The “Desperate Housewives” of Wisteria Lane are the ones getting all the attention. But scan the broader television landscape and it’s scattered with women juggling children and pressure-cooker situations.
Expectant mom Claire (Emilie de Ravin) of ABC’s “Lost” has endured a plane crash, a kidnapping, amnesia and a psychic’s creepy warning that she must be the only one to raise her child .
On Fox’s “The O.C.,” Kirsten (Kelly Rowan) has a full plate, too. Her marriage is being threatened by her husband’s fugitive ex-sweetheart. Her adopted son is dating her newly discovered half-sister.
The most shocking matriarch on TV is Dina Araz (Shohreh Aghdashloo) of Fox’s “24,” whose Muslim family is actually a terrorist cell. In one episode, she poisoned her son’s girlfriend to protect her and her husband’s mission to help launch a nuclear meltdown.
Dina is proof that TV is populated with all kinds of mothers these days.
“Housewives,” in particular, has become synonymous with the stress that real women feel to be perfect parents.
Why are so many TV moms anxious, overbooked and downright scary? Some of it has to do with TV’s constant need to get attention. When reality shows ran out of ideas, TV turned to motherhood as fresh fodder.
But there’s also a backlash brewing in popular culture that is seeping onto the airwaves. Women are exhausted by trying to achieve an impossible ideal of motherhood, or so argues Judith Warner, author of the new book “Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety.”
Warner explores how post-Baby Boomer women raised to believe they could do anything are now having a hard time handling the balancing act of motherhood.
She was surprised to find many women were haunted by the TV cliches of pearl-wearing, coffee-pouring, unflappable moms. “What I found in talking to all kinds of women is that they’d internalized some kind of June Cleaver image that was even more demanding than the old version,” she says.
Some current shows dealing with motherhood, particularly “Desperate Housewives,” are tapping into today’s tensions, according to Warner. “I think some of the stuff you’re seeing is a bit of a protest, silly as it is, glossy as it is. It’s a way of holding up a mirror to say something crazy is going on here.”
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale (cdipasquale@tribune.com) and Curt Wagner (cwwagner@tribune.com)
