The Post (2017)

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Meryl Streep starred as Katharine Graham who helmed the family-owned Washington Post and Tom Hanks portrayed the newspaper's executive editor, Ben Bradlee in The Post, a movie about the efforts of the Washington Post in publishing the Pentagon Papers (confidential government documents about the Vietnam War) in 1971.

The movie obviously had political and historical themes in it. But aside from these, it can also be said that The Post is also about women empowerment. Graham was the first woman publisher of a major daily newspaper. The movie showed how she struggled to keep the newspaper afloat despite being seen as a typical member of the "women-who-lunch". Yes, she was portrayed to have flinched a whole lot during the movie, but who wouldn't? Her family legacy and her friendships were at stake if she chose to publish the controversial news painstakingly gathered by her staff.

Graham was the woman with all the power but not in the spotlight. That spotlight shone directly on Bradlee, who helmed the newspaper during those stomach-churning times for journalism. He stood by the story developed by the journalists and argued with the Post's lawyers (who, of course, saw the legal risks of publishing the explosive stories). 

Steven Spielberg's masterful storytelling allowed audiences (including me) to watch in suspense, even though most viewers (not including me) knew how the story ended: other national newspapers all over the country ran the story in support of both the Post and NYT. The First Amendment of the Constitution was upheld and the general public began to see just how deep the U.S. involvement, through four administrations (presidencies of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson), in the Vietnam Second Indochina War really was. A tumultuous time during Nixon's presidency, even though he wasn't involved in the Pentagon Papers. In fact, it was during his administration when the Vietnam War ended.

I thought that the movie was over... until the epilogue: a year after the Pentagon Papers stories were published, the Watergate Scandal happened.

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