If you think abortion is a touchy subject in pop culture now
A pop culture site drew up a list of most controversial tv show episodes. Coming in at number 2 is the one in which Maude (of Maude) had an abortion. It aired in November 1972.
If you think abortion is a touchy subject in pop culture now, imagine a TV show dedicating a two-part episode to it before the Roe v. Wade decision even came down. That’s exactly what the series Maude did in 1972 when it tackled abortion head-on in an episode where Maude discovers that at the age of 47, she’s pregnant. Throwing typical sitcom gags and quips out the window, this episode deals with the problem in a real world way, explaining the pros and cons of the decision, and letting us as viewers see how something like this can affect a person’s life.
In the end, Maude gets the abortion, but the subject is never treated as an easy decision for laughs. This is a serious matter, and the show did its best to highlight a woman’s right for a national audience. Despite its good intentions, the episode sparked a firestorm of controversy, especially within religious circles. Seeing the importance of such an episode, CBS regularly showed “Maude’s Dilemma” in reruns during summer hiatuses.
The Chicago Tribune did a piece on the episode twenty years on.
Twenty years later, it is doubtful a similar show could be broadcast on network TV.
In 1972, the word “abortion” was used exactly twice on “Maude`s Dilemma” – once on each show. Nowadays the “a” word has practically been purged from the prime-time vocabulary and is heard almost exclusively on talk shows and some daytime soaps.
A handful of programs- “Hill Street Blues,” “St. Elsewhere,” “Cagney and Lacey” -have tackled the issue, but for the most part, a major character`s having an abortion is not even considered an option on network programming.
These days, prime-time pregnancies usually result in a false alarm (a 1990 episode of “Roseanne”); a decision to have a baby, followed by a tear- drenched recitation of a previous abortion (a 1985 episode of “Cagney and Lacey”); or an affirmation of the right to choose even while deciding to have the baby (“thirtysomething” and this year`s controversial episode of “Murphy Brown”).
And why’s that? Money. Controversy—>money.
The reasons for this are twofold: the presence of organized pressure groups threatening to boycott the products of advertisers who sponsor shows they disapprove of, and the economic concerns of the networks, threatened by competition from cable TV and home video. These factors lead many people to believe that “Maude`s Dilemma” would not make it onto today`s TV schedules. “You automatically think, ‘Of course it could be done today, look what we did 20 years ago,'” said Susan Harris, who wrote the “Maude” abortion shows. “But we have a very interesting (political) climate today, with the influence of the religious Right. The economy is different today, and the networks would feel less likely that they could take a stand.”
Susan Harris. You know who Susan Harris is? She’s the creator and head writer of a slew of classic sitcoms, and besides that?
She has a son named Sam.
Ironic, isn’t it.
I don’t really see what’s so ironic about Susan Harris’ career with respect to her son; there’s nothing about being a sitcom writer that precludes reproduction, and nothing about having written about abortion which stands in any kind of contradistinction to anything Sam might or might not have done. Certainly a woman can be pro-choice and have offspring, and that offspring can even grow up to have different opinions than their mother (though nothing Sam has ever said or written has given any evidence whatsoever that he would disagree with a woman’s right to abortion, or indeed that he would not support more frank and honest depictions of abortion in popular media).
Is it ironic in the sense that Sam Harris has made some sexist noises? Do those sexist noises mean he isn’t pro-choice? Or is the irony that Susan Harris wrote about abortion, and yet failed to abort Sam? Perhaps I’m just being obtuse, but I can’t really see what Sam has to do with any part of this issue, apart from having a familial connection to the woman who wrote the “controversial” episodes of Maude. If he’d become an organiser of a boycott against abortion, or at least against depicting abortion in entertainment, that might be one thing (and a source of irony, via the connection he shares to the woman who depicted just that)…but, as far as I can tell, he hasn’t, and indeed I don’t believe he ever would.
There ought to be a way to hook Sam Harris fans up to a turbine, show them anything vaguely resembling criticism of their hero, and harness the resulting indignant replies to generate endless amounts of electricity. At least then all those keystrokes would have a productive result.
Heh.
Seth, you’re right that it’s not obvious. I probably shouldn’t have assumed it is. But even before Sam H said really stupid things about sexism and then got livid at being challenged on them, I found him oblivious to the very existence of women. I stopped reading The End of Faith because the constant default-male was getting on my nerves too much. The fact that his mother is who she is makes that all the more surprising and irritating.
Ha! I was going to ask what the irony was but #4 clears it up
Yes, I found it remarkable to learn who Sam’s mother actually is. I didn’t expect a man who nonchalantly dismisses american women as being under the influence of an “estrogen vibe” when explaining their lack of interest in his work to have a mother who is so talented, and was so very involved in (at least some) hot-button feminist issues for decades. I would have thought that some of those sensibilities would have worn off onto him, from her, but apparently he’s immune.
Well, on the opposite side of the Sam Harris equation, perhaps then it’s ironic that I had a mother who was very active in anti-feminist work, who crusaded against abortion, and who worked to make sure that non-Christians were made as unwelcome as possible in the town where I grew up. It is ironic, actually, but not noticed because (1) neither of us is particularly famous; and (2) it’s going the other way, where we often see a child more liberal than their parents.
Some episodes of Maude were quite surprising seeings the times in which they aired. I’ve watched ‘Maude’s Dilemma several times and its treatment of abortion is clear, calm and reasoned.
There was another episode that mocked the…at times… insufferably patronizing support White Liberals sometimes displayed for Black causes. In that one, Maude holds a cocktail party attended exclusively by suburban White Liberals for the benefit of a local Black activist. She even has her part time Black maid dress up in Black Power Afro style in an effort to show she has street-cred. However, as her guest is late she ends up getting drunk and passes out, only to awaken the next morning with a terrible hangover and the realization she’d donated thousands of dollars she doesn’t have to the Black activist’s cause.