What's Your Point, Honey?

Using the Guess Who's “American Woman” as its theme song, this upbeat documentary profiles seven likeable young women who aspire to a career in politics. Feminist pioneer Gloria Steinem says here that she didn't consider running for office, because she had so few role models. Now, the White House Project (headed up by Marie Wilson, cofounder of the Take Your Daughter to Work Day, who likely took inspiration from Steinem, the guiding force behind Ms. magazine) has joined with the teen publication COSMOgirl! for Project 2024, an initiative aimed at encouraging young women to become involved in politics. In What's Your Point, Honey?, producers-turned-directors Susan Toffler (The Cost of Living) and Amy Sewell (Mad Hot Ballroom) focus on summer interns Jen, Cat, Patrice, Margot, Lexie, Sonali, and Agxibel: racially, culturally, and geographically diverse, these young women all earned their positions through an essay contest, and while some of the jobs are less politically-oriented than others, all aim to help develop leadership skills. Toffler and Sewell contrast the experiences of the central septet with preteen and teen interviewers asking New Yorkers whether a woman could (or should) lead the U.S. (one young male respondent suggests that “women like peace more”). In COSMOgirl!'s article about the 2006 contest winners, several predict that Jen, a community-oriented Pennsylvanian who interns at the U.N., may be the best bet to run for president in 2024. Incidentally, the film's title comes from a comic panel by Cincinnati Enquirer cartoonist Jim Borgman in which Uncle Sam replies to Hillary Clinton's observation that female heads of state cover the globe. Highly recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (K. Fennessy)