It’s the suddenness of the disappearance. One second Mary and Guy of the Week (GotW) are happily dating with no problems and the next time we see Mary there’s no GotW around. Not mentioned or anything.
And it happens a lot.
The rarity of Howard Arnell or Wes Callison (Jerry van Dyke), where they appear in widely separated episodes with a story arc, stand out.
Compare to the parade of one-off girlfriends of J.D. on Scrubs. I can’t recall any instance where at the end of one episode J.D. and his GotW (Girl …) are happy and then the GotW is never seen or mentioned again. The breakups are almost always shown on camera.
Why would I put a completely non-creepy dude in my list of totally- or partially-creepy dudes? I guess I muddied the water a bit when I included some borderline cases.
Sam’s position that some of the “second wave feminists” of the '60s and '70s are of a different perspective than are some of the #metoo movement is not completely out of the blue.
And a #metoo critique blaming second wavers like Merkin for a backlash against perceived #metoo excesses.
Whatever you think of the positions taken they do both agree with Sam when he claims that feminists of the '70s were more about their own agency and that there is some generational divide over what defines predation/victimhood, what sort of responses are best for simple creepiness (such as what Mary frequently encountered), and what sort of self-narrative is more consistent with a “feminist perspective”. Not a shock that a show created in the '70s would more reflect the ethos more common during that time: the narrative is not Mary Richards being traumatized as the result of these men’s actions; it is not about her trying to make the men pay some price of public humiliation or loss of job; the narrative simply is her not accepting the behavior straight out and standing up for herself even if at times she is initially uncomfortable doing so.
The feminism Mary Richards modeled was for women to become comfortable taking charge and in the moment to refuse to be pressured. Imagine Mary on that fateful “date” with Aziz Ansari and how it would have played out for a compare/contrast that might illustrate what was considered important feminist narratives then and now.
Again, that feminist perspective began in the show in regards to Mary’s dating life, but it got better when it became less defined by how she related to men as possible and real romantic and/or sexual interests and more about how she related to the world of her friends and her work and their intersections.
Marlo Thomas had a steady boyfriend on That Girl, which premiered four years earlier. I never watched it but from what I read the show broke a lot of ground before MTM.
Lucille Ball had two series in the 60s where she was a single lead. Again, I didn’t watch but I’m pretty sure she wasn’t husband hunting. Same with the Doris Day Show. Admittedly, they were both older and widowed.
No, the second article you linked to doesn’t agree with that view at all. The author is arguing that refusing to normalize or accept predatory male behavior is not “victimhood”, that calling out and denouncing harassment is about women’s agency, and that the so-called “70s feminist” deal-with-it-yourself approach is not intrinsically “more consistent” with feminism.
But speaking as somebody who actually was a 1970s feminist, it’s kind of hilarious to see our movement held up in retrospect as a model of spunky game-girl self-reliance and laudable empowerment. That sure as fuck wasn’t what they were saying about us back then.
Apparently there was a show in season 4 “Happy Birthday, Lou” where Lou Grant turns 48. I also remember a show a couple years later where he turns 50 and Ted Baxter remarks “think of it, your life is two-thirds over”. I think Ed Asner is just one of these guys who looked middle age in high school.
I don’t think “Honey West” was ever chasing a husband and she was the boss in her two person detective agency but that was a 30 minute drama. “That Girl” had a steady boyfriend and there was a bridal shower (or bachelor party, can’t remember which) near the end but Ann Marie didn’t get married on the show.
I don’t think thete were that many shows with happily single men either. “Love that Bob” was kind of an anomaly with a single male photographer in the 1950s.
There were quite a few. Bachelor Father, for example, had two single men in it. In the TV version of Adventures of Superman you had Clark Kent and Jimmie Olsen as single men. Perry White has a couple relatives mentioned but no wife so you can add him.
Bonanza had 4 single guys (one a multitime widower.)
Shows like 77 Sunset Strip were dripping in single guys.
And I assume war shows like Combat, Rat Patrol and 12 O’clock High are excluded.
I don’t see anyone here yet whining about why we haven’t seen tv bachelors dating some women, everything going great, who simply abruptly disappear from the show. That’s because if they do date any women, they are props to show how heterosexual the men are, and how disposable women are to them. ‘The Ladies Man’ - how I despise that tired old ballsack of a trope. Shows, unless they are rom-coms like Friends, shows centered around swingin’ bachelors seldom worry if the guys are going to settle down with Miss Special.
The clingy IRS agent in this episode was played by Paul Sand, who has been largely forgotten today but was considered a rising comedic star at the time. Believe it or not, this episode was done as a way of grooming him for a sitcom of his own. This sitcom, Friends and Lovers, actually materialized in the 1974-75 season, produced by MTM creators James L. Brooks and Allan Burns, starring Sand as an “unlucky in love” musician very similar to the character he played on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It only lasted 15 episodes. But at that time, somebody apparently felt he had the makings of a romantic lead!
What we would think of as a “creepy stalker” these days was often interpreted as a “lovable goof” back in the days of '70s TV.
As salinqmind points out, the “disposable” love interests were quite common at the time. People have mentioned Three’s Company. One of the most frequent Three’s Company plots was that Jack is interested in some girl. Through some “hilarious” misunderstanding, he is unable to get together with her. By the end of the episode, the situation has been resolved, and Jack is finally able to go on a date with this wonderful girl.
And then that girl is gone by the next episode, and Jack is pursuing someone else. The women in these episodes aren’t really characters; they’re purely functional pieces of that week’s wacky hi-jinks. I doubt it occurred to any writer or producer of the time to worry about what happened between Jack and the Girl of the Week after the closing credits rolled. The episode was over; so was the girl’s role in the show.
MTM was really the same way, but because it was men being treated like that, it stands out.
Paul Sand was in a ton of shows at the time. He was quirky and funny and perfect for certain roles. A difficult fit for a leading man. Maybe in the 70s version of Big Bang Theory he would fit but it didn’t exist.
I think you are partially right about the dating. If the characters start talking about love and commitment but the guest actor disappears before the next episode without explaination it will be noted as a plot hole regardless of gender. If it’s just a date not so much. I don’t remember any relationships that Jack had until they tried to shoehorn a Robin’s Nest remake.
Going way back, anyone remember ‘Adventures in Paradise’ about handsome Gardner McKay sailing the South Seas in his schooner? There were scads of guest stars, lots of women, and apparently he had a Polynesian honey back in home port to welcome him back every so often. I do not, however, recall anyone fretting about when he was going to give up that lifestyle and exotic job to get married and settle down…just another instance where it’s ok for single men to live a life free to do as they please, but a single woman, OMG, why doesn’t she have a steady boooooyfrieeeeeeeend.
One of the oldies channels showed a marathon of MTM last weekend, so I saw a lot of the episodes listed in the OP.
Of the things that I noticed:
the writers thought the guys were more “quirky” than “creepy.” (i.e., this guy does this kind of odd thing…but really it’s not that bad.) This was true even when they wouldn’t take “no” for an answer.
Mary very, very, very, very rarely actually said the word “no.” There are a lot of scenes where she gives excuses (“I need to go to work,” “I’m washing my hair,” “Oh no, someone’s calling me.”) instead of actually setting a boundary.
The men around her don’t seem to care how inappropriate these guys are. They just laugh or even help the creeps out. (In one extreme example, some guy shows up at her office, handcuffs himself to her and then drags her off on a lunch date that she actually said she didn’t want to go on.
Several people in the office chuckle and then help him out when he shows up again.
(Also, she more or less fails to stand up for herself and just goes along. It is not a good example of standing up for yourself - though it is rather typical of Mary’s behavior… she is very, very passive in a lot of ways. I’m guessing the people in the thread who claim that she stands up for herself don’t actually remember the show very well.))
No one calls the creeps out for their behavior. (They may finally understand that Mary doesn’t want to see them again - but they never get told that stalking is not ok.)
If anything, there’s kind of an implication that Mary is the problem. (At the end of the handcuff episode, after she’s been afraid to leave the house for a week because of what this guy might do to her, she’s the one who gets her comeuppance at the end of the episode. He gets vindication.)
It’s still a great show. And it holds up very, very well in many ways.
Where I am, they’re currently stripping it on CHCH 11 in the late afternoon. I’ve been watching it pretty much since the beginning (they showed the episode where Murray declares his love for Mary today). It really is a time capsule for attitudes and behavior, maybe more so than other old series.
