The Disappearance of Shere Hite

One of the things I especially love about the Sundance Film Festival is the opportunity to talk to people about all of the films being screened.  Last year many of those I spoke to mentioned The Disappearance of Shere Hite as one of their favorites so I was excited to see it yesterday afternoon at the Broadway.  I thought it was an interesting and compelling portrait of a fascinating woman who was denied her rightful legacy.  While Shere Hite was a graduate student at Columbia University in New York City during the early 1970s, she was inspired by participating in the burgeoning feminist movement to create and distribute a questionnaire about women and sexuality.  She used the results of her study to write a groundbreaking book that became a best-seller despite facing backlash from those who feared the implications of some of her conclusions.  This documentary features lots of archival footage of Hite's many appearances on news programs and talk shows defending her results and methodology and it becomes more and more uncomfortable to watch as she is viciously attacked (an ambush by Maury Povich is especially egregious).  She eventually flees to Europe and eventually dies in relative obscurity after being rejected by the publishers who initially profited from her books.  This documentary suggests that her treatment was scurrilous and that she deserves more recognition for her work.  It also suggests that the erasure of her work has led to the regression of attitudes towards women's sexuality.  I found Shere Hite to be an incredibly vibrant woman ahead of her time and I particularly enjoyed the voice-over narration by Dakota Johnson, which is taken from her writings, because it really brings her to life very vividly.  I enjoyed this thought-provoking documentary and would highly recommend it.