Women of '69: Unboxed (2014) User Reviews

Interesting perspective of the impact of the '60s from alumni of Skidmore class of '69

[bobspez · 8/10 · 26 October 2016]

I found this interesting as I graduated from UCLA in 1968. I also visited family in NYC in '65 and '67 and spent a couple of weeks in Boston in '69.

At the time I felt the East Coast was a couple of years behind the West Coast in terms of the social revolution. It was an interesting time because our high school years were pretty firmly rooted in the 1950's and our college years were firmly rooted in the cultural revolution of the new music, clothes, attitudes, politics and morals.

By 1970 the dream of the cultural and political revolution as depicted in Easy Rider was pretty much over, what remained was sex, drugs and rock and roll, and needing to find a job.

Being in a public college, the University of California, I don't think the majority of students there were thinking about their place in the world as these ladies were. We were thinking of surviving, getting out of school and getting on with life (with the draft hanging over your head if you were a male).

This documentary made me remember that I had very little success in forming relationships with college girls. I mostly dated girls who went to work after high school, secretaries, clerks, etc. In 1973 I married a girl who worked as a secretary, and have been married to her for 43 years now. To me the college girls seemed somewhat neurotic and confused. Working girls were down to earth, easy to talk to, liked to dress up, look pretty, and go out and have a good time. They didn't have anything to prove.

This movie seemed to reinforce that impression as many of the participants seemed dissatisfied with their lives. They achieved success in the world of work, but many seemed to feel they paid a price in terms of family and relationships.

The Class of 1969 looks back

[barryrd · 8/10 · 16 July 2016]

What are the women of the 1960's like now and how were their lives affected by their experience living in that decade and through the women's movement? The documentary answers these questions by talking to a group of them individually. The fact that they were affluent and politically liberal was their common denominator in the 1960's but since then, their lives took different paths. The women interviewed, who were graduates of Skidmore College in 1969, have passed their 65th birthday and they look back on what has happened to them since then. They protested the war in Vietnam, followed politics, experienced the rock culture of the time and took part in the civil rights cause. Their education and affluence was a springboard to what we would consider highly successful lives but their main goal was to be free from the conventions that used to dictate how women should conduct their lives. Generally, they realized their ambitions, having achieved promotions, run election campaigns, received citations and awards, academic tenure and other standards of success. However, it was not without hardship, tears and the hard school of experience. Family relationships, having or not having children, workplace expectations, etc. resulted in different outcomes. There were no set formulas in their lives. They seemed to feel they had done their best although not without some regrets. They were generally modest about their accomplishments and looked forward to the last phase of their lives: learning new languages, or enjoying a new relationship, similar to many of their generation. These women seemed content with the sense that they helped to leave a better world for their children and continue to take on new challenges. Nothing particularly surprising here and no real evidence that they affected change any more than what would have happened anyway with less affluent and less educated representatives of their generation. That is my conclusion. The movie doesn't express an opinion. It leads me to think that the sixties represented "sound and fury signifying nothing" to paraphrase Shakespeare. The greatest generation wasn't the sixties but the youth of the nineteen thirties and forties who lived through depression and war and in turn gave birth to the baby boomers. The jury is largely out on the boomers, my own generation, whose self indulgence was mainly a way station to the material success they expected while congratulating themselves for the progress made in women's rights, which probably would have happened anyway.

if you're interested in women's lives now, don't miss Unboxed: it's not just about them—it's about all of us.

[ellen-schecter · 10/10 · 9 February 2016]

The documentary Unboxed offers us a clear-eyed view of women from the Skidmore College graduating class of 1969—a colorful and chaotic year remembered for the tumult of the anti-war and women's movements. Through candid interviews deftly woven together, we are presented with the women's hopes and dreams for their future...and sustained glimpses of where they are now, in the fullness of their lives.

By turns touching, humorous, and poignant, the film skillfully explores both the women's past and their present, providing fascinating insights Into the beginning of the Woman's Movement and the ways it affected women's lives back then—as well as its persistent influence into their futures.

The camera lingers on the expressive, idiosyncratic photographs, which were boxed in the highly unusual senior yearbook,giving the film its name. Rather than traditional portraits dressed in sweater sets and pearls, these seniors broke the mold. Each woman chose a location and costume she felt expressed her— and their choices ranged from being naked in a barrel, to being swaddled like a nun, to being garbed in black leather astride a motorcycle. Reflecting the ethos of the time, these photos captured the break-out personality of each young woman--and instead of being bound into a book were presented in a large box.

Unboxed explores in great detail, through the words of these women over forty years later, how their lives proceeded once they were literally unboxed. Peter Barton, the documentary artist who shot and directed the film, plays these photos generously against the present- day faces and words of each woman as he allows us to listen to them explore the meanings of their lives today.

Whether you're male or female or in between; whether you lived those chaotic years or not; if you're interested in women's lives now, don't miss Unboxed: it's not just about them—it's about all of us.