You're gonna make it after all

Like so many others, I was so sad when I heard yesterday that Mary Tyler Moore had passed away. She was 80 (!! -- how did that happen?) -- another reminder that the idols and cultural touchstones of my youth are rapidly aging and starting to slip away. (And that I'm not getting any younger either...!)  It also seemed cruel that a feminist icon, someone who pioneered the representation of women on television as more than mothers and housewives, would pass away just days after the historic women's march in Washington.

I wrote about Mary Tyler Moore and her impact on my growing up years a couple of years ago here, after I read the wonderful book "Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted" by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong (a must-read for any MTM fan). As I noted there, besides being single working women, Mary and her sidekick Rhoda were also childless.

MTM herself, in real life, was a bereaved mother:  she lost her only son, Richie, in 1980 to a gun accident when he was 24. Right around the same time, she earned an Oscar nomination for "Ordinary People," in which she plays a mother who, having lost one son in a tragic boating accident, shuts out her husband and other son, who is suffering from survivor's guilt and tries to commit suicide. (If you haven't see it, it's stunning.) She also lost both her siblings -- her sister in 1978, from drugs and alcohol, and her brother of cancer in 1992 after MTM tried to assist him in an unsuccessful suicide attempt. She was a diabetic, and an alcoholic who checked herself into the Betty Ford Clinic for treatment. Since her death, I've seen a quote circulating on social media attributed to her: "You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you." (Well, maybe you can, but it sure is a shock to the system.)

Hearing the MTM show theme song repeated ad nauseum yesterday, I was reminded about how quickly our cultural can evolve. When the show was created, the idea of a single working woman with no romantic attachments, living on her own, was quite a novelty. (The genre was pioneered by Marlo Thomas in "That Girl," but her character, Ann Marie, always had a boyfriend/fiancée on the show.)  In fact, in the original proposal for the show, Mary Richards was a divorcee. That idea was quickly shot down by studio executives -- heaven forbid, people might think she had divorced Dick Van Dyke!! (lol)

The uncertainty around this new kind of heroine was reflected in the original lyrics for the show's theme song, used in the first season (added emphasis mine):
 
How will you make it on your own?

This world is awfully big, girl this time you're all alone

But it's time you started living

It's time you let someone else do some giving

Love is all around, no need to waste it

You can never tell, why don't you take it

You might just make it after all

You might just make it after all

Compare & contrast with the lyrics that were used in subsequent seasons, the more optimistic, confident ones most of us know & love and sing along to: 

 

Who can turn the world on with her smile?

Who can take a nothing day, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?

Well it's you girl, and you should know it

With each glance and every little movement you show it

Love is all around, no need to waste it

You can never tell, why don't you take it

You're gonna make it after all

You're gonna make it after all

 

The promise that "You're gonna make it after all" is one that so many of us have carried through the years & self-doubts & naysayers who would love nothing more than to send us all back to the 1950s. I think the next women's march should feature everyone singing "You're gonna make it after all," and then tossing their pink pussycat hats into the air at the end in tribute. :)   

 

Thanks, Mary.  :)

 

(Karen at The NotMom has written her own great tribute to MTM and why she mattered, here.)