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Your Turn: Mary Richards

From The Mary Tyler Moore Show, created by James L. Brooks and Allan Burns
Nominated by Kathryn Macek

A few years ago I clipped out an ad from the TV section of The Los Angeles Times. It was a picture of "our Mary" sitting at her desk at WJM, with that look on her face. The caption read: "You may seem like a goody-two-shoes now, but you were on birth control before Ally McBeal was born."

Mary Richards set the stage for the strong, single female characters that populate the small screen today. She knew herself, knew she had to follow her instincts and not take the easy road and just marry the guy and settle down and have kids.

So she did it: moved away from home to the big city, lived on her own. She was her own person, strong, independent. And she remained a "nice girl." How could you not love Mary? If you are of my generation, how could you not envy her?

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9:09 AM ET | 01-10-2008 | permalink

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9:09 AM ET | 01-10-2008 | permalink

 

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Mary Richards was my role model. I wanted to grow up and have an apartment just like hers, with that signature letter M on the wall. Oh, how I miss her.

Sent by Malka | 8:48 PM ET | 01-12-2008

The great secret to the character of Mary Richards is that, through a combination of writing and acting, she was like most of the women we know; friends, girlfriends, moms, sisters . . .

You know, smart, determined, principled, competent, not self-dramatizing. Everyperson, in shot (because there are plenty of guys who are just the same way). Sometimes they make it to the top, but more often than not, they're the decent person who runs things while the idiot with the higher salary counts on the real-life Marys to make them look good (yes, the Ted Baxters of the world). On what might be considered a political level, Mary Richards reminded us that Women's Lib was about the women we knew, loved, and admired.

Sent by Matthew Patton | 1:25 PM ET | 03-09-2008
   
   
   
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