Chisholm '72: Unbought & Unbossed

Chisholm '72: Unbought & Unbossed is a short-ish documentary about the 72 campaign of Shirley Chisholm, which has extra interest now, considering we have both a woman and a black running for president (although not both like last time), not to mention a Latino, a handsome man, two caterpillars, the plagiarist owned by credit card companies, a Leprechaun on acid, and Andy Rooney without the TV show. That's not even starting on the adultering cross-dressing racist, the terrible and lazy actor, the crazy racist, the even more crazy racist, the panderer, the former fatty who doesn't believe in evolution, the Catholic who wishes he were Evangelical so he wouldn't be hated by them, the insane guy who wants to abolish the federal reserve and thought that fighting the Civil War was a mistake, and the animal abusing Mormon. Unfortunately, I won in the liberal state of Virginia and My hearing aid stopped working when I was tired and had to go to the bathroom both dropped out. Man, I really should have just moved on after that first bit. Oh well, it's not like it's not obvious I'm a Democrat. Anyway, Shirley Chisholm was an impressive person, and I just wish the film were longer. It won a Peabody, so you know that it's good. Of course, I'm biased, due to being a huge politics nerd, but those long shot important runs seem a lot less bad when they happened before rather than now. If we could just get rid of He Who Tosses Rocks In Ponds, Democratic debates would have a little more time to focus on candidates who have a chance, so I can understand the desire to only debate among those who have a chance. However, I like that she pushed to get respect even though she was lacking the most important things that get you respect in this society: low melanin levels and a penis (with no breasts, because transgendered individuals don't get a lot of respect, just strangled and stuffed under a bed to be found four days later, from the fascinating documentary Paris Is Burning). Anyway (again), sure, the film glosses over her obvious personality conflicts with, umm, pretty much everyone in politics who wasn't working for her campaign, and her slight speech impediment, but it still paints a portrait of a strong woman who won't take "You're a black woman, just accept your third class position in society" and does something about it.