After resisting mightily, I was finally pressured into seeing the new Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown with my family. After the movie, my twelve-year-old niece said that her two favorite characters were (1) a woman in the front row of Dylan's "electric" performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival dancing/running-in-place in her seat; and (2) Toshi.
Toshi was Pete Seeger's wife, and I think my niece sensed there was something odd about her ubiquitous presence in the movie, virtually without any lines, characterization, or active role in the goings-on.
And then I came upon this great, funny, and incisive Substack article by comedy writer Merrill Markoe, with a full explanation of the movie's Toshi and why her presence in the movie seemed off.
Markoe describes the scenes in which Toshi is present but nearly silent — merely Seeger's wife. And then one scene strikes her as especially strange.
"The next time we see her, she is at the small television studio where Pete Seeger's PBS television show, "Rainbow Quest."is about to begin taping an episode. In this scene, we see Pete interviewing a guest he apparently had to book at the last minute after Bob cancelled unexpectedly.
As Pete gamely proceeds to host his show with his substitute guest, we see many, MANY shots of Toshi back stage. She seems to be everywhere, sitting or standing, looking either worried or pleased. She wears a variety concerned expressions but she never speaks a single word. …By now, if you are me, you have begun to ask the question "Why are we seeing so much of a character who never speaks a word? If she is not important enough to have any lines, why is she also so omni-present in the movie? Is she meant to seem like kind of a Yoko Ono presence… attached at the hip to a great man? Why is she in EVERY important scene in this damn movie, but never given ANYTHING to say?""
So Markoe looked Toshi up and found that Toshi Seeger was far more than the supportive and observant wife of Pete Seeger — in that incident at the television show, she was the director and producer of the show! But all we see from her in this scene is a strangely large number of wife-reaction-shots. In fact, Toshi Seeger was an Emmy-award winning filmmaker, producer, activist, and helped set up the Newport Folk Festival.
Markoe says:
"In summary, the two-man creative team of James Mangold and Jay Cocks, who directed and wrote the script of 'A Complete Unknown' respectively, managed to reduce the Emmy award winning producer, director, political activist, documentarian and musicologist, Toshi Seeger, to what I suspect may have been some kind of DEI set decorating. We get to know her as someone who really doesn't need to resort to speaking words. It's more than enough for her to show concern and smile supportively."
We need another movie only about Toshi Seeger, in which she produces and directs movies, TV shows, and festivals, while Timothée Chalomet and Edward Norton look on in glowing reaction shots.
I propose an addendum to the Bechdel Test: the Markoe Test: Does the movie have a female character whose only role is to look on lovingly, approvingly, worriedly, or disapprovingly, as male characters do things?
I recommend reading Markoe's article, which is updated with input from the author of the book on which the movie was based, and from a close friend of the late Toshi Seeger.
