The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter - Movie Review Example

The director also incorporates color-filmed interviews of five women working in the defense plants during World War II including Wanita Allen, Gladys Belcher, Lyn Childs, Lola Weixel, and Margaret Wright. Most importantly, the documentary offers these women’s views about the wartime propaganda relating to female defense workers of the period. The wartime experiences offered by these ‘Rosies’ clearly reflect the general mood of the women working in defense plants of the U.S. during World War II, because they belonged to different backgrounds such as Illinois, Arkansas farms, Brooklyn, and Detroit and they include three black women and two white.

Therefore, The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter has been highly regarded for its life-like presentation as well as views of the condition of the women working in defense plants, and this documentary film has been an important topic of discussion since its original release in 1980.Through the interviews with these ‘Rosies’, the audience becomes conscious about the unusual working conditions created by the high-pressured war production drive. The views of the women working in defense plants also help the viewers in recognizing various threats to women’s liberation during the period.

“The film suggests that in the manipulation of public images of wartime women, the government, employers, and media were pushing hard the traditional view of Woman as Housewife to suppress the runaway implications of women doing men's work so successfully, with the pride and camaraderie that wartime working conditions engendered.” (Davenport) As the documentary projects the women being interviewed in their present environment, the viewers get a convincing illustration of their condition during World War II.

In a reflective analysis of the various important scenes presented in the film, it becomes lucid that the accounts offered by the five splendidly vigorous, intelligent, attractive, and articulate women make the film highly convincing to the modern viewers. Various scenes of the film present these ‘Rosies’ vigorously narrating their experiences with pleasing nostalgia and detached bitterness. The director mixes the memories narrated by these women with the realities of the period using old news, films, recruiting trailers, etc.

In short, Connie Field has been effective in providing a convincing illustration of the condition of the women working in defense plants during World War II through the documentary film The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter.