Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión
Maude: "Maude's Dilemma: Parts 1 & 2"
Like most Norman Lear sitcoms in the early 1970s, Maude tended to have a lot of scenes devoted to loud arguments and constant shouting. So it's kinda refreshing to note that the show's most controversial episode actually started off rather low-key. The episode took almost forever to establish that the title character Maude Finley was pregnant, even longer to casually allude to abortion and even longer to actually use the word "abortion."
If anything, the show seemed almost too subtle. Though the story lasted through two half-hour episodes, it conveniently ended before we ever saw the inside of an abortion clinic. Instead, much of the time was taken up mining humor from the reluctance of Maude and her husband Walter to admit to their true feelings about her late-in-life pregnancy. Officially, Maude Finley was in favor of legalized abortion; she just didn't want to admit to wanting to have one herself. Officially Walter was in favor of whatever Maude wanted. Her twentysomething daughter Carol was a bit more open on the topic, continually reminding her mother that abortion was currently legal in New York. (The episode aired prior to the Roe v. Wade decision so abortion was not yet legal in every state of the union.)
As a person who recently witnessed the wavering of a friend who was committed to getting an abortion but not above having last-minute qualms about it, I must confess that I was a bit disappointed that there wasn't more debate about the subject in this episode. Yes, one could hardly blame Lear and episode screenwriter Susan Harris for choosing the safest route past the network censors of the time. And one could understand Ms. Harris' determination to point out that good people have abortions too at a time when the opposite view was all too prevalent.
Yet I can't help wondering if the procedure would have been all that simple for Maude Finley. And I can't help wondering whether or not she ever experienced second thoughts. Perhaps I'm just projecting my own pro-life leanings onto a fictional character, but then again, up until a time quite recently when I spoke with the above friend who was getting an abortion, I was perfectly happy leaning in the pro-choice direction on the grounds that at least safe abortions meant less women would die. But there was something about my witnessing my friend's wavering on the subject that convinced me that one could be pro-choice and yet still have serious misgivings about an actual abortion. Misgivings that could not be easily cured with strict applications of feminist or liberal dogma.
I still prefer that abortions be legal if for no other reason than the fact that that's the best way to assure that they're safe. But part of me would also prefer that they be rare. And while I understand the many reasons Norman Lear would never feature my viewpoint in a TV episode, I nonetheless believe it is important. After all, not all issues can be adequately dealt with in the course of a half-hour television show. Abortion just happens to be one of them. However, I do respect Norman Lear and Susan Harris' efforts to prove otherwise.
Maude: "Maude's Dilemma: Parts 1 & 2"
Like most Norman Lear sitcoms in the early 1970s, Maude tended to have a lot of scenes devoted to loud arguments and constant shouting. So it's kinda refreshing to note that the show's most controversial episode actually started off rather low-key. The episode took almost forever to establish that the title character Maude Finley was pregnant, even longer to casually allude to abortion and even longer to actually use the word "abortion."
If anything, the show seemed almost too subtle. Though the story lasted through two half-hour episodes, it conveniently ended before we ever saw the inside of an abortion clinic. Instead, much of the time was taken up mining humor from the reluctance of Maude and her husband Walter to admit to their true feelings about her late-in-life pregnancy. Officially, Maude Finley was in favor of legalized abortion; she just didn't want to admit to wanting to have one herself. Officially Walter was in favor of whatever Maude wanted. Her twentysomething daughter Carol was a bit more open on the topic, continually reminding her mother that abortion was currently legal in New York. (The episode aired prior to the Roe v. Wade decision so abortion was not yet legal in every state of the union.)
As a person who recently witnessed the wavering of a friend who was committed to getting an abortion but not above having last-minute qualms about it, I must confess that I was a bit disappointed that there wasn't more debate about the subject in this episode. Yes, one could hardly blame Lear and episode screenwriter Susan Harris for choosing the safest route past the network censors of the time. And one could understand Ms. Harris' determination to point out that good people have abortions too at a time when the opposite view was all too prevalent.
Yet I can't help wondering if the procedure would have been all that simple for Maude Finley. And I can't help wondering whether or not she ever experienced second thoughts. Perhaps I'm just projecting my own pro-life leanings onto a fictional character, but then again, up until a time quite recently when I spoke with the above friend who was getting an abortion, I was perfectly happy leaning in the pro-choice direction on the grounds that at least safe abortions meant less women would die. But there was something about my witnessing my friend's wavering on the subject that convinced me that one could be pro-choice and yet still have serious misgivings about an actual abortion. Misgivings that could not be easily cured with strict applications of feminist or liberal dogma.
I still prefer that abortions be legal if for no other reason than the fact that that's the best way to assure that they're safe. But part of me would also prefer that they be rare. And while I understand the many reasons Norman Lear would never feature my viewpoint in a TV episode, I nonetheless believe it is important. After all, not all issues can be adequately dealt with in the course of a half-hour television show. Abortion just happens to be one of them. However, I do respect Norman Lear and Susan Harris' efforts to prove otherwise.
Labels: Aborto, Maude, Norman Lear, Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión VIII, Susan Harris
posted by Tonio Kruger at 1:20 AM
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