While living in a Boston flat with a beautiful view, filmmaker Laurie Kahn-Leavitt had a friend who would climb up to her window, jump in and say, “Let’s go see a movie.”
Kahn-Leavitt was exposed to films from countries such as Japan, Africa, Portugal and South America, and what began as an education became a passion. She began to work on films, as a researcher and producer. Eventually, she directed her first film, “A Midwife’s Tale.”
Kahn-Leavitt’s second and most recent film, “Tupperware!” is about the opportunities a plastic bowl created for women.
Screened on Tuesday night at Stephens College as part of its “Citizen Jane: Women in Film” series, “Tupperware!” delves into the heart of a self-made businesswoman, Brownie Wise, and the imaginative but reclusive Earl Tupper. The film chronicles the world Wise created for women who were housewives or worked in factories by inventing a marketing scheme to sell the product at Tupperware parties. These parties allowed women to have fun while making money, have a little time away from their children and oftentimes become the breadwinner of the family.
Tupper generally kept his face out of the Tupperware limelight, and it was Wise, with her classy dresses and winning smile, who became the face of Tupperware. Kahn-Leavitt attended the screening and afterward answered questions.
There was a lot of laughter during the screening, in which about 35 people attended. The audience was a fairly even mix of college students and community members.
During the question-and-answer session, Kahn-Leavitt told stories not only about making the film but also about her education. She started out as an architecture major but discovered she couldn’t draw. She said her other experiences included studying at Oxford, teaching briefly at Harvard and working on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.”
She said her challenges while making “Tupperware!” included getting interviews with the children of Tupperware women and men as well as scheduling an interview with Wise’s son, Jerry Wise, which she said took persistence because he canceled several interviews. Securing the rights to use Tupperware theme music also proved to be a challenge, she said.
As Tupperware got its start, Wise built her dream of locating the headquarters in sunny Florida, where she held the jubilees with themes such as children’s fairy tales, beauty pageants and being queen for a day.
At such events, Wise gave women the opportunity to win prizes — but not without digging for them, literally. In one jubilee, women were given shovels to dig in the dirt for prizes hidden in, fittingly, Tupperware bowls. The prizes included mink coats and other luxury items.
But the jubilees were not all fun and games, because Wise thought the Tupperware Ladies needed to be challenged as well. Toward the end of each jubilee, the women had to take tests relating to Tupperware, and if they passed, they attended a graduation where they walked across a stage wearing a sash. For many, as told in the film, these graduations were emotional, because some women never had the opportunity to graduate from high school or college. One woman became choked up and teary-eyed during an interview when reminiscing about the graduations.
As Kahn-Leavitt shows it in her film, Wise seemed to have it all. But her dedication to the business left little room for a personal life; in 1957, she was fired from the company. The film suggests the reason for her dismissal didn’t seem to make much sense, because she made Tupperware a household item and gave women a chance to excel.
But Tupper thought she was secretive with company handlings. On his first trip to Florida — he was always invited to the jubilees but never went — Tupper went exclusively to fire Wise. She disappeared from the face of Tupperware, and no one got answers as to why. She made several attempts to start other businesses, such as Cinderella’s Cosmetics, but was never successful.
“Tupperware!” tells the story of a world run by women in the 1950s when jobs for women were comparatively few. The interviews with the Tupperware Ladies and their husbands reflect on a time when they felt just as powerful as any male salesman.
“I’m interested in telling history from the bottom up,” Kahn-Leavitt told the audience, “not from the top down.”