RBG | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by |
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Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography | Claudia Raschke |
Edited by | Carla Gutierrez |
Music by | Miriam Cutler |
Production companies |
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Distributed by | Magnolia Pictures |
Release dates |
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Running time | 98 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $14.4 million [1] |
RBG is a 2018 American documentary film focusing on the life and career of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second female Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States after Sandra Day O'Connor. After premiering at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, the film was released in the United States on May 4, 2018. The film was directed and produced by Betsy West and Julie Cohen.
The film received positive reviews from critics and grossed $14 million worldwide. It was chosen by the National Board of Review as the Best Documentary Film of 2018, and nominated for several other awards, including the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary. At the 91st Academy Awards, the film earned nominations for Best Documentary Feature and Best Original Song ("I'll Fight"). The film also won the Cinema for Peace Award for Women's Empowerment in 2019.
RBG chronicles the career of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which spans several decades, and how she developed a legal legacy while becoming a pop culture icon. The film is a biographical depiction of Ginsburg from her birth in Brooklyn, New York, her college education and subsequent career as a law professor, her appointment to the federal judiciary by President Jimmy Carter, and eventual appointment to the Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton.
Ruth Bader was born in Brooklyn into a first-generation American Jewish family. She earned a bachelor's degree at Cornell University, where she met her husband, Martin Ginsburg; they remained married until his death in 2010. Ruth enrolled in Harvard Law School before transferring to Columbia Law School while Martin started a successful career as a New York City tax attorney. After graduating from Columbia, Ginsburg became a law professor at Rutgers Law School and Columbia Law School.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg successfully argued five of six cases regarding gender discrimination before the U.S. Supreme Court. She advocated for both men and women facing gender-based bias: among the plaintiffs she represented was Sharron Frontiero, a woman facing housing discrimination in the U.S. Air Force, and a male single parent denied Social Security benefits normally paid only to single mothers. Ginsburg argued these cases in the 1970s, when gender discrimination was rampant in U.S. society and an all-male Supreme Court was generally skeptical of claims of bias against women.
After being nominated by President Jimmy Carter, Ginsburg was confirmed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on June 18, 1980. Her service on the appellate court ended August 9, 1993, and she was sworn in as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice on August 10, 1993, becoming the second female justice ever appointed at that time. After frankly answering questions about abortion and discrimination at her Senate confirmation hearings, Ginsburg was confirmed by a vote of 96 to 3, which President Clinton notes was astounding given the partisan political environment of the time, let alone now.
The film includes interviews with feminist icon Gloria Steinem and NPR's Nina Totenberg on Ginsburg's trailblazing career focused on women's rights. Among the landmark cases brought before the Supreme Court, the 1996 decision that allowed female cadets to enroll at the previously all-male Virginia Military Institute (VMI) is discussed at length. Several female VMI graduates explain why the decision was important — for them personally, and in the larger struggle for women's rights.
The film also chronicles Ginsburg's status as a pop culture icon, starting with the publication of Notorious R.B.G.: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, written by Shana Knizhnik and Irin Carmon. Knizhnik and Carmon also started a Notorious R.B.G. Tumblr which gained a huge following and spawned merchandise such as T-shirts and coffee mugs. The nickname is inspired by the "Notorious" honorific from the name of rap artist Notorious B.I.G. Ginsburg shows a good-natured embrace of her nickname, noting that she and the rapper have much in common: they were both born in Brooklyn.
Ginsburg's granddaughter, who appears in the film, is a graduate of Harvard Law School. She notes her graduating class was 50/50 male/female; when Ruth attended Harvard Law School, she was one of only nine female students in a class of approximately 560 total.
The film contrasts Martin Ginsburg's gregarious personality with Ruth's more stoic nature. Ruth's children note that although their mother is a brilliant lawyer, she is an awful cook. Martin says that he refrained from offering his opinions on legal matters to his wife, and she refrained from cooking after their children complained about her lack of culinary skill.
The film shows a playful side of the normally reserved Ginsburg. She engages in jovial banter with arch-conservative Justice Antonin Scalia while acknowledging their love of opera was one of the few things they shared in common. She also had a cameo role in an opera, La fille du régiment , in 2016.
Several commentators criticize disparaging remarks Ginsburg made about Trump during his campaign, noting that her comments made her vulnerable to claims of judicial bias in Supreme Court cases involving the Trump administration. (Ginsburg apologized for her remarks, and Senator Orrin Hatch opines that the formidable legal scholar is allowed to make occasional mistakes.) The film notes the left- and rightward swings of the Supreme Court during Ginsburg's tenure. As the court has tilted in a conservative direction, Ginsburg's dissents from majority opinions have become more frequent and forceful.
Despite being in her eighties and having survived colon and pancreatic cancer, Ginsburg works relentlessly late nights and often gets only a few hours of sleep. She also is shown exercising at a gym with a personal trainer. When asked how long she plans to remain on the Supreme Court, Ginsburg responds that she will stay only as long as she is able to address the cases placed before her with the full ability and integrity of her lifetime of experience in practicing law.
Directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West had both previously worked on projects involving Ginsburg, [2] and in 2015 decided to make a documentary focusing solely on her. In 2016, the duo followed Ginsburg around to various meetings and speeches, including in Chicago and Washington, D.C., for a total of 20 hours, and conducted the face-to-face interview in 2017. [3]
RBG began its limited release on May 4, 2018, and grossed $577,153 from 34 theaters over its opening weekend, an average of $16,975 per venue. [4] The film expanded to 179 theaters in its second week, making $1.2 million for the weekend and finishing 10th at the box office. [5] Playing in 375 theaters in its third week, the film made $1.3 million on the weekend, finishing in 12th, [6] and made $1.1 million in its fourth weekend, returning to 10th. [7] It is one of the highest-grossing independent films of 2018. [8]
Following Ginsberg's death in September 2020, it was announced the documentary, as well as her biopic On the Basis of Sex , would be re-released into 1,000 theaters, with box office grosses being donated to the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation. [9]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 93% based on 178 reviews, and an average rating of 7.4/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "RBG might be preaching to the choir of viewers who admire Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but it does so effectively." [10] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 71 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [11]
A. O. Scott of The New York Times wrote, "The movie's touch is light and its spirit buoyant, but there is no mistaking its seriousness or its passion. Those qualities resonate powerfully in the dissents that may prove to be Justice Ginsburg's most enduring legacy, and RBG is, above all, a tribute to her voice." [12] In her review for The Hollywood Reporter , Leslie Felperin wrote, "..there is something deeply soothing about RBG, a documentary that, like its subject, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is eminently sober, well-mannered, highly intelligent, scrupulous and just a teeny-weeny bit reassuringly dull." [13]
Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020. She was nominated by President Bill Clinton to replace retiring justice Byron White, and at the time was viewed as a moderate consensus-builder. Ginsburg was the first Jewish woman and the second woman to serve on the Court, after Sandra Day O'Connor. During her tenure, Ginsburg authored the majority opinions in cases such as United States v. Virginia (1996), Olmstead v. L.C. (1999), Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services, Inc. (2000), and City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York (2005). Later in her tenure, Ginsburg received attention for passionate dissents that reflected liberal views of the law. She was popularly dubbed "the Notorious R.B.G.", a moniker she later embraced.
Miriam Leder is an American film and television director and producer; she is noted for her action films and use of special effects. She has directed the films The Peacemaker (1997), Deep Impact (1998), Pay It Forward (2000), and On the Basis of Sex (2018). She was the first female graduate of the AFI Conservatory, in 1973. She has been nominated for ten Emmy Awards, winning two.
Jane Carol Ginsburg is an American attorney. She is the Morton L. Janklow Professor of Literary and Artistic Property Law at the Columbia Law School. She also directs the law school's Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts. In 2011, Ginsburg was elected to the British Academy.
RBG may refer to:
United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515 (1996), is a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States struck down the long-standing male-only admission policy of the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in a 7–1 decision. Justice Clarence Thomas, whose son was enrolled at the university at the time, recused himself.
Martin David Ginsburg was an American lawyer who specialized in tax law and was the husband of American lawyer and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He taught law at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., and was of counsel in the Washington, D.C., office of the American law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson.
Irin Carmon is an Israeli-American journalist and commentator. She is a senior correspondent at New York Magazine, and a CNN contributor. She is co-author of Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Previously, she was a national reporter at MSNBC, covering women, politics, and culture for the website and on air. She was a visiting fellow in the Program for the Study of Reproductive Justice at Yale Law School.
Herma Hill Kay was the Barbara Nachtrieb Armstrong Professor of Law at UC Berkeley School of Law. She previously served as dean of Boalt from 1992 to 2000. She specialized in family law and conflict of laws.
My Own Words is a 2016 book by American Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her biographers Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams. The book is a collection of Bader Ginsburg's speeches and writings dating back to the eighth grade. It was Bader Ginsburg's first book since becoming a Supreme Court Justice in 1993.
Shana Knizhnik is an American lawyer and author from Philadelphia. She is best known for her New York Times bestselling book, Notorious R.B.G.: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, co-written with MSNBC reporter Irin Carmon.
On the Basis of Sex is a 2018 American biographical legal drama film based on the life and early cases of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was the second woman to serve as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Directed by Mimi Leder and written by Daniel Stiepleman, it stars Felicity Jones as Ginsburg. Armie Hammer, Justin Theroux, Jack Reynor, Cailee Spaeny, Sam Waterston, and Kathy Bates feature in supporting roles.
Won't You Be My Neighbor? is a 2018 American documentary film about the life and guiding philosophy of Fred Rogers, the host and creator of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, directed by Morgan Neville. The trailer for the film debuted on what would have been Rogers' 90th birthday, March 20, 2018.
Califano v. Goldfarb, 430 U.S. 199 (1977), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court, which held that the different treatment of men and women mandated by 42 U.S.C. § 402(f)(1)(D) constituted invidious discrimination against female wage earners by affording them less protection for their surviving spouses than is provided to male employees, and therefore violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The case was brought by a widower who was denied survivor benefits on the grounds that he had not been receiving at least one-half support from his wife when she died. Justice Brennan delivered the opinion of the court, ruling unconstitutional the provision of the Social Security Act which set forth a gender-based distinction between widows and widowers, whereby Social Security Act survivors benefits were payable to a widower only if he was receiving at least half of his support from his late wife, while such benefits based on the earnings of a deceased husband were payable to his widow regardless of dependency. The Court found that this distinction deprived female wage earners of the same protection that a similarly situated male worker would have received, violating due process and equal protection.
Charles E. Moritz v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 469 F.2d 466 (1972), was a case before the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in which the Court held that discrimination on the basis of sex constitutes a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. Charles Moritz had claimed a tax deduction for the cost of a caregiver for his invalid mother and the Internal Revenue Service had denied the deduction. The law specifically allowed such a deduction, but only for women and formerly married men, which Moritz was not.
Scalia/Ginsburg is a 2015 comic opera by composer-librettist Derrick Wang about the relationship between United States Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Called "a dream come true" by Justice Ginsburg, the opera has been broadcast nationally on the radio in the United States, produced in the United States and internationally, and featured on Live with Carnegie Hall.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, died from complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer on September 18, 2020, at the age of 87. Her death received immediate and significant public attention; a vigil at the Supreme Court plaza in Washington, D.C., was held that same evening. Memorials and vigils were held in several U.S. cities, including Chicago, New York City, and San Francisco.
The statue of Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a 7 ft (2.1 m) bronze statue of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court. It was installed outside 445 Albee Square in Downtown Brooklyn's City Point in New York City on March 12, 2021. The statue was moved to South Brooklyn Health in October 2022 and is located inside the lobby of the facility's Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hospital, which opened on May 2, 2023.
Sisters in Law: How Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World is a 2015 non-fiction book by Linda Hirshman. The book examines the legal careers and judicial records of Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the first and second women appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Ruth: Justice Ginsburg in Her Own Words is an 2019 American documentary film, directed and produced by Freida Lee Mock, written by Mock and M.A. Golán. It follows Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second female Supreme Court of the United States Associate Justice.
My Name Is Pauli Murray is an 2021 American documentary film, directed by Betsy West and Julie Cohen, written by West, Cohen, Talleah Bridges McMahon and Cinque Northern. It follows the life of lawyer and activist Pauli Murray.