I had an interesting conversation with Rob last night.

He asked me if I had seen a movie that was on the Lifetime network recently, starring Joanna Kerns. I asked if he meant the one where nobody believed her so she had to put herself in danger to vindicate herself. Finally, when she was almost killed, they believed her? He said yes, and proceeded to make a comment on something.

That's when I let him in that I hadn't seen nor heard of this specific movie, I just know the genre.

If the Victim is a baby boomer, she will be played by an 80's sit com mother. If she's younger, than usually it will be a cast member of 90210. One of two things can happen. Either something Bad happens to this person, or this person does something Horrible that must be kept secret, but the guilt is eating her alive. If she's the Victim, nobody will believe her until the end when she is vindicated. If she is the sinner, she will eventually be caught, but folks will realize she's been driven to it and forgive her anyways.

Rob says that the problem with these movies is that certain women (and he named a few specific people we know) use this to validate the woman-as-victim role. I pointed out that he and I are the ones who watch shit like that. I told him (and didn't realize any of this until I was saying it) that I take a perverse pleasure in watching the 80's moms fall.

It got me thinking about the images of women I was raised with. I grew up watching sit coms religiously. Most blend into one memory of adorable kids, new adorable kids late in the series, canned laughter, and Very Special Episodes. But another theme that runs through all of these is the mothers.

They were all perfect. They were high powered career women, despite appearing to be around 30 with multiple teenage children. Somehow they still managed to always be home, in the kitchen. They played the straight man to the bumbling dad on the show. None of them were ever interesting outside the realm of their children, again despite the fabulous careers.

Fortunatly this formula seemed to go out of style after the 80's ended. Most of the sitcoms were suddenly about childless adults in hip cities. The mom's you did have tended towards the just-trying-to-get-by mode (Roseanne, Grace Under Fire, etc). Or they had no character at all, and simply existed to act out the wife stories of whatever stand up comedian just got his own show. Again, most of the interesting female characters were on the hip singles (or married with no kids) shows.

I haven't really watched much television in the past three or so years, so I really can't comment on the current characters. To tell you the truth, I don't even know what sit coms are still on. The only show I watch religiously (and indeed the only one talked about at work) is The Daily Show.

Funny, something that was such a part of my life for longer than I can remember is not something I miss all that much.

-CRbE