubu’s Den, me & the cub give it two thumbs up* for realism, recognizable characters, inventive scriptwriting, and a stellar cast that didn’t sleep in. The shots of Albuquerque gave just the right touch. This was Megan Holley’s first script (entered in a scriptwriting contest!). For more on Sunshine Cleaning:
*head nod to fellow Illinoisan Roger Ebert!
Pacing & Howling
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Changing Moods
