Two seemingly unconnected things happened this week, one at the Cannes film festival on the French Riviera, the other in the US District Court in Washington. The events concerned two women – Susan Sarandon and Francesca Albanese. So what connects an icon of the screen with an Italian human-rights lawyer, and why does it matter?
Both women have been in the news over the past year for the wrong reasons: Albanese because the US Government attempted to silence her on Palestine; Sarandon because the US film industry attempted to silence her on Palestine.
If you haven’t been following Sarandon’s films lately it is because there haven’t been many. And this is not for the usual reason (she is a woman no longer in her 20s). Rather her defence of Palestine has seen her blacklisted by studio heads. McCarthyism anyone?
Albanese was ‘sanctioned’ by the Trump regime last year, after she called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to pursue war-crimes prosecutions against Israeli and US nationals. Among other things, this has stopped her from entering America and using American and other banks.
Both women have had a bit of a victory this week. The bosses at Cannes decided to send a very clear message to the US industry, and used a shot from Sarandon’s now 35-year-old film, Thelma and Louise, as the hero(ine) image for the international festival. In Washington, US District Judge Richard Leon ruled Trump administration sanctions violated Albanese’s First Amendment rights.
Both women embody a spirited sense of defiance steeped in deep moral conviction, and both are worthy of celebration. Hugely powerful global institutions tried to shut them down, and ultimately failed. While neither is entirely in the clear, they have made, and will continue to make, a mark that cannot be erased.
I think you have guessed my best bit for the week. That image, of Susan Sarandon and co-star Geena Davis, in the epic of feminist defiance, beaming out over the French Riviera and the world.
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Catriona Jackson is the Chief Executive and Editor of Pearls and Irritations.