American Experience’s The Vote tracks the culmination of the seven-decade battle that women waged to secure the right to vote. We chatted with WGBH’s Susan Bellows, the Emmy-award-winning acting executive producer of American Experience, and Michelle Ferrari, a long-time American Experience producer and writer who won an Emmy in 2003 for Seabiscuit. The Vote will premiere Monday and Tuesday, July 6-7, 9-11pm ET. A companion immersive website will launch in late June.
What big ideas emerge in The Vote?
MF: I think there are three key takeaways: that our American democracy has been imperfect from the start and continues to evolve, that participatory democracy only works for everyone if everyone participates, and that social change — although it's often messy, complicated and painfully slow — is possible.
SB: The depth of these women’s commitment, their faith in democracy, their dedication to this cause over decades — despite incredible setbacks and obstacles — is just incredibly inspiring. In both the film and our companion digital content, we try to capture that — that these stories are not something from the distant, dusty past. For some of our online content we use a variety of strategies, such as colorization and restoration of archival imagery and footage, to extend our connection to the past in a really profound and emotional way.
Were there any surprises for you in the making of this film?
MF: The thing that was most surprising for me was that the aftermath of the Civil War, Reconstruction and Jim Crow are at the heart of this story — as is the way white supremacy acted as an enduring baffle to women's progress. It also was unexpected to me to see the way in which sexism was all bound up with racism.
SB: I don't think I had ever fully appreciated the complexity of this as a political movement. It wasn’t just about gender. It was about very difficult political strategies, very powerful divides to overcome. It's a really complex lens on America and the struggle that women faced during that time.
What went into the decision to select actress Kate Burton as the narrator?
MF: A narrator needs to be somebody you don’t get tired of listening to — someone who has the intelligence and ability to be engaging without selling. And since there were four other women's voices in the series, it was really important that the narrator complement the others while remaining distinct from them.
SB: We want to find narrators who understand how to convey a story without intruding upon it. It's really hard for most people — they are either very informational or too animated.
Will The Vote have special resonance in 2020, a US presidential election year?
MF: Many Americans believe that their right to vote is enshrined in the constitution, which is false. I hope that people come away with a greater appreciation of how contested voting rights have always been in our country and the power they have as individuals by means of voting.
SB: So many of the struggles depicted in the series are questions we continue to ask, and they become particularly acute in an election year: How will women vote, what will the women’s vote mean, are women single-issue voters? How do people form coalitions? What are effective methods of achieving political reform or change? Every scene is about one of those themes.
