The documentary Confirmation is a political thriller film that is a retelling of the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination hearings. The director Rick Famuyiwa brings the viewers into the unfolding of events after Anita Hill alleged that Clarence sexually harassed her. These events happened in 1991, while also referencing to real reports and news about what happened after Clarence was a nomination for supreme court judge by George H.W Bush.
I knew about the Anita Hill case against Clarence Thomas, but I did not know the specific details of the case. This whole documentary is taking viewers into what happened. I am sure some of it was not real, like the conversation the senators had at the gym, but I am sure that the majority of the details of the case are real. I didn’t realize how complacent the male senators were when it came to Hill’s side of the story. The only senators that seem to have Hill’s upmost support are the female senators. It was very shocking to see and quite sad knowing what was going to happen at the end.
I found it interesting that the representative of the Judiciary Committee contacted Anita Hill first, to try and find something about Thomas Clarence’s relationship with women that he worked with. I never knew that they contacted her, and I believe that many people thought that she was the one to contact them. It goes to show that she isn’t doing it for publicity, but rather for the truth.
One thing I don’t like about the documentary is how fast the events move, but I suppose it is realistic to what happened when Hill’s name got exposed to the press. What I felt was missing is the impact this had on her career and professional life. I understand that the whole case made things disruptive for her. I wanted to see how it specifically caused her life to turn upside down so viewers can get a clear impact on how this has affected Hill.
This film mostly dealt with sexual harassment and shows the views reasons why women don’t often report. The implications that many of the senators and the general public had is that that it’s not serious. Many of the senators thought that she was the culprit and only wanted attention. For them, it was more troubling to try and reschedule the vote then investigating a sexual harassment claim. This implication shows to many people that sexual assault and sexual harassment are not actually crimes that need to be taken seriously. It was only mentioned once that it was a crime and it was from the investigative reporter to Joe Biden at the very beginning of the film. Other then that, it was not mentioned again.
I am not sure how we can work to bring about change. It doesn’t seem like much has changed since 1991. It seems like there has been an increase in female political figures in the local, state, and federal governments. It seemed that the same increase happened with Dr. Ford’s case against supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Other than, no change seemed to have occurred. What needs to have happened is more consequences need to be made against those who are assaulting others. There need to be more consequences, but I don’t have an answer as to how this would happen.
What can be done in order to make sure that the assaulters and harassers are facing consequences for their actions?
