January 27, 2017, - 3:55 am
How Mary Tyler Moore Hurt America for Generations
Is it just me . . . or are you tired of hearing about Saint Mary Tyler Moore? What did she do that was so great or important for America? Nothing. In fact, her “contribution” to America’s pop culture was a negative one . . . and nothing to be wistful about. Nope.
In the last month the gushing over and beatifying of Carrie Fisher, George Michael, Debbie Reynolds, and now Mary Tyler Moore, has really been absurd and over the top. You’d think these mere celebrities were gods or that they cured cancer. Here’s a tip: they weren’t and they didn’t. Not even close.
For two days now, we’ve been treated to the Mary Tyler Moore bandwagon (and it hasn’t ended yet, as tonight ABC News’ “20/20” will air an hour special gushing over this showbiz Mother Theresa). We’ve been told what a great woman she was because she was a decent-looking, perky actress who approvingly played a feminist along with America-hater Ed Asner on her own eponymous “Mary Tyler Moore Show.” The media, including PAWNN (the Prince Al-Waleed News Network a/k/a FOX News), instruct us that MTM was “revolutionary” because she was a single working woman. ABC News and NBC News informed us that she helped American women’s lives because she wore capri pants instead of a skirt. Yes, really, they “reported” this pearl of wisdom.
We were also told that MTM’s “major” contribution to the silver screen was “Ordinary People.” But that movie stank. It was dark, it explored and branded attempted suicide and the death of a teen child as entertainment, and it helped birth nearly four decades (so far) of dark, awful movies that treat overwrought, melodramatic, strife-riven garbage as “thoughtful and sophisticated.” Ordinary People also glorified the destruction and breakdown of the upper-middle-class American family. Today, we see repeats of this kind of movie in “Manchester By the Sea,” where the disintegration of American families is celebrated in film and given awards (the crappy movie–read my review–was nominated for several Academy Awards this week). That’s not to mention the cultural softness in which every teen seems to be in therapy, after movies like Ordinary People glorified teens in perpetual counseling.
I wish I could say that Mary Tyler Moore’s star turn–as an angry, distressed mother and wife in a bitter marriage and bitter relationship with her surviving son–contributed nothing to America with this movie. But instead, she created a template for cinematic darkness and cultural despair that has diseased real-life American families to make this the current status quo, with broken families dominating our country’s landscape. It was to be expected, though, because that’s the natural progression of the single working woman feminist of the Mary Tyler Moore. She got older and bitter about how life turned out after following the feminist siren call and not having life turn out her way. In a way, you might say that Mary Tyler Moore got the ball rolling on Hillary Clinton’s November disappointment. Feminists liked Mary Tyler Moore because she put a pretty, friendly, palatable face on ugly feminists. But, later, with Hillary reality TV, we saw what they really look like. And, now, Mary Tyler Moore is hardly even a memory. Most Americans today–including Millennials and the generation after them–never heard of her.
In the end, Mary Tyler Moore’s own life was one in which she longed for the traditional in contrast with the example she set on TV for America’s women. She looked for love with a husband repeatedly, marrying three times. She had one son, who died in an accidental self-inflicted gun shot. He was her only child. And when asked in an interview what she regretted as she looked back on her life, Moore said that she wished she’d had more children. She talked about how her father researched the history of the Moore family which arrived in America in the 1700s and that she was now the last of them because she didn’t have enough children to leave any descendants. Funny how she didn’t mention that she wished she’d had more freedom and independence as a woman and . . . worn more capri pants with Ed Asner. Or had equal pay for equal work. These aren’t the things women remember on their deathbeds.
Moore, who was a vegetarian animal rights activist and endorsed Jimmy Carter in 1980, said that she later watched FOX News and refused Gloria Steinem’s calls to join her movement. Moore said that she believed women should raise children and Steinem didn’t. But while she may have kinda sorta seen the light, her attempt to differentiate her TV feminism from Gloria Steinem’s real life version is a distinction without a difference. Her TV show complemented and reinforced Steinem’s movement on America’s streets. She said she disagreed with Steinem’s belief that women should have a career. But that was the whole raison d’etre for Moore’s show and her claim to fame–playing a driven career woman. It’s now too late to put the genie back in the bottle.
It’s fitting that just as Melania Trump becomes the First Lady, Mary Tyler Moore is gone. Sadly, I don’t think America will ever return to the days when women could stay home and raise children, as the new First Lady has done and has returned to New York to do. The economy has adjusted to two-income households–in the dwindling number of homes not headed by single mothers. And it’s not hip to be just a mom. Or at least it isn’t supposed to be.
But how many women would rather be in the shoes of Mrs. Trump than in the capris of Mary Tyler Moore? Poll after poll shows the answer is A LOT.
Thanks to what the late-but-not-really-so-great Mary Tyler Moore set into motion through her TV show, it’s too late.
Tags: Mary Tyler Moore, Mary Tyler Moore Show, Ordinary People
The review of Moore’s work and it’s effects are spot on, sadly enough. She was cast as the progressive women on the go, in the know character for her last show and that hurt her own life as Debbie pointed out. But I do disagree as to the effect of the movie ‘Ordinary People’, but I’m no movie critic. For me, and I have some personal experience with such events, the movie showed how important it is for families to maintain and build their own connections and solve their problems. The character played by Moore wasn’t for me the denigration of the homebound women but rather the blase’ indifference that the women couldn’t or wouldn’t escape. That the husband, and the son both did accomplish the difficult personal reunion didn’t for me destroy the idea of the meaning and strenght of family but rather, how fate can pose enormous challenges to the family and the individual and how people need to learn how to deal with such trauma. And the character of the shrink wasn’t of the need for permanent therapy, but rather to learn how to cope with great loss and go on and live as a family. Maybe I’m off base here but other movies of course do denigrate the family and mean to do just that, but I thought that one movie although dark, did open the door on how important it is for families to navigate tragedy individually and together. JMO
mgoldberg on January 27, 2017 at 7:30 am