Mother’s Day and TV mothers history
TV has a weird relationship with Mother’s Day, because TV has so often been weird to mothers.
In so many shows airing over so many decades, mothers were all but wiped out. From “My Three Sons” to “Bonanza” to “The Andy Griffith Show” and “Family Affair” to “Diff’rent Strokes” and “My Two Dads” and “Full House” and “iCarly,” the emphasis was on children being raised either by sad widower fathers or an odd assortment of uncles and guardians.
The lessons of early television were fairly severe. Either you dressed up in pearls to wash dishes like Mrs. Cleaver on “Leave It to Beaver,” or you were liquidated.
When mothers did show up and have a personality to be reckoned with, the series were often considered subversive, or worse. It’s interesting to think back at how “Roseanne” was received in the late 1980s. It was as if TV mothers could never have a cranky attitude. On the other hand, it took an actor on the level of John Goodman to convince us that he’d want to put up (or wake up) with Roseanne Conner every day.
While TV dads were forgiven for nearly anything, it’s a rare television mother who could express both affection and consternation on a vaguely human level. People loved Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham), but she was entirely too knowing, chatty and caffeinated to be believed. In her own way, the exalted Clair Huxtable (Phylicia Rashad) hearkened back to the too-perfect moms of the 1950s.
The TV moms who most stand out as believable are Kitty Forman (Debra Jo Rupp) of “That ’70s Show,” Lois (Jane Kaczmarek) on “Malcolm in the Middle” and Rochelle (Tichina Arnold) from the underappreciated “Everybody Hates Chris.” Nancy Walker’s Ida Morgenstern may have been too over-thetop for some. But not for “Rhoda.”
Patricia Heaton of “Everybody Loves Raymond” would make the cut if not for the fact that the sitcom pretty much ignored her kids to emphasize their relationship
with Ray’s (Ray Romano) formidable mother (Doris Roberts).
And no TV mother was more formidable than Livia Soprano (Nancy Marchand), the most dangerously passive-aggressive mom in the history of television, or perhaps any medium.
This Mother’s Day arrives shortly after the April departures of two memorable “Seinfeld” moms, Helen Seinfeld (Liz Sheridan) and Estelle Harris, who played the indomitable Estelle Constanza.
A current series with an interesting mother is “Shining Girls,” streaming on Apple TV+. Amy Brenneman stars as Rachel, the mother of Kirby (Elisabeth Moss), the protagonist whose memory and identity have been shattered by a violent and traumatic incident.
Rachel’s maternal character wavers from irresponsible punk rocker to strident church
lady, depending on just who Kirby seems to be on any given day. It’s a challenging concept, but a reminder of how our relationships with our mothers are often largely a matter of agreed-upon recollections.
A new series that hearkens back to old habits is the dramatic adaptation of the documentary “The Staircase,” streaming on HBO Max. You just don’t have a story without the mom (Toni Collette) ending up dead at the bottom of the stairs.
So, here’s a happy Mother’s Day to all the TV mothers, living and (mostly) dead! ›
A pretty executive finds that her charity work takes her to a far-off land, where she becomes romantically involved with the heir to the throne in the 2021 romance “Royally Wrapped for Christmas” (8 p.m. Saturday, GACFSD, TV-G).