CHRIST IN WINTER:
Reflections on Life and Faith for the Years of Winter
Why are so many of us
grieving the passing of Mary Tyler Moore? Well, we all knew her. She was pretty
and talented and smart, a good guest in our homes on a regular basis, mostly as
Mary Richards, the associate producer at WJM-TV in Minneapolis, on The Mary
Tyler Moore Show in the 1970s.
More, though, Mary
Richards was an icon, folks say. As Richards, MTM took on the issues of
sexuality and economics and role expectations for women in the aftermath of
Vietnam and the 1960s in a way that was more palatable, and thus more
productive, than the feminism of Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem.
I enjoyed the humor of the
show, as when Mr. Grant tried to explain to Mary that a man doing the same job
as hers ought to make more money just because he was a man, but gender equality
was not a real issue for me. I had two daughters. I was already convinced.
Maybe that’s why I enjoyed
the show so much, not because it took on the issues those daughters would face,
but because we shared it with our girls. Remembering MTM, I think of how we
watched that show together. [1] Our daughters were just entering their teens.
Mary Richards was a good role model for girls of that age, who were going to
have to face challenges for which no one had any experience. Quietly but
persistently, without sacrificing anything of what is central to being a woman,
she insisted that a girl should be free in the same way as a boy to do whatever
God gives you to do.
There’s another reason,
though, that I didn’t think MTM was really iconic. She wasn’t any different from
the girls I grew up with. She was only 37 days older than I. Had she lived in
the poor white section of Indianapolis and not gone to a private girls school
in California, we would have been in the same grade. Although I did not meet
her [via TV] until we were in our early twenties, she could easily have been in
my high school class in Oakland City. She had that great look about her, that
sparkle, that “spunk” that Mr. Grant so deplored. [2] She would have been very
popular in our class, but she would not have been either the prettiest girl or
the smartest girl there. She would have been just one more girl I was madly in
love with and afraid to ask for a date.
That’s plenty enough
reason to mourn her passing. RIP, MTM
JRMcF
I tweet as yooper1721.
1] We watched the whole
CBS Saturday night lineup. Along with MTM, there was All In the Family, MASH,
The Carol Burnett Show, The Bob Newhart Show. It’s hard to believe there ever was
or ever will be a single evening with a whole series of shows of that quality.
2] Mr. Kell, our
principal, was an excellent man, but he would probably have deplored that
spunkiness, too.
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