Lily Tomlin, Jane Wagner Board 'Acting Like Women' as
SkimNews Take
Tomlin and Wagner's involvement reframes a marginalized 1970s feminist art history as mainstream cultural canon — and routing the debut through a free Getty screening rather than commercial release signals the project is positioned as institutional preservation, not entertainment product.
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- Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner signed on as executive producers of "Acting Like Women," Cheri Gaulke's documentary about the emergence of female performance art in the late 1970s, ahead of a free screening Sunday, July 26 at The Getty Center in Los Angeles.
- The film held its world premiere at the Bentonville Film Festival and screened at Frameline in San Francisco; the Getty event will be preceded by a viewing of archival objects from the Woman's Building, the 1970s-'80s hub of female-created performance art in LA.
- Director Cheri Gaulke — a key figure in the movement who co-founded Feminist Art Workers and Sisters Of Survival — will participate in a conversation with Getty Research Institute chief curator Glenn Phillips at the Getty screening.
- Tomlin and Wagner said in a statement the film shows "the struggle and the camaraderie of a large group of feminist artists" and called it "a must see" being released "after almost 50 years."
- The documentary also covers backlash against transgressive art like Robert Mapplethorpe's work, led by Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina; in the trailer, Gaulke notes, "It feels a little like exactly what's happening right now."
- Gaulke's work has been presented at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in LA, and in a Smithsonian-touring exhibition; consulting producer on the film is Zackary Drucker, with an original score by Miriam Cutler.
Why it matters: Tomlin and Wagner's involvement brings mainstream visibility to a nearly 50-year-old artistic legacy, with the July 26 Getty screening pairing the film with archival objects from the Woman's Building itself — effectively restoring public access to an under-documented movement. The pairing of Gaulke's 1970s feminist history with consulting producer Zackary Drucker, a prominent trans artist, signals cross-generational continuity in performance art's progressive traditions.
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