My favorite mental image from "The Roosevelts" so far

[markpkessinger]

Teddy Roosevelt, ever the effete, upper class Easterner even as he undertook his adventures in the West and beyond, riding a round-up with cowboys in the Badlands of South Dakota, exhorting a fellow cowboy to, "Hasten forward quickly there!" I guess that was the equivalent among the upper class gentry of the day to, "Giddy up!" or "move your ass!."

[markpkessinger]

1. Somehow, I picture all of the other cowboys on horseback . . .

. . . and even the cattle being rounded up, coming to a dead stop and looking at each other as someone asks, "Did he really just say that?"

[Misskittycat]

2. Meryl Streep Is Amazing As the Voice of Eleanor Roosevelt

I finally looked at the credits last night. I was stunned that the Eleanor voice was done by Meryl Streep. It was so like Eleanor's actual voice and so different from Meryl's normal speaking voice. She is a wonderful actress!

[markpkessinger]

5. I've been watching online . . .

. . . and I didn't really bother to watch the credits until the third episode, and that's when I noticed it was Meryl Streep. And then I said to myself, "Of course it is Meryl Streep! -- I mean, who else would it be?"

Streep's voice is pitched a bit lower than Eleanor's of course, but Strerep's genius with things like this is she never goes for an exact replication (which is usually impossible in any case). Rather, she captures distinctive inflections, rhythms of speech, the relative rises and falls in pitch, even the way Mrs. Roosevelt had of drawing certain words out for emphasis. And she gets enough of those aspects to make it sound VERY convincing!

I have been a fan of Meyrl Streep since I first saw her in the 1978 move, "The Deer Hunter," in a supporting role.

[thucythucy]

3. My favorite thus far has been of FDR swimming in a pool with other polio survivors,

most of them children.

Warm Springs was an amazing place, and played a unique and important role in the development of the disability rights movement. A number of the most successful and committed advocates were graduates--Fred Fay is one example, Hugh Gallagher and Lorenzo Milam are others. It was one of the few, if not the ONLY place on the continent where disability was "normal" and where people with disabilities themselves had a role to play in how their rehabilitation and treatment was conducted. (Gallaudet was another, but there are huge differences I need not go into here).

Just look at the difference between how doctors treated FDR, and how FDR's "people first" approach to polio rehab was applied. The doctors of that era insisted on painful, hours long grueling exercises that--as it turned out--probably did more harm than good. On the program last night the Warm Springs regimen was described as including swimming, mineral baths, massage, and GENTLE exercises to stretch atrophied muscles. And the tasks to be mastered, when possible--including climbing stairs independently, getting into and out of a car while using a wheelchair--were based on real world needs, not some bogus set of make-work exercises so often favored by the medical profession of the time. The main flaw of Warm Springs: being in Georgia, it was racially segregated, with African Americans getting second class treatment. Just goes to show that there hasn't been a single aspect of American life that hasn't been poisoned by racism.

The film of FDR in the pool with those kids is priceless. Remember too, this was during an era when polio was treated like the plague--when people were often afraid to be in close proximity with survivors, even years after their initial infection.

FDR's work on disability alone is worthy of admiration. And I'm glad to see the importance of his disability--and the work he did with other people with disabilities--being recognized as seminal and central to the leader he would become as president.

Great series thus far. Compare the Roosevelts to the Kochs and you can see what a difference a progressive outlook can make, even among the 1%.

[eissa]

4. Am I the only one

who completely forgot that FDR was nearly assassinated just before taking office? The thought of him not at the helm during those years is terrifying.

[UTUSN]

6. *My* favorite mental image: The local radio wingnut talkshow host watching it

He said on the air yesterday that he was watching "parts of it, mostly about TR" (because he wouldn't want to watch panegyrics for FDR, natch). He took special, hysterical wingnut note of TR's interpretation that the government can do anything NOT PROHIBITED by the Constitution, in contrast to JEFFERSON's that it could only do things specified.

So my favorite mental image is the wingnut fixated on the screen and gnashing and grinding his teeth, while TR comes off just about every bit as Progressive/Lib as FDR. Haha!1