Popular Culture Review 30.1 • Winter 2019
Patty Duke , Marlo Thomas , and Mary Tyler Moore — Three Stars , Three Iconic Shows , and a Young Generation of TV-Watching Females
by Kathy Merlock Jackson
ABSTRACT
Today when people look back at television in the 1960s and 1970s , they cringe at its portrayals of women and see that messages that seemed to be progressive at the time were merely smokescreens in a patriarchal world view . Nevertheless , changes in culture had to begin somewhere , and for an audience of post-World War II baby-boom females , television provided a lens for growing up . Prime-time network television programs targeted different segments of the population , but very little was available for baby-boom girls growing up and looking toward their futures . However , three popular prime-time television sitcoms , The Patty Duke Show , That Girl , and the Mary Tyler Moore Show , aired when few shows were built around the lives of young single women , demonstrated for their time agency , ambition , and professional aspirations of females . Although antiquated by today ’ s standards , each of these shows--driven by an attractive woman with a flip hairstyle , lots of warmth , and endless determination--was groundbreaking . Collectively , they comprise a single narrative of female maturation from high school student , to job seeker , to young professional , showing steps a woman can take to navigate a male-dominated world , achieve independence , and establish an identity and career .
Keywords : The Patty Duke Show , That Girl , The Mary Tyler Moore Show , baby-boom females , television portrayals of women , prime-time sitcoms
41 doi : 10.18278 / pcr . 30.1.4