by Una LaMarche
The twentysomething characters on Girls are gloriously, maddeningly self-involved. They fret over outfits, they dish about guys, they have kinky, acrobatic sex in all manner of shabby-chichi New York apartments. They also get naked in front of each other in many nonsexual situations (see above), as if to prove that nudity can reach a saturation point at which it ceases to matter. I love the show, despite its tendency to make me feel like I wasted my twenties eating toaster pizzas and watching The Bachelorette, and I have a hunch that Lena Dunham chose the title Girls precisely because it sounds so youthful and frivolous. They are pointedly not women. And they are definitely not moms.
I’m a thirtysomething mother who drinks (a lot of) wine, has (occasional, let’s not get crazy here) sex, and (sometimes) wears low-rise jeans. I also sometimes choose sensible shoes, let my eyebrows get scraggly, and gripe at my husband for letting the dishes pile up. I’m reasonably happy, but I screw up a lot. I’m self-involved, but I can’t afford to be that way all of the time anymore, because I devote so much of myself to someone much needier than I am. I feel like I’m pretty representational of my mom friends, a group largely composed of ambitious, creative, funny, and flawed upper-middle-class women. A mother in her early thirties with a committed partner and a child with no extraordinary or dramatic challenges doesn’t seem like an endangered species, and yet I don’t see us represented accurately anywhere on TV or in movies. The fictional character who comes closest to realism is probably Alyson Hannigan’s Lily on How I Met Your Mother, but I disqualified her when, seemingly days after giving birth, her character started showing up at the bar again to hang with her friends every night. Sorry, but in real life moms don’t get to do that. Instead, they drink alone while watching How I Met Your Mother.
Moms don’t get a lot of choices when it comes to cultural representation. Yes, women of many ages, colors, and sizes show up on screens both big and small, dragging all manner of progeny in tow, but in a world with thousands of different candy bars at every truck stop and hundreds of unique brands of toilet paper, when it comes to the definition of mothers in our culture we seem able to come up with only two flavors: martyr and MILF. Both categories seem designed to strip women, regardless of their abdominal fitness levels or career choices, of any real power or integrity. The good news, of course, is that either type will probably get to star in a yogurt commercial. So we’ve got options.
The majority of today’s pop culture moms are portrayed as long-suffering martyrs. A typical pop culture mom is pushing forty, attractive enough but not overly sexualized (count on her wardrobe to consist almost exclusively of cowl-neck sweaters), and her primary employment is that of a professional buzzkill, endlessly nagging/mocking her infantilized husband. In comedies, the martyr is generally manic and wisecracking (think Julie Bowen in Modern Family) or dry and unflappable (see Phylicia Rashad on The Cosby Show); just glance to the left of any Judd Apatow leading man and you will find her. In dramas, she is prone to looking tired under harsh lighting (Melissa Leo in The Fighter) or belting out harrowing show tunes in close-up (Anne Hathaway in Les Misérables). Subspecies of the martyr genus include Saint Mom—a kinder, less ironic version of the standard prototype, whose roots can be traced back to June Cleaver and Donna Reed and who tends to show up in modern times in Meryl Streep romantic comedies (hint: the sight of her pristine eat-in kitchen makes you want to kill yourself)—and Single Mom, who is generally the most bitter of them all, unless she’s so desperate to bond with her child(ren) that she attempts to become the elusive Best Friend Mom, typified by that relic of the early aughts, Lorelai Gilmore. Perhaps the most beloved (and committed) martyr of them all, however, is Dead Mom, whose tragic passing paves the way for comedy dads to have hilarious diaper misadventures and for dramatic dads to have sensitive, candlelit sex with models.
And then in the other box we have . . . the MILF. The MILF would make a joke about the fact that I just called her a “box,” since “box” is slang for “vagina,” and the first rule of being a MILF is that no one can ever forget that you have one, or that you frequently use it for things other than shooting out babies. Whereas the martyr is all about suffering and denial, the MILF lives for celebration and instant gratification. In her purest form—Stifler’s mom from American Pie, Jane Seymour’s pearl-clutching nympho in Wedding Crashers, every single Real Housewife on Bravo—the MILF puts her own needs before those of her kids, generally prioritizing sex above things like eating and sleeping. The purebred MILF is cartoonish and vulgar. She dresses as scantily as possible at all times, preferably in leopard print, and does things like eat bananas in slow motion. She likes to touch her teenage daughter’s boyfriends and get drunk at lunch. If the MILF were a man, he would probably end up on To Catch a Predator. It is possible to be a hybrid of martyr and MILF—see Leslie Mann’s career—but to embody both at once is a hollow victory. It tells me—and, worse, the legions of “Girls” out there—that the benchmark of achievement in a woman’s postpartum identity is simply to bridge the Madonna-whore gap.
Surely there’s more to it than that. I know there is; I’m living it. But I don’t think we’ll be seeing Moms on TV anytime soon, not even on the riskier cable channels. Because somewhere in between the shrews and the vamps there are a million three-dimensional women who just want to take their goddamn bath alone. And who wants to watch that?
OTHER SMALL BUT IMPORTANT ERRORS IN THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE AS DEPICTED IN MOVIES AND TV
The Surprise Coffee
Two characters rendezvous in a public space in a platonic capacity. One character enters the frame holding two generic cups of take-out coffee and hands one of them to the other character. Sample dialogue:
Character 1: Here, I got you coffee.
Character 2: Thanks!
Hold on. Character 1, where did the coffee come from? Starbucks? Dunkin’ Donuts? Le Pain Quotidien? The vending machine by the office men’s room? Character 2, would this alleged “friend” know your brand likes and dislikes? And even if Character 1 got lucky picking from among these broader coffee distinctions, there is almost zero chance that he could correctly deduce the most crucial and delicate science of coffee enjoyment: Character 2’s milk and sugar preferences. I don’t even let my husband put the milk in my coffee. Character 1 needs to get his ego in check.
The “Regular Booth”
Sorry, group of attractive friends in an ensemble comedy, but ain’t no one saving that diner booth for you night after night so you can trade one-liners about your suspiciously low-paying day job that somehow affords you the disposable income to spend eating out every day of your life. Unless you’re an unemployed day-drunk at a nearly empty Irish bar, you don’t get dibs on a specific seat, and no way the management is reserving an entire table for you, especially when each member of your party makes his or her dramatic entrance at a different time. God.
The Curious Case of the Six-Month-Old Newborn
[Screams of pain]
Doctor: I can see the head! Just one more push!
[Banshee wail]
Doctor: It’s a girl!
It’s also fifteen pounds. Someone get that woman a morphine drip and a pair of drop-crotch pants, stat!
Hospital of the Damned
If you ever find yourself being treated in a hospital staffed only by ethereally beautiful doctors and nurses who have questionable medical ethics and obvious sexual chemistry with each other, rip out your IV and crawl to the nearest free clinic, because chances are four hundred percent that at some point in the near future, a large aircraft / special needs school bus / cruise ship carrying both explosives and zoo animals will crash into the waiting room, killing you but sparing the bi-curious anesthesiologist with a pending international adoption.
Sex
I’m not saying humans don’t have sex, I’m just saying it’s grossly misrepresented on-screen in almost every conceivable way, e.g.:
• I will make a conservati
ve estimate that, in order to preserve a feeling of comic spontaneity or dramatic emotional stakes, seventy-five percent of television and movie characters fall into bed together without expecting to. You almost never see a character chatting with her BFF while getting a bikini wax and saying, “I’m seeing Gunther tonight at the office party, so I figured I’d better get rid of these ingrown hairs just in case we end up boning under the fluorescent lights in the IT cubicle.” In some cases, after the initial hooking up there’s an ellipsis edited in to hide the sex, so I guess it’s technically possible that after Sally kisses Harry, she bolts to the bathroom to shave her legs with an ancient disposable razor she finds stuck to a bar of soap under the sink, but I harbor suspicions that in fact all fictional characters keep their genitalia impeccably groomed at all times, which is just not believable given the amount of time they also spend killing German spies, battling sudden monsoons, changing clothes during montages, convening at their regular diner booths, and getting each other surprise coffees.
• Two words: bra sex. Yes, I understand: some actresses don’t want to show their aureoles to millions of strangers. I sympathize. But, honestly, when was the last time that a woman having sex in the privacy of her own home failed to remove her bra? Even if she wanted to keep it on, humans are visual creatures, and chances are good that her partner, in the grip of animal lust, would have stopped at nothing to free her breasts. Hide them if you must, director, with a sheet or a well-placed limb, but don’t pretend that Victoria’s secret is that she can only climax with the assistance of underwire.
• More characters should get their pants stuck around their ankles while attempting to swiftly doff their clothing in order to reveal their sparkling and immaculately manicured privates to their unexpected sexual conquests. Also, more accidental armpit-fart noises when glistening bodies rub against each other in the heat of passion. Incidentally these two details are my main complaints about 9½ Weeks.
You Betta Work
What RuPaul Failed to Teach Me About Career Choices
Ask small children what they want to be when they grow up and you will get a variety of adorable, improbable answers. A fairy princess, maybe, or a dinosaur hunter, or a top-ranked cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic. Ask four-year-old me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I would have brightly responded with my ultimate dream job: New York City bus driver.
Throughout my childhood I loved the bus, which is understandable. Buses are very kid-friendly: bouncy, loud, full of the kinds of stimulation that can only be appreciated by people whose brains are not yet fully developed. When we ventured to exotic destinations outside our native Manhattan, via the Port Authority Bus Terminal, I liked to watch the landscape pass by, green trees melting into gray cement with a dancing telephone wire vibrating in between, imagining the awesome power of maneuvering such a spectacular behemoth through the world.
Like so many youthful fantasies, however, I have abandoned this career path as an adult, and not just because I can barely drive a car larger than a Mini Cooper without almost hitting something. No, it goes deeper than that. I’ve not only lost my appreciation for the trademark sounds and smells of buses but have also in fact come to regard bus travel as one of the deeper circles of hell, a notch or two above being given a jalapeño enema while being forced to listen to an Ann Coulter audiobook.*
This just goes to show that it’s hard to know what you want to be when you grow up—even when you are, technically, a grown-up. I used to make fun of my mother because, according to her, she’s held approximately fifty different jobs. Some people tell their life story in one big lump, but she’s preferred to let it out slowly over the years, doling out details like crumbs to my sister and me, who are perpetually starved for gossip, even if it’s about our own mom. We survived for years on the tidbit that she once was employed making magic wands for a hippie artist on the Lower East Side. “Like, with sparkles and everything?” we asked, half mocking, half delighted. She also worked as a dance teacher, as a bookkeeper, at Greenmarket, at a nursery school. Every year or so a new job comes to light, and we kick ourselves for not pressing her harder for details.
Only recently have I come to realize that I take after my mother, at least in terms of career history. In my seventeen legally employable years, I have held as many jobs. I’ve never made magic wands, but I did once forge David Arquette’s signature on a Bulgarian visa application. So that’s something. And I feel like I’ve learned a few important lessons from casting such a wide net (and making so many egregious errors) while stumbling fearfully along on my haphazard path to becoming a full-time writer.
(By way of a disclaimer, I’m not wearing what would pass in most circles for pants as I type this advice, so you might want to consider that TMI nugget your official grain of salt. You’re welcome.)
Your College Major Was (Possibly) a Waste of Time and Resources
If you went to some sort of technical college or trade school, or spend your days operating on cancer patients or building spaceships, then you can skip this section. But if you whiled away four years at a liberal arts college like I did, then you know that every month when you open your student loan bill, the education you’re paying for more or less boils down to “how to hold a bong properly while simultaneously making a microwave quesadilla.”
Look, of course there are valuable academic experiences to be had, and sometimes instead of a quesadilla you make ramen in the mug that you alternately use for an ashtray, but for the most part a liberal arts education is just code for “eh, do whatever.” So choosing a major is just a question of deciding what you feel like studying during the hours that you’re not binge-drinking or watching other students perform interpretive dance to classic rock songs.
Unfortunately, I did not know this at the time. I thought that choosing my major meant, at age nineteen, selecting the career path I would have to adhere to for the rest of my natural life. The only other indelible decision I made at nineteen was to tattoo an image of Disney’s Tinker Bell* on my right shoulder, so I was already 0–1. Things did not look good.
I finally chose film studies because I liked watching movies, and while I ended up loving that major, I erred in believing it meant that after graduation I should work in movies for a living. Which brings me to my next two tips.
Never Work for Someone Who Scares the Living Shit Out of You ~ and ~ Think Twice About a Job Situated Inside Your Employer’s Home
The first job I took after graduation was as a personal assistant to a film producer. I learned about it through the film studies department job board (Film studies! My major!!) and interviewed over the phone with a curt, extremely busy-sounding person I’ll call Mallory, both to protect her privacy and in honor of the most underrated member of the Baby-sitters Club. On our call, Mallory sounded like she was stuck in a wind tunnel and asked a lot more about how comfortable I was making restaurant reservations than about my favorite example of mise-en-scène in the Hitchcock oeuvre. Still, I did my best to impress her with my passion for what I anachronistically (and pretentiously) referred to as “pictures” and was thrilled when she cut me off, clicked her tongue, and said, with a barely concealed sigh of ambivalence, “Fine, when can you start?”
Signs of trouble were abundant immediately: Mallory would be in L.A. for two weeks, and so I would begin working for her without actually meeting her. My first task would be to move her files and computers from a sleek rented office space in midtown . . . to her ten-year-old daughter’s bedroom. Mallory told me that her producing partner had recently relocated to London, so it wasn’t necessary for her to shell out for a space anymore.
“That makes sense,” I murmured into the phone. I was incredibly self-conscious working out of Mallory’s home, a spacious Upper West Side two-bedroom she shared with her daughter and her unemployed, gym-addicted, really, really, really gay-seeming husband. I’ve always felt uncomfortable being left alone in other people’s houses, probably because
I know I’m not to be trusted. I won’t steal or anything, but I’m the type who will taste your food, use your beauty products, look through your photo albums, and try on your clothes—you know, entry-level creepiness. Like Jennifer Jason Leigh in Single White Female before she got the haircut.
I got briefly trained by Mallory’s outgoing assistant, a friendly girl who always seemed to be covered in a light veil of sweat. She had the frightened, excited air of someone about to be released from prison, which should have sounded an even louder alarm than the fact that I was sharing office space with at least two dozen Barbies. But having never held a real job before, I made myself color-blind to these red flags and busied myself with getting ready for my jet-setting new boss’s arrival on the East Coast.
I welcomed Mallory home into her own apartment wearing an ill-fitting suit jacket, bought on sale at Filene’s Basement, and jeans, which was my attempt to look effortlessly modern and professional but which came off more like a band leader letting off steam at a truck stop. The first thing I noticed about my employer was her eyes. They were sparkling but flinty and dark, like a patch of black ice on the highway. This, combined with the air-conditioning setting that Mallory preferred, a level I can only describe as “cryogenic freeze,” gave me chills, and not in a good way.
There is a difference between someone being intimidating and truly scary. Most bosses are intimidating, just by virtue of the fact that they have more power than you do; specifically, the power to fire you at will. I have always had a healthy fear of authority figures and tend to regard even the most gentle of bosses as a powder keg that could explode in my face at any moment. But Mallory wasn’t just imposing; she was fucking terrifying. She gave me a thin smile and dropped her bags in the entryway.
