Netflix Charts: Regina King's Historical Drama On Shirley Chisholm—First Black Congresswoman—Breaks Through
A biographical drama on the life of Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman to ever be elected to Congress, has inched its way up the Netflix chart to claim the No. 7 spot on the streamer’s most-watched films list, one of several historical films to have captured audiences so far this year.
“Shirley,” first released on March 15, stars Academy Award-winning actress Regina King as Chisholm and tells the story of her road to election as a member of the House of Representatives, including pieces of her crumbling personal life, and her path to the 1972 presidential campaign trail.
The film inched its way onto the list of Netflix's most watched in the week of March 18 to March 24, landing at No. 7 with 7.1 million viewing hours last week.
"Shirley"—with the tagline "Fearless. Fierce. First."—has a 72% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and reviewers have praised King's central performance in an otherwise "formulaic" biopic that tells her story with “episodic predictability,” skipping over some of the more nuanced pieces of Chisholm's public life.
The movie is the third historical drama to move onto the Netflix most-watched list this this year: “Einstein and the Bomb,” a docudrama about the scientists' involvement in the Manhattan project, earned to weeks in the top 10 in February and "The Hill," a sports drama based on the life of aspiring baseball player Rickey Hill in the 1970s, was on the top-10 list for two weeks in January.
KEY BACKGROUND
Chisholm worked as an educator and volunteered as a political activist through the 1950s and early 60s before serving as the New York State assemblywoman from Brooklyn from 1965 to 1968. She ran for Congress in 1968 under the campaign slogan "Unbought and unbossed.” She was the only woman in her congressional first-year class and was a founding member of both the Congressional Black Caucus and the National Women's Political Caucus. In 1971, she became the first Black person to ever run for a major party's nomination for president, the first woman seeking the Democratic Party nomination (she lost to George McGovern). After leaving Congress, Chisholm co-founded what is now known as the National Organization for Women.
CRUCIAL QUOTE
“When I ran for the Congress, when I ran for president, I met more discrimination as a woman than for being black,” Chisholm said in 1982.
TANGENT
John Ridley, who wrote the screenplay for "Shirley," is responsible for several other movies highlighting the lives of Black Americans and historical events. He wrote the 2013 film "Jimi: All Is by My Side," a musical based on the life of Jimi Hendrix, and won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay for the 2013 movie "12 Years a Slave." Ridley wrote and produced the mini series "Five Days at Memorial" detailing the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina at Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans, and is slated to work with Alicia Keys on an untitled musical drama series for Showtime.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR
More biopics on the way. Timothée Chalamet is set to play Bob Dylan in a film based on the musicians life titled "A Complete Unknown," Jeremy Allen White of "The Bear" will play Bruce Springsteen in a movie about the making of the 1982 film "Nebraska" and Sebastian Stan will star as a young Donald Trump in a movie titled “The Apprentice” from Ali Abbasi, an Iranian filmmaker.
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