RBG

Plots: The exceptional life and career of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who has developed a breathtaking legal legacy while becoming an unexpected pop culture icon. At the age of 84, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has developed a breathtaking legal legacy while becoming an unexpected pop culture icon. But without a definitive Ginsburg biography, the unique personal journey of this diminutive, quiet warrior’s rise to the nation’s highest court has been largely unknown, even to some of her biggest fans – until now. RBG is a revelatory documentary exploring Ginsburg’s exceptional life and career from Betsy West and Julie Cohen, and co-produced by Storyville Films and CNN Films. The life, both professional and personal, of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, nicknamed “Notorious RBG” by her biographers and followers, is presented. On the professional side, most of the focus on her career is as a lawyer and ultimately in 1993 only the second woman ever appointed as a Justice of the US Supreme Court, a position she still holds today at age eighty-five. Much of that work centers on eliminating gender discrimination – both of females and males – under the law, many policies, especially implemented by privileged white men, inherently discriminating based on what are seen as stereotypical gender roles in society. Although seen as a liberal leaning justice, she is seen even more as a consensus builder among her supreme court colleagues. It is in that role that she has formed an unlikely friendship with conservative leaning justice Antonin Scalia. That role of consensus builder changed when the balance in the court shifted radically to the right, she instead feeling compelled to voice her dissenting view to her colleagues in that continuation of the want for equality for all. Her legal ferocity belies the fact of her diminutive physical stature and generally soft-spoken nature. On the personal side, she was married for over fifty years to fellow lawyer and law school colleague Martin D. Ginsburg until his death in 2010, with he having deferring to her more successful law career despite his own success as a tax lawyer. Their household defied those stereotypical gender roles in certain respects, at a time in society where it would have been considered unique. Her love of opera is also shown, she having appeared in one opera herself in a non-singing role.