Susan Faludi was right!

And the only one portrayed positively was housewife Hope.

Actually, I felt that in the end, Hope was revealed as the cold, occasionally shrill, brittle character she really was. She had moments where she came through for other people, but I always thought there was a dark side to her, and that came out more and more in Season 4. She most definitely was not a perfect person.

One of the reasons why I loved "thirtysomething" so much was because those single women -- especially Ellyn -- really resonated with me. I was relentlessly single at that time, and all the concerns they had about being relentlessly single mirrored my own. So I didn't feel that these characterizations were degrading to them, or to me.

People look for relationships, not to complete themselves as individuals or to "solve all your problems," but to share their lives with someone who understands. It's the sharing, even of the little things, that makes it special, as opposed to taking it all for granted, which I did back in my single days. So for me, that yearning and the search for the one -- and all the insecurities and questioning why it was taking so long -- that these single characters went through carried a lot of meaning. Because what they discovered (essentially the same thing I discovered) is that it isn't so much waiting for the right person to come along . . . though there's a fair bit of that, too. But it's also reaching a point in one's own development where you're ready for the other person that's the most important thing.

I also think that one of the things "thirtysomething" did was reflect society's perception of being single, and what single people have to go through in terms of dealing with those attitudes every day. A lot of it ain't pretty, and the series didn't attempt to prettify it. I worked as a newspaper reporter at the time, and I can remember our publisher announcing some kind of "family day" event, and how the paper prided itself on being a family organization, especially since the majority of employees had families. And even I, being a single person, went along with that . . . till I thought about it for a while. Then I realized something: the vast majority of people in the newsroom were single. So that "family" image was a facade. I pointed that out to my editor, who thought about it for a moment and said, "You're right." I could tell he was a bit shocked by that revelation, because even though we were working for him, up until that moment he hadn't really seen us in that light.

reply share

add reply

formatting help