Town Bloody Hall

On 30 April 1971 Norman Mailer, author of , chaired a public debate between delegates of the women‘s movement in New York Town Hall. Also present were D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus who captured the now renowned discussion in their familiar direct cinema style. Behind the table we see Germaine Greer, Jill Johnston, Diana Trilling and Jacqueline Ceballos. While the audience, including heavyweights like Susan Sontag, Elizabeth Hardwicke and Betty Friedan, keep remarkably quiet, on the stage a very lively and extremely heated discussion begins in which Mailer, to give an example, ‘the male chauvinist par excellence’, is faced with the question in what colour ink he drenches his balls. But also between the panel members themselves some tough nuts are cracked. For instance, Germaine Greer, author of , unexpectedly comes up against Diane Trilling. By that time the lesbian poet Jill Johnston has already left the building, slightly indignant.