Review: What’s Your Point, Honey?

In all likelihood Hillary Clinton isn’t going to be the first female vice-president of the United States. A combined effort between The White House Project and COSMOgirl, Project 2024 has been working to put a woman in the White House in 16 years. Amy Sewell and Susan Toffler’s documentary, What’s Your Point, Honey, looks at seven potential “candidates” while also attempting examination of gender roles and expectations of women in U.S. society.

Unfortunately, the film’s title is too appropriate. It portrays itself as being an important statement but is really a rambling, unfocused mess that misses the mark at every turn. While touching on potentially fascinating ideas such as the lack of female leadership in the country and the depiction of women in advertising (better examined in Jean Kilbourne’s Killing Us Softly series), homey scenes of the seven girls in their everyday life comprises the bulk of the film. None of the young women impresses viewers with their personality or drive. They come across as rather vapid, disillusioned youths who like to say, “I’m going to be President” but don’t know what it takes to get to Washington DC. Too often they come across like the three little girls in the film who make voting booths out of crepe paper and cardboard; they’re playing make-believe politics with little understanding of the real world.

Hillary Clinton and her demonization in the media remain unaddressed, making the elephant in the room the real star of the film. Rather than stamping their feet and saying, “things are unfair,” it’s up to Sewell and Toffler to prove it. A far better film would have illuminated the glass ceiling and shown that there are young women and girls destined to break through it.