Accurate depictions of motherhood: ur doin it rong. via diana-b. @ flickr
As we’ve already noted here on Harpyness, Mother’s Day is upon us. Naturally, this is giving people license to speculate on who best represents motherhood — and one TV critic believes that pop culture is positing Kate Gosselin in that role. Gosselin is the titular Kate in Jon & Kate Plus 8, and while I will admit that I have never watched that show, I find myself confused about why Baltimore Sun critic David Zurawik has declared she may be TV’s new model of motherhood. Actually, I’m more confused about why there needs to be a model of motherhood, let alone why we would look to a television show to provide one.
Zurawik’s piece is very short, and asks:
But if June Cleaver represented the passive, repressed, housebound, 1950′s mom, what does Kate represent with her large brood, constant kvetching, passive-aggressive husband and control issues? And if Kate is the paragon of motherhood today, and what does that say about us?
Uh, maybe nothing? Just because a TV show is popular (and is currently receiving tabloid coverage) doesn’t at all mean that it holds some greater truth about what motherhood is. Not to mention, I don’t remember anyone — other than Zurawik — saying that Gosselin is “the paragon of motherhood today.”
Looking to pop culture to provide a model representation of any segment of the human experience is an experiment that will almost always fail, but Zurawik is hardly alone in searching for a paragon of motherhood as he channel surfs. There is a reason that the aforementioned June Cleaver became such an icon, as did Donna Reed. They were followed by Carol Brady in the seventies and Clare Huxtable in the eighties; but then the situation changed when the most popular sitcoms ceased to revolve solely around familial situations.
There were no models of motherhood to be found on Seinfeld or Friends or Cheers, and the most recognizable mother on TV became Marge Simpson. It’s worth noting that the most discussed TV mom in the nineties was Murphy Brown, whose decision to be a single mother generated a firestorm of controversy. In other words, it seemed that we had come a long way since the days of June Cleaver. But was that true? Those fun patriarchal standards of what constitutes a good mother were not about to be eradicated by one television show. The simple fact that the question of who the best TV mom is goes to show that there is still a cultural need to harness that unwieldy being of motherhood into a neat and tidy representation.
The biggest difference between the days of June Cleaver and the days of Kate Gosselin is that TV shows no longer pretend that every mother is content to stay in the kitchen wearing an apron over her perfectly ironed dress. But it’s preposterous to treat Gosselin as if she embodies some larger truth about maternity. To do so would be equivalent to supposing that American Idol is an accurate representation of the music business. The images of all reality TV stars are as carefully managed as those of the actors who star in sitcoms. It’s a safe assumption to say that Jon & Kate Plus 8 strategically edits footage so that the Gosselins’ actions can be projected from whatever angle best serves the producers’ purposes, in which case there is no way that Kate Gosselin can be an unfiltered representation of motherhood.
Is Zurawik alone in thinking that the star of a reality TV show is truly being held up as a paragon of motherhood? I hope so. Not because I have anything against Kate Gosselin — as I said, I’ve never seen her show — but because the need to look to anyone, let alone a woman who’s famous for a reality TV show, to embody modern motherhood is a fallacy. Motherhood is not some monolithic entity that can be represented by any one woman, fictional or not. So Happy Mother’s Day to all, and here’s hoping that, whatever your style of mothering may be, you don’t feel the need to measure yourself against any mom you see on TV.
The fact that as a culture we’re looking for and labeling women “paragons of motherhood” at all–let alone from reality television–is a clear sign how how necessary feminism still is.
@Becky: So true. I wonder how this will play out if reality TV gets even more and more common, because fictional mothers will give way to carefully edited versions of real ones. I’m not sure which is more dangerous, because it’s easy to assume that the Gosselin we see on TV is a 100% accurate representation of what she is like, and hence easier to compare someone’s mothering style to hers if she is a real person. (Did that even make sense?)
I was just thinking of motherhood and how others view it, earlier today. I opened a mother’s day gift from my stepmom and discovered some expensive, very delicate jewelry. I can’t wear delicate jewelry, because I break it (or someone dear to me breaks it). I tell everybody who might give me a gift this fact about me, and it should be kind of obvious to anyone who knows me, anyway. It becomes a burden to get it fixed over and over, but I feel guilty if I don’t.
The first time I received unwanted expensive, delicate jewelry it was from my grandmother at Christmas when my son was 18 months old. I also received from my mom a silk blouse I had nowhere to wear, being that my day job involved using tools and getting dirty. I didn’t get the two things I specifically asked for: a cordless phone, and some cassette tapes to record my CDs onto (this was in the early 90′s, yo.) I did my best to act like a grownup and hide my disappointment, so I asked my husband to fasten the necklace for me. My son was sitting in my lap and promptly grabbed the amethyst drop at my throat and broke the chain off my neck. I told my mom I didn’t have anywhere to wear the blouse, and she said it was for when my husband and I got a babysitter and went somewhere “nice.” Our tastes run to taquerias with walk-up counters and we always took our kid with us when we went.
It seems I was no longer Claire, but had become some generic mom-person, one who liked the things all mom-persons like (I believe that stinky, expensive perfume is also an allowed gift choice) and I was no longer allowed to enjoy things like electronics or making mix tapes.
I would say that we don’t need an image of motherhood, rather, we need dozens of them, to reflect that moms are as individual as we were when we were childless.
(Fortunately, my stepmom included a receipt, and her feelings won’t be hurt when I thank her for the cookwear I’m going to exchange the necklace for.)
So Zurawik chose Gosselin as the modern day everymom and then asks what it means about “us” that she’s the modern day everymom. It means nothing about “us,” as “we” did not declare her the paragon of motherhood. He did. In the past few years, depictions of uptight, controlling, mean moms have become more and more prevalent on tv – in sitcoms and now with Jon & Kate Plus 8 – with daddy as the spineless know-nothing. I have a hard time believing that’s a coincidence.
I should add that the poll currently featured on CNN’s homepage is asking if you ever wished Carol Brady was your mother. Seriously?
while proctastinating in all of my housewifely-duties, I just saw that E! is offering “Hollywood’s Hottest Moms”
I don’t think June would make the cut
@alli: Somehow that E! special does not at all surprise me. And we all know Marge Simpson is the hottest mom in Hollywood history.
Being a mother is hard. Doing a good job is even harder. We should all, as mothers, put aside the cultural brouhaha and still try as hard as we can to do a good job. Who cares what they say. Are we symbols? Who cares. In our hearts we know we need to do a good job. All else is sound and fury signifying nothing.
It is interesting that he would choose Gosselin, since just glancing through the comments on his own page shows that she is equally loved and reviled on the internet. But what he really is not acknowledging is that cable and new media forms are so different from his boomer childhood. When there were only 3 channels, everyone had a shared experience of television, and one character could come to represent an era. Today, we just don’t have that shared experience. Just because someone shows up in the tabloids, as you pointed out, doesn’t mean they represent something larger. It means that people who buy tabloids are interested in them- and not always in a positive way.
It actually strikes me as a bit of generational warfare to choose such a divisive “character” to represent this generation.
I’ve never seen the show, so I have no idea of what “kind of mother” Kate Gosselin is. When the story broke about the infidelity (I am embarrassed to even know this stuff), though, a lot of opinions popped out of the ooze that is the Internet. Judging from Facebook and from Jez, this woman is to say the least not uniformly adored. She’s a Bad Mommy because (a) who puts their family on reality tv and then isn’t perfect? That’s the point of tv, you say? Never! and (b) I guess she is portrayed as controlling? The term “psycho” got tossed around a fair amount and, shockingly, on Wednesday, I heard a wonderful, warm, loving person who has dedicated her life to improving the lives of children and works tirelessly to that end, say in person: “she is really crazy so she probably should have expected it.”
I don’t think anyone but this Zurawik believes she’s a paragon of motherhood and I doubt even he does. It sounds like he had a deadline and a lunch break on which he went to the grocery store and saw this tab. It would have been Angelina Jolie if not for the Gosselins being on the covers this week.
MammaMia, your point about the changing media and generational differences is an excellent one.
i’d love to know how the hell zurawik came to the conclusion that kate gosselin is, by any stretch of the imagination, a paragon of motherhood. i’m not a watcher of her show, and i know that IV treatments are rampant, but how many mothers had six kids at once due to IV and then had to go on medicaid prior to getting the tlc show?
the last portrayal of a real mother on television was roseanne. roseanne’s show in those first few seasons was more real than any reality show combined.
@Mama Mia: That’s a terrific point about how condensed things used to be. In the “good old days” there was a morality code in Hollywood that was so extensive that they couldn’t even say the word “pregnant” in I Love Lucy when Lucille Ball was pregnant on the show, and that kind of morality was inescapable. Talk about an improbable representation of maternity.