Hollywood Vs Silkwood Analysis

History vs. Hollywood: Silkwood

The film Silkwood is a historical drama that recounts the heroic yet tragic tale of Karen Silkwood, who fought against the suffocating and debilitating chains of bureaucracy. She risked her life to prove that the company that her employers were failing to work in the interests of its employees or its customers. The movie depicts Karen’s toil in the Kerr-McGee Cimarron Fuel Fabrication Site, where she works under unsanitary and often unsafe conditions. Silkwood portrays the decrepit house that she inhabits alongside her boyfriend and her friend. Over the course of the movie, Karen becomes a union activist who ultimately discovers that the company is cutting corners whenever possible: Photographs of faulty fuel

One such difference can be found in the fact that, throughout the film, people smoke virtually everywhere: Karen smokes while holding her young child,; she smokes as she’s being diagnosed with radiation poisoning; factory workers smoke while readying themselves for a day on the job. The prevalence of cigarettes in Silkwood speaks to the acute lack of knowledge regarding cancer in the 70s. Casual sexism--another unfortunate aspect of 70s culture--makes frequent appearances throughout the film. For instance, during a meeting with the union, Karen is ignored by many union leaders when she tries to express the concerns of the workers. (Ironically, worker’s rights are, of course, the entire point of any union meeting.) Although casual sexism is still rampant in modern society, women larger garner more respect from their male counterparts than they did in the 70s. . In fact, gender equality is a recurring theme throughout the

One such discrepancy can be found in the name of her friend: In the movie she was called Dolly Pelliker, yet her real name was Dusty. One can only assume the Silkwood screenwriter believed ‘Dolly’ to be more romantic than the less-alluring ‘Dusty.’ One true part of her friend’s portrayal is Dusty’s sexuality. In the movie Dolly’s sexuality is a point of controversy in the film, as it certainly must have been Dusty’s real life, since she was openly gay in a small town in Texas. While much progress was being made for gay rights during the 70s, LGBT relationships were still stigmatized and vilified by many people. Another important discrepancy between reality and Hollywood’s portrayal of it can be found in union leadership. While Silkwood depicts multiple women in positions of power within the company union, in all actuality Karen Silkwood was the only woman who held such a position. Since women in positions of leadership were rarer in the 1970’s, this is an interesting omission. Silkwood’s era marked the rise of second-wave feminism; a primary issue addressed by second-wave feminists was sexism in the workplace as well as the importance of increasing the number of female leadership in the