The Mary Tyler Moore Show presents a number of clues to the portrayal and
opinions of the working women. The first questions that came to mind as I
watched Mary Richards function at the news station is why, although she is
second in command, does she accrue no more respect or status than any
of the other workers. First of all, she insists on calling her
boss Mr.
Grant ( instead of Lou like everyone else does) and he in turn, insists on
calling her Mary. This would be fine to respect somone by adding the
"Mr." in front of the name, but no one except Mary does this. She also
shares a desk in the bullpen, whereas Mr. Grant enjoys the luxury of a
seperate private office. I would think that they could at least give her
a cubble hole off to the side since she is the associate procucer of the
show. In addition, she is constantly bombarded with kisses from the
other workers. These things seem to show that although she is second in
command,
she really hasn't gained any of the respect that probably would have come
(although I can't say for sure) if she had been a man.
Another observation that I made in
watching this show is that Mary never
seems to really be performing any of the functions that you would guess an
associate producer would do. She spent the majority of the time
decorating
the office, getting projects ready for Mr. Grant and playing a cross
between a matchmaker and Dear Abby. It seems like, although she is a big
executive, she has continued to perform the same functions that are
prescibed in the traditional feminine role. This cast is like her family
and she does anything she can possibly do to help them. The cast loves
her for it, as well, demonstrating that if a women wants to be accepted,
she needs to fulfill her traditional feminine role.
This dedication to the crew points at another trait of this show: Mary's overwhelmingly nice and hospitable personality. She will do anything to help and everyone comes to her with their problems. When one women didn't like the wall paper she came to Mary, whem Mr. Grant was having problems with Charlene he came to Mary and even Charlene (whom Mary barely knew) came to her when she was having problems with Mr. Grant. Mary , in turn, was more than willing to help her friends and appeared to show great loyalty and concern for their well being. This overwhelming kindness seems to have a couple of possible interpretations. First, her extreme kindness could point to a hint of nievity. Sometimes, for example her kindness gets in the way of her vocalizaiton of her true feelings and it just seems like she totallly trusts everyone she sees. For example, Mr. Grant was wearing a funny looking sports jacket, and you could tell that she thought it looked absolutly crazy but she didn't say anything. Her lack of expression and submissiveness to the demands of others are well recieved by the crew and therefore reinforce the idea that a women should refrain from speaking her mind. This could also mean, however, that she is just a wonderful friend, Possibly she just did it out of the desire to protect others from things they really don't need to know. While this is a possibility, she has been seen holding back her opinion when she really wanted to express it , like when she was in a "fight" with one of her workers.
Additionally, Mary seems to be a drastically different person when she is
at home than when she is performing her duties at the WJM News Station.
Although she has a job that is traditionally reserved for men, when she
is at the office, she is the fountain of femininity, with her
ever-so-neat clothes, quiet voice, and ever pleasing and submissive smile.
At home, however, she was seen donning a sweat shirt and plastic gloves as
she was getting down and dirty fixing the sink and she was also seen
stuffing her face with a humongous feast of food for breakfast. This, to
me, was highlighting the idea that when a women works she must concentrate
on retaining her femininity, whereas at home, she can rest a litte (making
up for it by working where she is "supposed" to be).
Finally, one of the most fascination aspects of this show is the lack of "messages" and controversy that I found. As I thought a little more about this, though, I think that htis lack of controversy is one of my most biggest critiques of this show. Just like Perry Lafferty, the vice president of programming, said "It has no problems whatsoever" (Johnston 94). They took a character, who in real life has many problmes with society and who would have controversial opinions (at least in comparison to most of American society), and turnined her into a submissive, vulnerable, happy women, who is a "single-working woman" in name only.
This amicable and uncontroversial quality that I found that the show posseses is discussed in alsmost all of the 1970's critiques as well.
Take a look at what the 1970's has to say about
The Mary
Tyler Moore Show
