Natalie Portman is set to star in a film biopic of feminist and legal pioneer Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but she has delayed filming to insist on something she believes is of primary importance: that the director is a woman.
Bader Ginsburg, the second ever female Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court and the first ever Jewish woman, told her former clerk, Justice Goodwin Liu, about the hold-up at a legal convention in Washington: “Natalie Portman came to talk to me about this, and we had a very good conversation,” she said, explaining that, “one thing, [interestingly], that she insisted on, it held up the project for awhile. She said, ‘I want the director to be a woman. There are not enough women in this industry. There are many talented out there.’ And now they do have a woman director.”
It has been reported that Marielle Heller, who directed The Diary Of A Teenage Girl, is in talks to direct the film, which is titled On the Basis of Sex. The film tracks Bader Ginsburg’s career, from her position as the leader of the Women’s Rights Project to landmark cases at the Supreme Court, including her work to establish that the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment applies to gender, and her subsequent appointment to the US Supreme Court.
Despite not being active online herself, Bader Ginsburg has become an unlikely internet personality in recent years. A Tumblr blog called Notorious RGB has been posting fan art and Bader Ginsburg’s famously scathing dissents since June 2013.
In making this demand, Natalie Portman is adding her voice to a growing number of women who are calling out sexism in the fashion industry. Carey Mulligan recently condemned sexist casting practices, Kristen Stewart described Hollywood as “disgustingly sexist“, and Maggie Gyllenhaal revealing that she is considered too old to be the on-screen love interest of men twice her age.
Credits
Text Charlotte Gush
Photography Mira (on the wall) via Flickr