Yiddishe Mamas by Marnie Winston-Macauley Read Free Book Online Page B

immune. Jamie Buchman’s mom in
Mad About You
evoked trembling in her daughters at the mere thought of a visit. Although she was portrayed as a constantly smiling, “life is good,” woman whose MO was steeped in denial, her code-speak was like something out of
Through the Looking Glass.
Will’s mother in
Will and Grace,
played by the glorious Blythe Danner, was the consummate stereotype of the WASP mom, who not only
talked
in code-speak, but was concerned with keeping up appearances and was steeped in emotional denial, which she handled through a very proper (and very extended) cocktail hour. (In crime shows, the WASPy mom is often
rich
—and in denial—with a son who has an eye tick and collects flesh-eating moths under mama’s radar.)
    In
Sex and the City,
though none of the
characters
were born Jewish, and their mothers are not seen on air, whenever they’rementioned, they usually bring about eye rolls, and trips home are about as welcome as a ring, courtesy of Cracker Jacks.
    Yet one can’t help but notice, that for all the kvetching about mothers, recent hits have reinvented almost precisely the same ethno-type in their “new” family groups—their friends.
    The
Seinfeld
“four” are rife with “Jewish mother” stereotypes— without the Jewish mother. Argumentation for one. No debate is too petty. With almost Talmudic logic, the group might be found arguing about the possibility of “over-drying.” It’s laundry by Talmudic review. While George loathes the “insanity” of his babbling mother, within his new “family” of pals, could he be
more
of the stereotype in high decibel?
    Group kvetching forms the core of the comedy. The “we four against the world— which is out to get us,” plus the never-ending picayune debates are a close replica of the very traits they loathe in their parents. If you add a few years to the group, they would fit neatly with their mamas—arguing over temperature control, early bird specials, and pens that write upside down.
    Will and Grace, along with friends Karen and Jack, form yet another faux “family.” The Jewish Grace is not unlike her overbearing, narcissistic, yet charming mother. Will maintains his mother’s rather formal rigid, appearances-first stance. Grace, like mama, is all about, well—Grace.
    W ill
and Grace
does have two important distinctions worth mentioning. It is the first prime-time sitcom since
The Goldbergs
to feature a marriage between a Jewish man and woman. When Grace and “Leo” Markus stood under a chuppah to wed, viewers saw a major Jewish character who didn’t “trade out” or become the oddball mate, as foil for the more stable WASP, such as Paul and Jamie, Fran and Maxwell, Dharma and Greg, or Rhoda and Joe. Furthermore, the audaciously Jewish Grace is not the primo resident neurotic. Jack and Karen make Grace (even when she’s singing) seem almost “regular”—an unusual and positive TV turn.
    It could be that the need for “family,” connection, involvement, and intimacy, burdensome as it may be, is still around. Because if we don’t get it, we simply reinvent something like it—and call it “friends.”
    Comic films and books in popular culture haven’t treated the Jewish mother—or any mother—much better. While some have been depicted as loving, the majority are harridans in films, for example:
My Favorite Year, Lovers and Other Strangers, Meet the Fockers, Annie Hall, Goodbye Columbus, Throw Mama off the Train,
and if you can imagine, Jane Fonda in
Monster-in-Law.
    And in books, there was the breakthrough seller,
Portnoy’s Complaint
(1970), by Philip Roth who, in one passage, describes his mother as a woman who might actually be “too good”—as weeping and suffering, she ground her own horseradish, checked every “crease and seam” in his body, and whose house was so spotless, you could eat off the bathroom floor.
    Comedy albums abounded.
How to Be a Jewish Mother
is based on the book by Dan