The final season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel was so magical and amazing, it inspired me to write about the show. This article contains spoilers if you haven’t watched the whole series. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is a show on Amazon Prime about a young mother in the late 1950s whose husband leaves her, and she decides to become a stand-up comedienne.
The Marvelous Breaking of the Glass Ceiling Before the Internet
What makes this show so special is the time period of the late 1950s and early 1960s when takes place. This was before the Women’s Rights Movement, before 24-hour television, before the Internet, and before social media. If the story line happened today, the betrayed wife could start a blog or any social media platform to lament about her situation and instantly get millions of followers. But in the 1950s, Midge and her manager Susie had to start from scratch and claw their way up in male-dominated industry.
While there were some female comediennes at the time like Lucille Ball and Carole Burnett, it was a primarily man’s world. Watching Midge and Susie come up against the glass ceiling in the entertainment industry and then rebel against the system was inspiring and empowering.
In the first season, the fictional comedienne Sophie Lennon tells Midge that women need to come up with a character to be taken seriously by the industry. This is what Sophie did to become famous. But Midge refuses to do that and then ends up outing Sophie as a fraud.
How The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Changed Societal Roles
The show takes place in a time when a woman with two children being left by her husband was a tragedy both financially and socially. At one point, Midge discovers that she has no credit with her milk delivery company because the account had been in her husband’s name. She tells her daughter that “it’s a man’s world.”
After her husband left her, Midge’s parents pushed her to get married again. But she doesn’t want to do that. Even when Benjamin proposes, she chooses to focus on her career instead of marrying him. This was unheard of at that time. Eventually her mother, Rose, realized how important Midge’s career is to her once Rose got a career of her own as a matchmaker. Her father, Abe, realized how marvelous his daughter is during an emotional monologue in the final season.
Season Five’s Marvelous Takeover of a Man’s World
The concept of two women taking over a man’s world really played out in Season 5. As a way to help her achieve her dreams of stardom, Susie gets Midge a job as the first women’s writer on the fictional Gordon Ford show. At a time, when the only women in the office were secretaries, it was not easy for Midge to fit in with all the male writers.
Yet she fit in with her co-workers, and she did it her way with style and grace. Of course, Midge does everything in style. She’s always well dressed with matching hats, gloves, purses, and shoes. Her costumes were so amazing, the show’s costume designer published a book about them.
However, she was not immune to sexual harassment since the Civil Rights Act wasn’t passed until 1964. Gordon Ford constantly asked Midge to sleep with him. And she turned him down every time because that was not how she wanted to become famous.
In the final episode, Gordon asked Midge to come on the show to be interviewed about being a writer. The whole time, he pouted like a toddler because he had to do it as a favor to his wife. In the end, Midge took over the show for four minutes, which secured her spot in the limelight. Then Gordon finally stopped pouting and acknowledged her for her talent.
The Price of Fame for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Since it was the final season, the show’s writers were trying to wrap everything up, so they included many flash forward scenes to show what the characters’ lives were like because of Midge’s success. Some of it was not pretty.
I kept thinking of the lyrics to We are the Champions, “You brought me fame and fortune and everything that goes with it.” In my opinion, Midge got everything that goes fame. That included strained relationships with her children, multiple failed marriages, and eventually living alone in a gorgeous penthouse.
I probably could write another article (or 100) about this show. It was hilarious, heartwarming, heartbreaking, moving, inspiring and magical. I hope this encourages everyone to watch this amazing show!
