Tags
Anita Hill, Brett Kavanaugh, Candice Bergen, Dan Quayle, Fake News, Motherhood, Murphy Brown, Murphy Brown reboot
In December 1988, shortly after Candice Bergen showed up as Murphy Brown on American TV, I took up permanent residence in these United States. And for the next decade, I liked knowing I could find her if I needed her on a Thursday night at nine o’clock. Characterized as “Mike Wallace in a dress,” she was tough and didn’t suffer fools. She was, as the saying goes, “one of the boys,” a moniker that has been applied to me a time or two prompting me – then and now – to consider what it means to be a boy, a man. What constitutes “masculine” behavior, especially today when there are men and women defending the alleged sexual assault of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh? Perhaps a new and acceptable understanding will come out of the proceedings – but I’m not confident. In this country, we don’t do well with learning from history. Just ask Anita Hill.
By the time the Murphy Brown show ended in 1998, Murphy had a son, and I had a brand new baby girl. Smitten, my baby made me feel like a natural woman too, but she also intimidated me like no other force in my life – six pounds of pure hope in my arms. 
Motherhood exposed a vulnerability in the irascible Murphy Brown, as did the diagnosis of her breast cancer in the final season – a vulnerability that was no match for her big hair or the business-suit armor and the smart-ass attitude. Out of the blue, I would meet a similar fate 13 years later, not fully aware of what the woman who played Murphy knew –
Life is wondrously and appallingly surprising. Anyone who doesn’t know that is unarmed.
Like Bergen, I was an “older” first-time mother. I often wondered if I was up to the task of motherhood. I know now that I was. Like Bergen, I was widowed and didn’t think I would love or trust another man again. But I did, and with every storm that has passed in the past five years, I am reminded of Lou Reed’s wisdom – “There’s a bit of magic in everything, and some loss to even things out.”
I’ve missed Murphy Brown and FYI, the magic of which returns to TV this week in The Murphy Brown Reboot and the timing couldn’t be better to reprise the character, who twenty-six years ago was the talk of the country when Vice President, Dan Quayle, criticized her for ”mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone and calling it just another ‘lifestyle choice.” As an aside, the same guy would come out and praise ”The Osbournes” as a loving example of family values on TV. And, I think we all know how many of his peers feel about Barack Obama, the child of a single mother, who would go on to become President. In its rebuke to Quayle, Murphy Brown incorporated some of his comments into the show, drawing about 70 million viewers.
Perhaps it’s time for the Vice President to realize that whether by choice or circumstance, families come in all shapes and sizes, and ultimately what really defines a family is commitment, caring and love.
This was real news on a fake news show, and its 2018 reboot will continue to grapple with issues of the day – the #metoo movement, fake news, Twitter, the relationship of the Press with the Trump White House, the current Supreme Court nominee, gun control, and immigration to name but a few. Murphy Brown has my attention again. She has thirteen episodes, and you know she’s going to make some noise. I’m all ears.
