Let me start with a disclaimer (always a good way to begin): I have never watched The Mary Tyler Moore Show. I was born about twenty years too late to see the final season, and my first exposure to the fact that it existed came in my high school sociology class. We were watching a video on how television has reinforced (and challenged) gender stereotypes throughout the years, and a clip came on from the sitcom.
In it, Mary’s mother is talking to Moore’s character (called Mary Richards) and Mary’s father, and as she heads out, says something like, “Don’t forget to take your pill, dear!” She means, presumably, for Mary’s father to take some sort of cholesterol pill. In response, Mary’s father says “I will” — and at the same time, so does Mary, in a bright, winning voice underscored by the laugh track.
See, the fact is that her pill is of the birth control variety, which, officially, was barely supposed to exist in the society of the 1960’s – 70’s, much less be referenced on popular TV. And that means that Moore’s character is having sex, though she’s (scandalously!) not married and boyfriend-less. (Another taboo! Look at that.) Moore’s character looks a little embarrassed as the scene’s comedic aspect hits the audience as I remember, but not contrite in the least, even having fun with it, enjoying the confused, misunderstanding look from her father (one that we’ve all faced at some point, surely) as he tries to figure out what the hell she’s talking about, and what he’s missed now.
As I watched this, I remember smirking, knowing that confused look and thinking, “Oh, I want to watch that show.” I’d heard of it, of course, and I’d heard it was good, but this sealed the deal. From the 20 second scene I’d viewed it Moore looked—as people have been saying constantly since the news of Moore’s passing—like something women could identify with. Funny. Smart. Feminist. Strong. Slyly subversive. Confident. After looking it up online I couldn’t find the show, and so I let it go. I didn’t have a good feminist show, not one that focused solely on issues like this, until this year.
And then I found Good Girls Revolt.
For those who haven’t discovered this masterpiece of an Amazon Prime adaptation yet, Good Girls Revolt is a show based on Lynn Povich’s book of the same name. It, like the book, follows the true story of a group of women fighting for equal rights at Newsweek, eventually suing the company on discrimination charges. While the book is very good as well, I found myself flying through the first five episodes (to the detriment of my sleep patterns and caffeine levels) before I realized that there were only five more episodes left for me to devour. As a journalist, I loved seeing how journalism used to work, and as a female journalist, watching the show while lying on the couch (in a very unfeminine pair of blue skinny jeans) and reading magazines just like the one that those women worked at, I felt insanely grateful that other women had stood up for this a long time ago, so I could work in the sports section of a newspaper—work at a newspaper period—and see my name in print.
So I could work at something called Her Campus, which seems pretty close to the antidote for an industry begun by men.
Good Girls Revolt, as many have said about The Mary Tyler Moore Show, deals with issues that main characters Patti Robinson, Cindy Reston, and Jane Hollander face in life. Issues that they face in the workplace. Issues that women faced in the 1960’s (though one is a fictitious sitcom, and one is a show based on real events). Issues that we face today. Issues, period, from pressure to procreate, pressure to get married, pressure to be perfect, a different kind of pressure in the street from men leering as they walked home alone at night. Misogynistic bosses before they had the word “misogyny” to describe it. The Pill (and just as much frantic, subtle hiding the fact that it exists). The wage gap. Sexual assault—and sexual harassment—in the workplace. It features elements that, from what I’ve seen people saying about the Mary Tyler Moore Show, connect even more. Tight writing. Interesting plotlines that aren’t really addressed, at all, on TV (unless you’re a woman, and then they’re not “plotlines”). And the main connection, a fiery female main character (Mary Richards; and Patti Robinson) who’s unwilling to compromise to get the career she wants. Who still looks awesome and amazing and obviously, finally does whatever the hell she wants, no matter how many looks she gets.
In the first episode, you see Patti Robinson, aspiring, hungry journalist that she is, fly to San Francisco to interview a woman who makes, um, interesting and anatomically correct art sculptures. When Patti’s source is revealed to her (white, male editor) she skirts around the issue of her source’s employment until it finally comes out and her editor basically has a little bit of a meltdown, allowing for a burst of comedy that is in the same vein as what much of The Mary Tyler Moore Show seems to be built on: the fact that women have to hide certain things, or not say certain things, because they are women. And when they do, society (besides some very creative screenwriters) doesn’t know how to handle it.
I had planned to make this a (surprisingly long) piece on why Amazon should renew Good Girls Revolt. And they should, especially as there are accusations—irony!—that a show about workplace inequality was cancelled and not picked up again due to a lack of women in higher-up television production positions. It’s a good show, it’s interesting, and there is apparently more plot material to develop. If they don’t renew it, they should begin the process again for other networks to take it instead.
But, ironically, the solution to what we really need lies in the exact problem. As has been argued already, more than the renewal of one awesome show—just as the characters on Good Girls Revolt needed more than one person to stand up for equality, and just as the television newsroom that Mary Richards worked for in The Mary Tyler Moore Show needed more women like Mary—television needs to create more things like these shows in general. Shows as funny, and as witty, and as full of the things that women actually face and pass around to each other like secrets, when they shouldn’t be by now.
That’s the really ironic thing, after all. (Are you wondering how many more times I can say the word “irony” here?) Shows created by (and featuring) a lot of men were successful only because of the way that they appealed to women, because of the female characters. What was successful about the men behind them was that they had the right women, a sentiment that many feminists have said before I have. Mary Tyler Moore and Genevieve Angelson are both seen to be noted feminist actresses, and it shows in the strength of their work.
Television, and journalism, has to produce more things like this for women, especially currently, or it will lose its market and go extinct trying to reproduce an era way behind us.
And thanks to these shows, we know exactly what will happen if they try to recreate a time without enough women.
And it won’t work.