Romance, Push-Ups, & a Life-Long Fight Against Sexism: The Trailer for the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Documentary RBG Is Here!

In addition to serving as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice for the last 25 years, Ruth Bader Ginsburg has become something of a pop culture icon. She’s dedicated her life to the fight against gender discrimination (among other issues) and her fiery dissents have inspired all sorts of killer memes. Also, she can probably hold a plank longer than you.

Ginsburg is the subject of a new documentary, titled simply RBG. The trailer opens with Ginsburg paraphrasing a quote from 19th Century feminist/abolitionist/attorney/judge Sarah Moore Grimké, which was also the closing line to an amicus brief she delivered to the Supreme Court on behalf of the ACLU in 1973 in the landmark gender rights case, Frontiero v. Richardson.

She says, “I ask no favor for my sex. All that I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.”

From the trailer–which reduced me to a weepy, inspired mess–it looks like we’ll get a deep dive into Ginsburg’s life and work, from interviews with Gloria Steinem and Nina Totenberg, to her 56-year-long marriage, to her intense workout routines. She also describes her time served as the only female Justice on the Supreme Court, when she says she felt like “a kindergarten teacher, having to lead her male colleagues through the issues of gender discrimination they didn’t believe existed.

I love the movie’s poster, which looks to be modeled after Ginsburg’s “dissent collar,” the special lace collar she famously wears on days when she disagrees with the court’s decision on a case.

The film was a favorite of this year’s Sundance film festival, and now it’s scheduled for a May 4th release. (Happy Star Wars Day, RBG fans!)

(image: screencap)

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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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