The Kentucky hillbilly who rewrote feminism—and made it everybody's business.
Explore the life and legacy of Kentucky-born author bell hooks, who wrote nearly 40 books and whose work at the intersection of race, class and gender serves as a lasting contribution to the feminist movement. Learn how bell’s childhood in Hopkinsville and her connection to Kentucky’s “hillbilly culture” informed her views and her belief that feminism is for everybody. Becoming bell hooks, a one-hour documentary, features selections read by Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer and interviews with feminist activist Gloria Steinem, Kentucky writers Crystal Wilkinson and Silas House, bell’s younger sister Gwenda Motley and many others.
Acting
Octavia Spencer's readings hit like sermons you didn't know you needed.
Writing
hooks' own words remain devastatingly sharp, decades ahead of their time.
Production
Kentucky landscapes as character, not backdrop—rare for academic docs.
Director
Elon Justice
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
hooks wrote her first book, 'Ain't I a Woman,' while still a student—without a computer, on a typewriter, while broke. The title references Sojourner Truth's speech, which hooks later discovered was likely never actually spoken as written.
She chose lowercase to shift focus from 'the individual toward the ideas,' yet this documentary's very existence—released after her 2021 death—raises the tension between her anti-celebrity stance and our culture's need to memorialize.
No ratings yet
Sign in to join the discussion — comments are spoiler-gated to your watch progress.
Discussion starters
US
