Deadlocked: How America Shaped the Supreme Court is a documentary from director Dawn Porter. It was released on Showtime, so depending on what sort of Paramount+ access you might have (say... to watch Star Trek), it may already be available to you. The four-part series is a well-edited collection of interviews with prominent legal scholars, detailing exactly how we got to the current Supreme Court membership we have.
The series begins with a look at the Warren Court era of the 1960s, the period that most people -- even casual observers or non-observers of the Supreme Court -- think of as the "ideal" of what the Court can and ought to be. While the documentary shows just what the Court could do at that time, it also shows that in the moment, it became increasingly unpopular for doing so: the first domino being pushed in the chain. From there, the documentary tracks every new justice to be appointed to the Court, leading up to today.
As you may know, I'm really a Supreme Court junkie. I suppose I've always considered it a natural extension of the fact that to an alarming degree, the amount of civil rights I personally enjoy stems directly from the whims of the nine people who happen to be part of that group at any given time. But the thing is, I really think that more people should be Supreme Court junkies. And for the same reason.
I would certainly think that the rulings handed down from the Court over the last couple of years would shine a brilliant spotlight on that fact. Whether you're LGBT, non-religious... or a student, a woman, or just someone who enjoys drinking clean water, there's a Court ruling in just the last two years alone that notably carved out a big chunk of your freedoms. So if you're not really aware of who's currently a Supreme Court Justice -- and whether you would have voted for the people who put them on the bench -- I highly recommend you rectify that. And this documentary series is a good way to do that.
As a Court junkie, there was really nothing in this documentary that was new to me. It certainly didn't go as deep as I personally would have liked. Still, it's very well made, featuring insightful interview subjects throughout. Heading into a national election year... well, it's not that I needed the reminder of what's at stake. It was welcome all the same.
I give Deadlocked a B. If you're looking for a "crash course" on the subject, you'd be hard-pressed to find something else that packs in so much, so clearly, in such a tight package.
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