Lady Godiva was a freedom fighter...begins the theme song from "Maude" first aired in 1972, starring Bea Arthur.
While everyone else is slam-dunking Game of Thrones I find myself getting nostalgic for the days of Life Cereal and Mikey or Coca Cola commercials with Mean Joe Greene throwing a soft drink to a little kid. In my world, this means Barney Miller and Maude lead my Netflix cue. I wasn't surprised when the company delivered the red envelopes without a wait.
These were the type of shows I would watch with my dad when I was a kid. I remember appreciating the fact that the shows made him laugh vs. really ingesting any of the lines myself. The shows seemed to decrease the tension of his workday. Of course it's comforting to revisit the actors playing these characters...faces of old friends... many of whom would be with us in other capacities...Conrad Bain in Different Strokes...Esther Rolle on Good Times...even Adrienne Barbeau would become easily identifiable as she went on to play she of cleavage and spandex in Cannonball Run and various shrews in Rodney Dangerfield and Stephen King movies.
You're not going to find too many ladies on Barney Miller other than Mrs. Miller whose only exercise seemed to be locking and unlocking the five deadbolts of their apartment door. However, one episode entitled "Ms. Cop" surprised me when I saw Linda Lavin aka "Alice" walk across the boob tube. In the story arc there is a point where the guys receive a dangerous call and Barney has everyone go out except for Linda: she's told to do paperwork and hold down the fort. Linda has to argue with Barney to be put into active duty and so she is paired with Fish (being paired with Fish, how active can that be?)They go out on assignment where she proves her worth but then is mysteriously transferred from the squad. (Can't really bust up the BM cast with a permanent female addition in 1974) The episode ends with the good news that she has been transferred to vice, and presumably, is being taken seriously.
After Bea Arthur appeared on All in the Family as Edith Bunker's vocal cousin, she received her own show: Maude. I don't share much in common with a woman who lives in a middle class New York home with her fourth husband and daughter-in-law and grandson. I don't look much like the tall woman with salt and pepper hair and a thing for turtlenecks and dusters. However in one month we will be the same age, 47, and so I wonder how many of her "dilemmas" reflect mine. In the era that Arthur was cast, she could deliver a line to her husband, Bill Macy, "all I am is a sex kitten" with no intended irony.
Most of the episodes of Maude were written by men but one of them in the first season, called "Maude's Dilemma"was written by Susan Harris who went on to create series like The Golden Girls and Soap. In this episode, Maude finds out she is pregnant at 47 and decides that it isn't fair to start raising a child so late in life. Nowadays we would presume that any baby delivered at the age of 47 was the result of IVF, or just one baby born as multiples. The idea that someone would be having a plain old vaginal birth at the age of 47 (currently the average age for menopause is 51) is kind of startling.
Recently a friend of mine gave birth at 46 from a donated egg from a twenty something. When I would tell friends about her I would often receive a critical look as in, how could she do that to her kid? She's going to be Skeletor by the time she needs to check if the kid is Febreezing his room after drug use as a teenager. My friend is a marathon runner and Paleo advocate and, probably in better health than most twenty-somethings out there. Yet most of the women I spoke with about her spoke like Maude...they felt it just wasn't fair to the baby.
In another episode of Maude, an old college friend, Bunny Walsh, visits. Bunny is a middle aged glamour gal with a vice presidency position with Avon, and a private plane and pilot license. Her weekly itinerary includes Boston and Paris. Maude finds herself comparing herself to Bunny and defending her life as a wife and mother. Bunny is the career woman without a mate and Maude is the stay at home wife without a career. Perhaps the most cogent line comes at the very end as they embrace...."I know I can't have it all but but I want it all..." and the other woman cries "Me too!" I know in 2015 women like to think they can juggle all things but no one I know has a full time job and more than one child under the age of ten. The single women I know are successful but they don't have nuclear families and have resigned themselves to circles of friends and internet dates.
I'm grateful for these episodes of Maude but a little sad. It seems that forty years later so many of the storylines still ring true.