When the cult of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg first surfaced five years ago, it felt light-hearted and fresh: an irresistible mix of buttoned-up legal geekery with punchy Internet humor. Each time Ginsburg issued a dissent, social media lit up with memes of her now-iconic beaded jabot and a cocked crown under the sobriquet “Notorious RBG.” The bespectacled 5'1″ Jewish grandmother was refashioned in the image of 300-pound rap legend Notorious BIG as a testament to her formidable legal mind.
Lately, though, the fawning over Ginsburg has taken on a cloying aftertaste. In the opening scene of the new Ginsburg biopic, “On the Basis of Sex, a sea of white men in indistinguishable dark suits gives way to a wide-eyed, red-lipped Felicity Jones, her hair in soft waves bouncing against her periwinkle skirt suit. The message is clear, if heavy-handed: Ginsburg is a singular feminine force in the once male-dominated legal elite. The more wide-ranging but equally exultant 2018 documentary RBG likewise paints her as peerless.
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