I didn't watch the Emmy Awards last Sunday night, but I've since seen the great clip of actress Candice Bergen recalling the run-in her famous character from the 1990s, Murphy Brown, had with then-Vice-President Dan Quayle when she became a single mother (gasp!!). "Oh, how far we've come!" she said wryly, to a huge reaction from the audience.
“Today, a Republican candidate for vice president would never attack a woman for having kids. So as they say, my work here is done. Meow.”
This morning, I stumbled onto a Tracy Clark-Flory Substack essay that deftly connects the dots between "Murphy Brown," Dan Quayle, and the guy who wants to be his successor today: "A mockery of fathers." (Subheading: "Men like J.D. Vance hate ‘childless cat ladies' and single moms for the same reason: they challenge patriarchal values. Just ask Murphy Brown.")
It's been quite a while since I've seen "Murphy Brown," or those particular episodes (although I LOVED it, back in the day!) -- but thinking back, I remembered a detail that often gets overlooked when we talk about this storyline: when Murphy tells the father -- her ex-husband, Jake Lowenstein -- that she's pregnant and she wants to have the baby, he essentially tells her that if she wants to do this, she's going to have to raise the baby alone, because he can't be there for them. In other words, if Murphy is a single mother, it's in large part because the father declined to step up and play a part in raising their child.
Likewise, the reason many women are childless is not because they didn't want a child, it's because they never found a suitable partner to have one with during their fertile years. Or the man they wound up with didn't want to have a child (or another child, if they already had children with a previous partner).
So how is it that single motherhood and/or childlessness always winds up being the responsibility/fault of the woman?
(I remember seeing a meme with men scolding women, "Have a baby!" Single motherhood, IVF, surrogacy... "No, not like THAT!")
As the linked article above reminded me, the fictional character Murphy addressed Quayle's real-life remarks in the next-season opener. (She watches his remarks on TV from home while on maternity leave, clearly frazzled, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, hair askew, grubby clothes... "Glamorizing single motherhood? Do I look glamorous, Frank??" she asks her friend Frank Fontana, who's there at the time.) She interrupts her leave to return to the FYI show to deliver a rebuttal to Quayle, which ends:
Perhaps it’s time for the vice president to expand his definition and recognize that, whether by choice or circumstance, families come in all shapes and sizes... What really defines a family is commitment, caring and love.
By timely coincidence, CNN will be revisiting the "Murphy Brown" kerfuffle on Sunday night in the first episode of its new series "TV on the Edge."
*** *** ***
(P.S.1: I remember using "kerfuffle" in a conversation at work once, near the end of my career. One of my younger coworkers couldn't stop giggling. She'd never heard the expression before, and thought it was hilarious. It made me feel even older than I was already feeling at work at that point. Is it really that unusual/dated a word??)
(P.S.2: Speaking of dated, if, like me, you well remember "Murphy Brown," I'd advise you don't read the comments on Tracy Clark-Flory's piece, unless you want to be treated to comments like "I was too young to remember this..." or "I was only 7 when this happened..." !!!)
No comments:
Post a Comment