The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is marvelously funny -
and marvelously modern. Sure, on the surface, Midge’s
story is the ultimate retro fun,
“There’s a new thing called a birth control pill.
Only married women are allowed to take it, you know
women who don’t want to have sex.”
but, if you look beyond her perfectly coordinated outfits,
Midge actually mines her stand-up comedy material
from pressures women still recognize today.
"I put on a pair of my husband's shoes and my god were they
comfortable. I get it now, why men rule the world --
no high heels! I'm divorcing my husband but I am keeping
the f***ing shoes!”
This is the Takeaway, brought to you by the Take,
where we break down your favorite films and TV shows,
to get at the deeper meanings and messages they
leave us with. In this episode, we’re talking about modern
woman Midge Maisel – iconic female hero of her time…
and our time.
“I’m a woman who comes out here to make men laugh
who are here to see women take their clothes off.”
When Midge’s picture-perfect 1950s life goes up in flames,
and she embarks on a quest to become a great stand-up
comic, she offers an alternative to the type of ‘perfection’
women are (still) encouraged to strive for. Here are the “steps”
we can see in the Mrs. Maisel playbook for how to own your
inner modern woman’s power, then and now:
“You should be the bigger man and just let it go.
Well, I’m a woman, so f*ck that.”
Much of Midge’s pre-career life is an illusion, built on
careful attention to appearance and presentation;
“Fitting into this dress required no solid food for
three straight weeks.”
she goes to bed in full makeup, and waits until her husband
Joel is asleep before performing her bedtime beauty routine.
But by the end of the first episode, the illusion begins to crack.
“You’re leaving me for a girl who can’t figure out how
to sharpen a pencil?”
“It’s not about her and it was a new sharpener!”
“It was electric, all she had to do was push!”
“I thought my life was gonna be something different.”
Devastated after Joel leaves her, Midge returns to the club
where Joel performed that night and turns to the mic
(along with some of the bottle).
​​“I’m officially losing my mind which is perfect now I will be
alone AND crazy! The famous mad divorcee
of the Upper West Side.”
The result is her arrest for indecency and a star is born.
Midge – like many women – has always put a great deal
of pressure on herself to be perfect.
“Women learn rules from women's magazines.
I can't make a move without consulting Family Circle
or Harper's Bazaar.”
But it turns out, everything going wrong with her
beautiful-illusion life was a gift – because her
life was the one that was meant to be something different.
“One year ago, my old life ended, and my new life began.”
“This day is perfect, it’s like a dream.”
Midge's perfectly ordered world needed to blow up
for her to become her authentic self - something
that's as true in the 2020s as in the 1950s.
“All comics are comics because something in their lives went
horribly wrong.”
As she decides to commit to a career in comedy,
the lack of polish and perfection in her new venture is important –
because it gives Midge space to experiment, test out new
material, and get better
“…and he was perfect husband material. I knew he was because
that’s what his wife told me… Yes? No? Kind of an in
betweener. Reject!”
It can still be common for women not to try something that seems
unusual or “out there” because they’re afraid of letting themselves
or others down, but Midge’s failures teach her resilience
and make her bolder.
“Failure is how we grow”.
She comes to realize that this messy, imperfect state isn’t a
temporary step on the way to a polished destination.
She likes staying in the chaos.
“I realized that I hadn’t been spontaneous enough in my life,
too much stop, not enough go. And I realized I liked this feeling.”
Being imperfect also isn’t the same as settling for less.
It’s the opposite: striving to be the perfect “good girl”
has been holding Midge back from being something better
than good – a great, original artist.
“And they loved me because I just went out there and started
talking, I didn’t have anything planned I just riffed.”
“What’s the point?”
“The point is, that’s always when I’m the best, Susie.”
The first episode of Season 4 closes with the camera
focusing on Midge as Leslie Uggams sings
“Being good isn’t good enough …I’ll be the best or nothing at all.”
And The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel doesn’t sugarcoat
the costs that can come with that pursuit of greatness.
Midge is so dedicated to her craft that she finds it impossible
to ever switch off – sometimes to the point where she betrays,
lets down or humiliates people close to her.
“What’ve we got here kids, a shotgun wedding.”
When she’s performing at a lunch for Jackie Kennedy,
she gets laughs at her light-hearted jokes about
impossible standards for women,
“Do we really want a first lady who looks like this on a horse,
or do we want a first lady who looks a little more like
the horse? We women are dealing with a lot. Do we really
need to be constantly comparing ourselves to… oh come on!”
but when she gets too real about infidelity, the mood darkens.
“Can you imagine catching your husband with another
woman in your bed?”
Still, Midge gets by now that it’s not the end of the world
to mess up or displease people sometimes.
Women are often conditioned to people-please and worry
about keeping others happy.
“Women could be bleeding from the head and still host
a dinner party if the invitations were already sent out.”
It’s easy to pay lip service to overcoming this, but Midge
shows us how difficult it is to really stop living for
others and listen to what you need instead.
And that’s because, if you do let go of the need to please
everyone, you’ll probably end up irritating or pissing off people
in your life.
“It’s kinda my fault my father’s in this situation. I decided this
year to totally uproot my life and became a different
person. I guess you all know what thats like huh?”
“My parents don't know I'm not a virgin. You'd think
my two kids might have been a tip-off. I'm amazed
the ‘those are my cobbler's apprentices’ story has held
up for so long.”
One of Midge’s most important lessons – for our era, too –
is how wildly entertaining women can be.
“Women aren’t funny.” “Your wife must have a sense
of humor, she’s seen you naked.”
Just like Midge, we’re still existing in a world where
people think women just aren’t funny.
“Men, those over there and men in general, think
they’re the only ones who get to use comedy to close up
those holes in the soul - they run around telling
everyone that women aren’t funny, only men are funny.”
But from the very first episode, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
showcases how women have to be funnier than men to get
a fraction of their success.
“How come men fail and people say: you gave it the
old college try! But women fail they say you gave it the old
college try.. but you shouldn’t be in college.”
They have to work ten times harder, be placed in competition
with those rare other women who’ve made it, be assumed
to be sleeping with influential men
“suddenly she’s paling around with Lenny Bruce
and opening for Shy Baldwin, blah blah blah, she’s a whore”
and face a lot of people waiting for them to fail.
“It’s midnight on a Tuesday and the highlight of their week is
the possibility of seeing a chick fail.”
Midge’s comedy doesn’t just show that women can be funny;
it shows that they’re funniest when they’re not trying to copy
the guys or fit a man’s idea of what’s funny. Her humor
benefits from including her experiences as a woman.
“Our little girl is looking more like Winston Churchill every day,
you know the great Yalta head, but that’s not a reason to
leave right?” –
like being a wife, mother, daughter and Jewish woman in her era.
“What repressing your emotions is to WASPs, complaining is
to Jews. It's second nature.”
Midge also presents as hyper-feminine, always pristinely
dressed and looking classically gorgeous. So she doesn’t need
to reject what’s womanly about her.
“Does being a modern woman mean I have to give up being
a girl or liking pink or horses or getting out of swimming
because I have cramps?”
Midge combines elements of groundbreaking women stand-ups
from the 50s and 60s while the fictional successful comedian
Sophie Lennon is a reminder of how women often faced
pressure to play a familiar caricature to be accepted
(likely a desexualized maternal figure if they didn’t want to be
a sex object). Midge consciously rejects
Sophie’s path.
“You know whats great about me?”
“Your humility?” “No. it’s when I’m me.”
She may mess up everything from relationships to gigs,
but she isn’t playing it safe; she’s bravely living her truth –
and that’s what sets her apart.
“She’s got guts, and that is the difference between
Midge Maisel and the great Sophie Lennon. You’re a
star for now, but she is gonna be a goddamn legend.”
Midge’s comedy career begins on the cusp of the 1960s, a time
of sexual revolution and a nascent women’s rights
movement.
“1960. An Interesting time to be a woman.”
When we first meet Midge she’s well-aware of how her
society views women, and how she can leverage that.
“I let my emotions get the better of me. After all, I am a woman.”
But by Season 4, Midge is getting more radical in her refusal
to stop compromising- to no longer “play the game”
as she’s been told it has to be done (like through taking
gigs warming up for big stars where she can’t say what she
wants to).
“That’s not how the business works.”
“Then let’s change the business.”
But the truth is this isn’t easy to do – and sometimes even
the people who seem to represent this rebellious, iconoclastic path
are ultimately more establishment than we think. One of Midge’s role
models is the controversial comedian Lenny Bruce
because he appears to be someone who speaks his mind
and doesn’t play by the rules.
“I will only do gigs where I can say what I want.
That’s what Lenny would do.”
“That’s different. He’s Lenny Bruce!”
“Well then make me Lenny Bruce! Make me a headliner.”
In season 4, though, he reveals that all he’s ever wanted,
actually, is something fairly conventional for a performer:
to perform at Carnegie Hall; for people to want to book him.
“Please come to my show at the hall they call carnegie.
A less than sold out show would shatter my fragile ego and hurt
something very dear to the lawyers of America…
my bank account.”
While going to Carnegie Hall feels like a concrete possibility
in the male trajectory, for Midge it’s revolutionary to just have a
space, any space, to be exactly who she is, talking about stuff
that’s important to her, and not have to censor or change herself.
“I made a decision to do things my way.”
“Why do we have to pretend to be sorry when we have
nothing to be sorry about?”
Midge questions if her desires might not be normal for
a woman like herself,
“Women are supposed to be mothers! It’s supposed
to be natural. It comes with the tits!”
and feels guilt about the fact that her greatest love isn’t her
children, husband, friends or parents, but performing.
“You ever feel guilty?”
This portrayal is important because even now we’re so
rarely shown a female character choosing work over those other
things, while the reality is that working women today often
do have to compromise and miss some important moments
in their children's lives.
“Sounds pretty lively over there, what’s going on?”
“It’s Ethan’s birthday.” “No it’s not.”
“Yes it is, I made three cakes.”
And the (external and internalized) judgment Midge faces for leaving
her children to go on tour reveals an entrenched double standard.
“My dad was a traveling salesman, gone six days
out of seven, nobody thought twice about that.”
Even a working woman’s professional success
(then, and, to an extent, now) isn’t the simple plus that
it is for men.
“I mean, what man is gonna want a woman who owns her
own apartment?” “He does have a point there,
it does make you less feminine.”
But going after her dreams doesn’t make Midge any less
of a mother; when she’s back home, Midge is back on the
clock with Ethan and Esther, pulling off two jobs as a mom
and a comedian. Overall, Midge (and contemporary women)
need to stop measuring themselves by their failures, and actually
look at how much they are pulling off.
“I am a terrible person but I want you all to know I am
sorry and I love my friend Imogene /But I hope you like the cupcakes.”
“I did, and the little sugar babies on top. A little creepy
eating babies, but delicious.”
Midge’s new career is likewise nurtured by the scrappy, makeshift
working setup with her manager Susie,
“Susie Myerson’s office!”
someone she met by chance and who’s never managed anyone before.
“You should do standup and I can help you.”
“Tonight was an isolated incident. There are medications
I can take to make sure that never happens again.”
They’re an unlikely pair, with extremely different upbringings,
personalities and outlooks, yet they make a great team because
they trust each other, are both learning about the business
together and can see each other’s massive potential,
even if it’s not yet proven to the world.
“You know, she’s always believed in me.”
It’s a great lesson for modern women to be open to unlikely
friendships with those who share your goals and see the real you.
"I wanna be the biggest thing out there."
"Tits up!" "Tits up.”
Midge’s other relationships change shape over time, too
– as if her courage influences the people she knows to make
different, braver choices. In fact, when she stops living
for Joel, he gains more respect for Midge; their relationship as
exes and co-parents weirdly starts to feel more functional
than when they were married.
“You're working at a strip club?"
“Yes, you didn't know?” “No.”
“Didn't Ethan tell you?" “Why would he tell me?"
“I told him to tell you.” “You told our 5 year old son to
tell me you work at a strip club?” “Did he forget?”
This is also because he’s starting to carve out
his own niche, finding a likewise more chaotic life for himself that
gives him confidence, purpose and a sense of self.
“They just, assume your club would fail.”
“Why?”
“Cuz you’re a Jewish ex plastic salesman who suddenly opened
a club in Chinatown with an English to Chinese dictionary
from the 1800s.”
Midge’s dad Abe, too, is happier after he ends up leaving his
prestigious but stagnant roles at Columbia and Bell Labs
and writing for The Village Voice instead.
David Merrick read my piece, and he despised it.”
They all absolutely hate me.” “Well, terrific.”
Even Midge’s mother, Rose, an immaculate, seemingly
born housewife, questions her life
“I’m unhappy and I’m tired of being unhappy”,
goes to Paris to explore other avenues, and eventually starts
her own business.
“They can't just find spouses on their own?”
“You didn’t.”
“Of course I did. I met you through a family friend. Sonja.”
“Yes, Sonja the matchmaker.”
Above all, Midge is provocative – and she shows how pushing
boundaries is powerful.
“Are women more important than God? What if we discover
one day that we were always in charge, just no one told us.”
Though she’s living in the 1950s and 60s,
she’s asking questions that remain unanswered today about
motherhood, family, guilt and sex. With her relentless optimism and
steadfast belief in herself, she reminds us to keep following
our own star and carving our own path – because this
is what makes the world a better place for everyone.
“A voice is a powerful thing. It can change the way people
think, which can change the way people act. But it can’t
do anything if you keep your mouth shut.
Well, lesson f*cking learned.”
So what do you think of Midge Maisel’s story so far?
Let us know in the comments and be sure to subscribe to
The Amazon Prime Video Channel.