Mary Tyler Moore – Bitch Flicks

‘Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted’: Examining Feminism in ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’

When the show started, things were very different than they were even a few years later — it was a time of very fast change in gender politics. When they were pitching the show, the one female executive who championed it was such an anomaly that they had no executive restroom for women.

This is a guest post by Holly Rosen Fink.

One of the greatest shots ever in the opening of a show has to be of Mary Tyler Moore tossing her hat into the air with the theme song “You’re Gonna Make it After All” in the background. The visual and audio combination is very telling of a time when women were breaking out of their shells in the 1970s. The show was ground-breakingly feminist in many ways – the two male producers hired a group of mainly female writers and took the show’s plot in daring directions every chance they got. I sat down with Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, the author of Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted: And all the Brilliant Minds Who Made The Mary Tyler Moore Show a Classic to find out how they did it.

How did The Mary Tyler Moore Show‘s producers get the scripts so right during a time of upheaval for women in American history?

JKA: They hired women, for starters. It’s a real testament to gender diversity, because they ended up being able to get the input of the female writers they hired, even as they hired plenty of experienced men who could write a killer script. This also allowed fairly inexperienced women who hadn’t gotten a shot before to get the skills and resume lines they needed to move up in the business. It made a huge ripple-effect difference in the industry in ways we probably can’t even begin to measure. That said, feminists at the time didn’t love the show — as with many groundbreaking shows, it was under tons of scrutiny as the only show of its kind. They hated Mary’s weaker moments and her propensity to call her boss “Mr. Grant” while others called him “Lou.” In the end, I think these chinks in Mary’s feminism made her a stronger character and a better ambassador. But it took the perspective of history to see her that way.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show show went on in 1970. All these years later, it’s still inspiring and influencing writers and characters on TV. Why is that?

JKA: I think it’s a writers’ show, to a large extent. It’s so character-driven, rather than just joke-driven. Writers respond to that and want to make their own shows that way whenever they can.

Originally, Mary Tyler Moore was meant to be divorced but the network refused. She still ended up single and working, which was a revolutionary story line in the 1970s. What was it like talking to the show’s creators about this period of the show’s history? Were they open about their experiences?

JKA: I am such a sucker for those stories of disgusting, blatant early sexism, and the Mad Men-type stuff! When the show started, things were very different than they were even a few years later — it was a time of very fast change in gender politics. When they were pitching the show, the one female executive who championed it was such an anomaly that they had no executive restroom for women. When she was on that floor, she just left her shoes outside the bathroom to let them know she was in there. And yes, the network folks had no interest in Mary being divorced. As one of the executives, Mike Dann, told me, he thought a divorcee would be “kind of a loose woman.” The fact that a few seasons in they could have references to Mary taking birth control and staying out all night on a date is a sign of quite rapid progress.

But they took risks when they could, writing divorce in later for Lou and a gay brother for Phyllis and Rhoda as a New York City Jew. Eventually, Mary was staying out all night and going on the Pill. How did the writers push these modern ideas through?

JKA: They were partially sneaky and partially lucky. A few years in, divorce seemed more palatable, and giving it to Lou instead of Mary certainly made a difference. It didn’t sully their sweet heroine. That said, All in the Family had since come on the air, which blew open a lot of previously closed doors in terms of subject matter. With both All in the Family and Mary doing well, the network was much less likely to mess with them. Network executives are only skittish when something isn’t raking in tons of cash. The gay brother storyline wasn’t originally part of the script; it was added when the actor playing him happened to be gay. But it was still possibly the most blatantly edgy the show ever got. The all-nighter and the Pill were couched in very subtle references that certainly a younger viewer would miss completely. Mary simply mentions offhand that she won’t forget to take her pill, which could, after all, be any kind of pill. And we know she stayed out all night only because we see her leave her apartment at night in an evening gown and return the next morning in the same dress. We never find out what really happened during those hours.

Most of the writers were women. Were they active in the feminist movement?

JKA: They were. I don’t remember any saying they weren’t, and for most of them, it was just an obvious and standard part of life at the time. They went to regular meetings and some of them engaged in at least small forms of activism. I don’t think they had time to be major players in the movement because they were too busy working!

Why did you spend so much time focusing on their lives (which I loved, by the way)?

JKA: It seems like the only interesting way to tell the story, to me. For my tastes, I prefer stories about people rather than just a bunch of geeky trivia about a show. I wanted to write something that goes beyond a fan encyclopedia. There’s a place for that kind of book, for sure — and I used them in my research! I wanted the book to reflect the show, and I think if the writers of The Mary Tyler Moore Show had to write the story of their show, this is the way they’d do it — by focusing on the characters.

Ethel Winant was the only female executive at the show’s start. There were so many men that she didn’t have her own toilet. How did she know the show would be such a huge success?

JKA: She certainly had well-honed instincts, and the show is evidence of her impeccable casting skill. But I think she also responded to the material itself. It makes sense that she would see the value in a show about a career woman, given that she was such a pioneer, and my interviews with her son backed that up.

How did Mary Tyler Moore change the face of TV and women’s roles in the TV industry?

JKA: Like any success, it spawned many attempts at re-creation, which meant lots more shows about women. Some of them stuck, like Maude and even Mary’s spinoff, Rhoda. It also produced several female writers who could go onto other things, kind-of spreading the show’s influence that way. They went on to write for many shows, create some shows, produce, and work as TV executives. They also inspired that entire generation of women who’s currently kicking things up a level, producing in and starring in their own shows.

Was the network supportive of their efforts?

JKA: At first, the network was skeptical. But success is the best way to get the network off your back, and by the end of the first season, the show could mostly do whatever it wanted.

At the time Mary Tyler Moore was on, All in the Family and Maude were developed. Did they compete with these shows?

JKA: They didn’t really. They were all on the same network — CBS was it at the time. So they were able to enjoy each other as colleagues quite a bit and just admire each other’s work. The Mary Tyler Moore guys — Jim Brooks and Ed. Weinberger and Dave Davis — would actually watch All in the Family together and marvel at its greatness. They certainly wanted to keep up their own standards to stay in step with Norman Lear’s shows, but they couldn’t ever compete directly with them.

Did the actresses realize they were feminists at the time? Did any of them stay involved with the movement post 1970s?

Val Harper identified as a feminist, and continues to, while the others didn’t as much. Val was even interviewed by Gloria Steinem for a Ms. cover story during her Rhoda days!

Were the actors jealous of all the attention the actresses got? They seemed like wonderful friends in the end.

JKA: They were, a little bit. They all mentioned it, in fact, but mostly in a good-natured way. They loved the women, but they felt like they were getting more attention, particularly from Jay Sandrich, the director, which is what really got to them. I told Jay that, and he said he never even realized it, but even now, his answer was a playful, “Tough luck.” Honestly, I was struck by how much the entire cast seemed to still love each other.

Is it true that Lou Grant became a feminist himself?

JKA: He did! He’s quite cantankerous and hard to pin down on this stuff, so even when I tried to ask him about it now, he was a little squirmy. But the fact is that feminism is among the many political causes Ed Asner has championed. He was involved with NOW and gave a radio address for them about men in feminism. He also made sure there were women working on Lou Grant and getting paid fairly.

Who are some feminist characters on TV today?

JKA: The feminist-or-not question is always such a hot one these days, but I adore The Mindy Project, which addresses issues like body image and women’s professional success without being too “issuey” about it. Same goes for Girls, where Lena Dunham’s constant nakedness alone is a huge statement.

Holly Rosen Fink is a writer and marketer living in Larchmont, NY. You can follow her on Twitter @hollychronicles.

Motherhood in Film & Television: Laura Petrie of ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show’

Laura (Mary Tyler Moore), Richie (Larry Matthews), and Rob (Dick Van Dyke) in The Dick Van Dyke Show

This is a guest post from Caitlin Moran

Before Mary Tyler Moore tossed her beret to the Minneapolis sky as Mary Richards, she was the sunny princess of sitcom wives and mothers as Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show. Laura Petrie was a different kind of TV mom. She was young, only 17 when she married on-screen husband Rob. She was perpetually fresh-faced, nimble-footed and smart, a perfect foil for the gangly, handsomely goofy Van Dyke. Laura was the young mother that young mothers wanted to be. I grew up watching reruns of Dick Van Dyke on TVLand with my parents, who had grown up watching it when it originally aired in the sixties, and we all could agree that Laura Petrie was the paragon of feminine charm.

Oh, and did I mention the capri pants? She wore capri pants. She not only wore them, but she rocked them. And she not only rocked them, but she was the first housewife to wear pants on television. The credit for that style decision goes to Moore, who has stated in interviews that while TV shows were constantly showing stay-at-home moms in dresses and aprons and heels, “woman don’t wear full-skirted dresses to vacuum in.” While it may be tempting to brush aside Laura Petrie’s forward-thinking style, her lack of skirt caused a minor flap with the network censors when the show first aired in 1961 (“but how will we know she’s a woman if she’s wearing the pants???” some capris-hating misogynists may have wondered). Laura Petrie’s signature look launched capris into the 1960s fashion zeitgeist, and earned her a spot in InStyle magazine’s Top Ten Most Stylish TV Housewives of All Time.

Laura and Rob Petrie had one child together, a son named Richie. Because Richie is in elementary school for the whole of the show, Laura’s role as a mother focuses on the challenges of raising a small child. She worries that he might be sick when he refuses a cupcake, and helps Rob explain why Richie’s middle name is Rosebud. (It’s an acronym for the names that their parents and grandparents suggested for the baby. Unsurprisingly, that was Rob’s idea.) In the episode “Girls Will Be Boys,” Richie comes home from school three days in a row with bruises on his face, and admits that a girl has been beating him up. After Rob’s visit to the suspected lady bully’s father turns up empty, Laura goes to the child’s house to get to the bottom of the strange beatings. After the girl’s mother insults and dismisses her, Laura refuses to leave until she’s said her piece. “You may not be the rudest person I’ve ever met,” she declares with her trademark quiver, “but you are certainly in the top two.” Door slam, and our girl storms off with the moral high ground and not a hair out of place in her perfect coif.

Laura was never afraid to stand up to her husband when Richie was involved. In the memorable episode “Is That My Boy??” Rob believes that he and Laura have brought home the wrong baby from the hospital. Laura, just days removed from giving birth, attempts to be the voice of reason to her emotionally overwrought husband and, when that fails, plants herself as a barricade in front of the cradle as Rob answers the door to let in the couple he believes took home his actual baby. The ending of the episode, of course, is the most famous of the entire series—the couple that Rob has invited over, the Peters, is black, and the surprise caused one of the longest uninterrupted laughs from a studio audience in sitcom history. Laura herself has a good laugh with Mr. and Mrs. Peters at Rob’s expense, and domestic peace is restored.

Laura pouring Richie a glass of milk

That doesn’t mean that The Dick Van Dyke Show’s treatment of Laura Petrie is without its problems. It is more or less assumed throughout the show that she is a mother and a housewife above everything else, leaving her former aspirations of a dancing career behind. In season three’s “My Part-Time Wife,” Rob is woefully unable to handle Laura stepping in as a secretary at his office, even though she performs her tasks at work deftly and still keeps up the house and supports Richie. When Rob throws a grown-man tantrum over her abilities, Laura apologizes and concedes that she has been “flaunting her successes.” Everyone groan on the count of three.

And the show isn’t exactly subtle when it compares Laura’s domestic bliss with Rob’s cowriter Sally’s romantic woes. Brash, hilarious single girl Sally’s search for a fella is a constant punch line for coworker Buddy, and a source of pity for Laura. Why oh why can’t Sally just find a nice man and have a kid or two of her own? It’s bad enough that Sally writes detailed letters about her cat, Mr. Henderson, to her Aunt Agnes in Cleveland, but does Mr. Henderson have to be named after a former fiancé? Do you have to kick her when she’s down? In many ways, The Dick Van Dyke Show is a product of its era, and its obvious glorification of Laura’s married motherhood over Sally’s career life speaks to a time before the women’s liberation movement, before NOW and Gloria Steinem and certainly before Mary Richards. The tension between career, marriage and motherhood has by no means disappeared (witness the recent debacle over Hilary Rosen’s criticisms of Ann Romney), but to see it played for laughs so openly is disheartening.

Though it has its faults, The Dick Van Dyke Show remains a monument to early-60s Kennedy-era optimism (in fact, the first episode aired on the very day Kennedy was sworn in as president), and no character represents the youthful promise of Camelot more than the Jackie-esque Laura Petrie. In his memoir Dick Van Dyke: My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business, Dick Van Dyke describes her charm thusly: “The first time I stood across from here in rehearsal and heard her say, “Oh, Rob!” I thought, That’s it, we’re home.”

Laura Petrie is a TV mom we’d all like to come home to.

Caitlin Moran is a graduate of Boston College with a degree in English and creative writing. After spending many years battling Western New York winters, she now lives in New York City with a cat and too many books for her apartment. Her work has appeared in the Women’s Media Center, Post Road, Pure Francis, the Susquehanna Review, Winds of Change magazine, HerCampus, and other outlets.

Viola Davis Rules the Night: Women, Race & Gender at the 2012 SAG Awards

Viola Davis and the cast of ‘The Help’ at the 2012 SAG Awards

Lately, it seems awards shows vacillate between moments of cringe-inducing sexism and feminist clarity. And the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards were no different. Stripped of pomp and circumstance, with no host, the SAG Awards focus strictly on acting in TV and films. As with most media I consume, some parts pissed me off while others delighted me.

When Christopher Plummer won Outstanding Male in a Supporting Role for his performance as a gay man coming out to his son in Beginners, he began his acceptance speech by saying he’s “had such fun in the world’s 2nd oldest profession.” Ah, a sex work joke. Then Plummer called the film’s female producers “girls.” Oh Christopher Plummer. Yeah, calling female producers “girls,” even if they are way younger than you, not cool. But he almost redeemed himself when he again thanked his wife of 43 years who “came to his rescue and saved his life.” Swoon!

Dick Van Dyke presented icon Mary Tyler Moore with a Lifetime Achievement Award. I’ll start with what I liked. I LOOOVE that Van Dyke mentioned that Mary Tyler Moore is an animal rights advocate!!! The vegan in me cheered with delight. Ah, but the feminist in me shook my head at this:

“She’s one of the few performers, women, who can do a flat out comedy scene, slapstick and still be beautiful, feminine and adorable.”

Sigh. I so wanted to like his touching speech but it pissed me off. What does her appearance or femininity matter? Who cares what the hell a woman looks like, Dick Van Dyke? And who the fuck cares if she’s “feminine?!” Ugh.

Now, I realize he’s old and comes from another era. Don’t care. When discussing someone’s work or talent, male or female, their looks shouldn’t be mentioned. Society focuses too much on women’s appearances. People often assume women can only embody one quality: smart or sexy, funny or beautiful. As if a talented woman isn’t a success unless she’s pretty and feminine too.

Luckily, the rest of the evening contained inspirational and humorous moments through a feminist lens.

When Octavia Spencer won Outstanding Female in a Supporting Role for The Help, she honored civil rights activist Medgar Evers in her poignant acceptance speech. She also said,

“Thank you for putting me in a category with so many beautiful women…It was really a privilege to work on a film that gave a voice to so many women…By honoring me, you honor them…

“I want to thank all the people out there who went to support this movie and, after watching it, felt something. You felt compelled to make a change in your lives. So I’m going to dedicate this to the downtrodden, the underserved, the underprivileged, the overtaxed, whether emotionally, physically or financially.”

I absolutely adore Spencer mentioned women’s voices as well as class. And I love that she’s getting all this attention. Just wish it wasn’t for The Help. Ugh. Regardless of my opinions of The Help, I hope this catalyzes Spencer’s career and she gets lots and lots and lots of roles. She deserves them.

Other great moments included winner Alec Baldwin giving a shout-out to Tina Fey for her witty writing on 30 Rock (damn straight) and winner Betty White thanking her 3 female co-stars, Valerie Bertinelli, Jane Leeves and Wendie Malick, on Hot in Cleveland. Loving the female camaraderie!

And speaking of female camaraderie…love, love, LOVE Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy as presenters!!! The comical trio sauntered on stage to present the clip of Bridesmaids, one of my favorite 2011 films, nominated for Outstanding Ensemble. In describing the film, Maya Rudolph said,

“Our cast tells the story of strong female friendships.”

Yes, yes it does. Hilarious, raunchy, bittersweet and touching, Bridesmaids depicted a group of women as friends and one woman trying to find her way in the world. It’s rare for a movie to feature a female protagonist. It’s even rarer for a film to contain multiple female characters where women aren’t portrayed as catty and competitive but actually like and respect each other. In the funniest part of the evening, the women alerted the audience to a Scorsese Drinking Game where you drink each and every time you hear Martin Scorsese’s name uttered. Kristen Wiig said,

“Do you think Scorsese saw Bridesmaids??”

If he’s smart, he sure as hell has.

When presenters Tina Fey and John Krazinski discussed advice given to actors, Fey hilariously said,

“And I believe it was the TODAY show’s fourth hour co-host Kathie Lee Gifford who said, ‘If drag queens love you, you’ll have the longest career in the world. They know phony and they know real.’”

Ha! One of the best quotes of the night. But the SAG Awards belonged to Viola Davis who completely stole the night.

When Viola Davis won Outstanding Female Actor in a Lead Role, the audience gave her a standing ovation. Davis is a phenomenal actor who makes the most of any role she plays. Whether on-screen for hours (The Help) or mere moments (Doubt), her quiet strength mesmerizes and enthralls. Christ she almost made Nights in Rodanthe watchable (almost). Davis shared how she decided to become an actress at 8 years old. Cicely Tyson inspired her, and she was thrilled she could see her idol sitting in the audience as she won her award. Davis said,

“What is there but a dream? You can’t trade in your dream for another dream…Dream big and dream fierce.”

While I wish awards shows weren’t based on a binary gender divide, I often worry and lament that if they weren’t, women might never win. However this year, 2 of the 5 films nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Cast, Bridesmaids and The Help, both boasted predominantly female casts. It’s a huge step in the right direction.

Bolstered by a female ensemble, The Help was the big winner of the evening. Not only did it win the two female acting awards. And I have to say that I’m ecstatic two unbelievably talented African-American women won. But it also won Outstanding Performance by a Cast. At first, I was pissed Bridesmaids didn’t win. Then I was even more pissed that The Help won; a film touted as showcasing black women’s experiences but actually revolving around a white woman “saving” black women. But then I let Davis’ eloquent and inspiring words wash over me.

After calling working on The Help “a labor of love,” Davis articulated:

“The stain of racism and sexism is not just for people of color or women. It’s all of our burden. It’s all of us. I don’t care how ordinary you may feel. We all of us can inspire change. Every single one of us.”

I sat in my living room and applauded. And cried. Davis’ speech contained THE best, most feminist declaration I’ve ever heard on any awards show. Period. Davis blew me away with her poise, grace and intelligence. I’m thrilled she addressed racism and sexism on a national platform. And she’s absolutely right.

Racism and sexism affect us all. More people must realize racism and sexism still exist, stripping people of equality. We need white allies and male allies working with people of color and women towards eradicating racial and gender discrimination. We must speak out whenever we see or hear prejudice or injustice if we ever hope to combat it. But all is not lost. We can all make a difference.

People often go to the movies for entertainment, to escape their mundane lives. But films can also inspire you to act boldly and dream big. And sometimes, awards shows can too.