Mimi Leder’s On the Basis of Sex is considered as one of numerous feminist masterpieces for its original story of a real deal superhero and liberal feminism becomes one of the strong issues in the movie. The purpose of this study is to analyze the characterization of the main character, Ruth Bader Ginsburg as well as to discuss liberal feminism depicted on her. The analysis used several theories of characterization mainly by Christopher Russel Reaske, Joseph M. Boggs, James H. Pickering and Jeffry D. Hoeper. Also, some liberal feminism theories such as the ones from Rosemarie Putnam Tong, Judith Worrell, and Nurul Hanifah et al are used.
The method applied in this study is qualitative descriptive, while data such as dialogue, monologue, and narration are taken from the movie script. Some steps are conducted to collect the data such as watching the movie, reading the screenplay, identifying the data, classifying the data, and reducing the data.
There are two results in this study. First, there are a number of traits found on Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the main character using theories of characterization. Second, the goals of liberal feminism are occurred and depicted on Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the main character.
Keywords: Characterization, Liberal feminism, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, On the Basis of Sex