1998-Upper Level
Second Place (tie)
Changing Roles of Men and Women In the Workplace: A Character Analysis of Murphy Brown
By Susan Thompson
Those of us engaged in a profession outside of our homes are familiar with the responsibilities that cause us to spend more hours of the day with our co-workers than with our own families. Since more women now engage in professional work outside the home, and many of them are single mothers, a prime time television series addressing the issues surrounding professional women in the workplace was not a surprising addition to the CBS evening lineup ten years ago. It was also not surprising that the creative contributors designed the show to include issues faced by the men and women who make up the extended family of the workplace. These issues include single parenting, the changing roles of men and women in the workplace (with women occupying leading professional roles), and developing friendships between men and women outside the home. Proving that men and women from diverse backgrounds may co-exist in an environment of equality and mutual respect is accomplished in CBS's Murphy Brown by carefully weaving male and female perspectives and by offering a distinctly feminist forum that tackles issues ranging from the title character's alcoholism, addressed in her first season, through the birth of her son (out of wedlock), to her tenth and final season's agenda, her battle with breast cancer.
Murphy Brown is set amid the power circles in Washington, D.C. and features a cast representative of several generations of Americans. In the title role is Candice Bergen, who plays the "fortyish," successful, and savvy investigative reporter for a national network news show, FYI. Murphy has a reputation for being a "go for the jugular" type of reporter and one of few women who have achieved acclaim in her field. She is tough and always gets her story. Murphy is portrayed as an aggressive, self-assured woman of the nineties, a survivor of the sixties. She is a recovering alcoholic, ex-smoker, and has a child late in life, all attributes that lend toward a high risk classification for cancer (Miller 15). In a typical episode, she is smartly dressed in a "wo-management" style of business clothes that includes slacks and jeans, in addition to the traditionally accepted business suit for women. Her casual look often features an Oxford style shirt with a sweater tied around her neck. Her attire for on-the-air time is more traditional and adheres to the accepted codes for professional women's dress. By the beginning of her tenth season, her hair style changed from a shoulder length, curled mane to a cropped, short, nineties style-and-go look for the professional woman.
Murphy's self assurance clearly displays in her gait of long, confident strides, typically associated with a male type of walk. Her speech is frank and confident. She is comfortable in the seats of power and often references close, personal relationships with politicians and newsmen and newswomen who are real persons that informed viewers recognize. In a recent episode, she brags about "running Newt Gingrich around the tennis court." She is also an infamous practical joker. She likes the upper hand and plays every card available in any given situation to come out on top. She wins on and off the screen.
Complementing Murphy is the executive producer of FYI, Kay Carter-Shepley, played by Lily Tomlin. Tomlin, a recent addition to the cast, brings to the role a well-known comedic artistry that includes her sharp wit and shrewd ability to manipulate others. Kay is a fifty-one year old woman who entered the show at the end of last season. She wears clothing styles that suggest a fondness for her sixties background that include long, flowing skirts and tops, accessorized with long necklaces. She has an acerbic tongue and wit and spares no adjective to make a point. She and Murphy butt heads often since both women like to come out on top. Her hyphenated name indicates a modern trend that encourages women to maintain their own identity. As this season closes, Kay and Murphy realize that they can be friends. I will address this later.
The other female member of the FYI team is Corky Sherwood, a former beauty queen. Cast in the role is Faith Ford, a cute, blonde woman who struggles to overcome the stereotypical "dumb blonde" barrier in the professional world. Proving that barrier still exists, a video editor remarked in a recent episode, "When Corky Sherwood is on, I know I can switch off half my brain and smile." Corky is the young reporter who had to earn Murphy's respect when Murphy returned from Betty Ford and found this attractive, blonde upstart on her staff (Kytasaari 2). Corky typically gets what she refers to as "fluff" pieces to report that include beauty pageants, make-up shows, and receptions. Corky recently remarked, "I don't want to be the Sally Field of FYI!"
Charles Kimbrough leads the cast's male representatives as veteran reporter Jim Dial. He is the quintessential reporter from the old school of journalism who models himself after Edward R. Morrow (Warner 2). Jim is always formal and proper and dresses in the standard business suit. He would not consider himself properly dressed without a tie. Jim represents the mature, male perspective of a man married to the same woman for many years. His recent separation from Doris, his wife, has caused Jim to rethink many of his attitudes and beliefs about male/female relationships.
Joe Regalbuto as Frank Fontana completes the team as Murphy's best friend and the fearless field reporter who still, after nine full seasons, cannot utter the word "commitment" in describing any relationship with a woman (Warner 2). Frank is the casual type, always in slacks with his top shirt button unfastened. He dates around, but still has not found his soul mate. He and Murphy share a kinship due to their shared experiences as field reporters. As in any close friendship, theirs extends to the most personal level. Their failed personal relationships offer yet another bond between the two professionals.
This group represents an extended family. In the same way a traditional family may share a living room or a kitchen for important sessions, this extended family shares a common space, the FYI newsroom. While the physical layout of the room is different this season from past shows, the motif remains the same. Action typically begins with the opening of the elevator door onto the floor where the group shares a common area. Murphy is the only member of the staff who has an office in this area. This serves to qualify her status as leader of the news team. Other non-named members of the staff have desks or cubicles visible, but it is a table, placed strategically close to coffee and doughnuts, that serves as the hub for each show's action. Each show begins in the newsroom with either conversation or background music beginning the action. The opening credits of the show appear on the bottom of the screen and include the stars' names and roles separated by a graphic line, with the CBS logo in the bottom right of the screen.
The newsroom offers a common ground where everyone can meet as equals. Each member of the team is given equal camera time while at the group's shared table. Unless shot entering or exiting the newsroom, the cast is frequently shot from the waist up. This offers a more personal relationship between cast and viewer. It is at the newsroom table that each week's news show is mapped out and personal issues are brought before the group. It is also here that, after a report on breast cancer, Corky insists Murphy and Kay go for routine mammograms. They are over forty and entering the high risk age bracket for women. Murphy, in her typical manner, insists it is all for nothing, but goes along anyway. Kay's test is normal, and Murphy tells her to go on home. After she leaves, Murphy is asked to wait to talk to the doctor, words every woman dreads hearing. The episode ends here with Murphy waiting alone for a discussion that we assume will change her life. The meaning is clear. We not only fear the obvious, the dreaded cancer, but this normally strong, confident woman is visibly shaken in the face of something that may be more powerful than she. Her body language changes from the erect posture of a confident woman to a slightly slouched, perhaps vulnerable woman.
As Murphy and her extended family rally to fight this menace, we are privy to the interactions between the characters that combine to create a text about womens' issues. For example, in a recent episode, Kay, Frank, Jim, and Corky realize that they can no longer continue to avoid a confrontation with Murphy. If Murphy forgets to do something or makes a mistake, each member of the news team either gestures or employs a "look" to cue the other to overlook the current mistake. It becomes obvious that Murphy needs therapy to help her cope with her cancer. They fear that she is penting up her normal aggressiveness and should instead be using that trait to battle her illness. They "gang up" on Murphy, managing to communicate in their individual ways. Kay takes control and rallies the group to action. She understands from the perspective of a strong woman that her equal needs help, but that she may be having trouble admitting weakness. The group moves into Murphy's office. It is interesting to note here that Frank knocks on Murphy's door before entering. These people respect one another's privacy despite, or perhaps because of, their closeness. Murphy's office is papered with relics from her career that include photos with Nixon and Thatcher as her journalistic awards. It is within this sphere, a monument to her endurance and success, her friends confront her.
When confronted, Murphy denies with snappy rhetoric that she needs help other than to remove co-workers who are preventing her from getting a job done. In a rare show of power, Corky threatens to "haul off and belt [Murphy]" It is Jim however who is able to cut past Murphy's barrier of invisible strength to offer, "Forgive me." Murphy replies, "Thank you, Jim."
Jim looks Murphy squarely in the eyes and continues, " When you're so low that you can't even remember what happy feels like, when you're so scared that sleep is a distant memory, and smiling is a forgotten art, when being sad is as natural as breathing, then you'll go. Until then, I'm here for you." His eloquence dissolves Murphy's resistance and she admits she needs help. This scene makes a huge statement that it is alright to be a strong, successful woman who can admit weakness and defies the stereotype of the successful woman as a creature who denies her weaknesses as too feminine.
Murphy's support group consists of one soft-spoken woman who directs the conversation, one woman whose attorney-husband "hasn't touched me since I was diagnosed," another woman whose dentist-husband made her stop working in his office because "cancer might sca safety of an all-woman group, reiterates the stereotypical male reaction to an aggressive, successful woman. Undaunted, Murphy simply responds with the admission that she does not think she belongs there and that she really does not care about the others' needs. The women break and move toward refreshments, with Murphy and the "turban lady" going to a snack bar. It is there that this un-named woman presents Murphy with the soundest advice thus far, "Group helps. It's a place where you can be irrational and bitchy and cry. . . Cancer is the only thing we have in common, but it's a big thing." In this statement of solidarity, Murphy Brown reconnects with the very freedom of expression on which she previously prided herself. The message here for us is that as women we have power to help and heal one another.
This message, while powerfully feminist, expands to include helping and healing one another through mutual love and respect in a forum that transcends gender. A recent episode featured Murphy, Kay, Corky, Frank, and Jim in segments that identified each individual's weaknesses and their reliance on their friendship as a powerful healing force.
Awakening from a nightmare, Murphy tries to get Jim on the telephone "just to talk." Jim, however, is spending a long-awaited evening with his estranged wife, Doris. Failing a talk with Jim, she phones Frank. He is on assignment with a S.W.A.T. team, staking out a drug dealer. Frank phones Kay and Corky, who both call Murphy. Kay determines that Murphy should bake cookies to help her through the night. They both talk to Corky who is going through the "treasures" of her ruined marriage in the basement of her condo.
Jim and Doris, the older, proper couple, are rediscovering their feelings for one another. Jim, who typically would not express his emotions verbally, exclaims, "Oh boy!" when his over fifty year old wife sheds her robe and reveals her naked body. This is a tremendous accomplishment as a statement of an over-fifty woman's continued femininity, sexuality, and self-worth.
Meanwhile, Frank, decked out in a bullet-proof vest, is poised in a line of very large, muscular police officers poised for an attack. During this very masculine role-playing, Frank's cellular phone chirps and he tries to explain to Murphy that he is with a S.W.A.T. team and cannot talk. When the siege is over and he calls Murphy back he asks, "Remind me why I do this?" Murphy offers that it may be because he is so good at it, to which Frank responds, "Maybe it's just healthy to be scared." I hope so," is Murphy's loaded reply.
Meanwhile, sweet, no-longer-innocent Corky is pouring through a box of mementos from her life with her ex-husband. Wearing jeans, a sweatshirt, and her wedding veil, she declares to Kay and Murphy on the phone, "I'm terrified that nobody else is ever going to love me again." Suddenly in the basement appears a dashing man in a tuxedo who is storing away the relics from a recently ended relationship. Hanging up the phone, she engages the new neighbor in a conversation that she suddenly ends when she learns that his past love's name is Tony and that Tony is an interior designer who throws "a mean spiral." Assuming that her new acquaintance is gay, she telephones Murphy again and tells her she just made a fool of herself. The man interrupts to make sure that she realizes that Tony is Toni, a female. Corky hangs up the phone, once again elated. Corky represents a stereotypical young woman on the rebound who is questioning her worth as someone to be loved despite the fact that she is young, pretty, and intelligent. Similarly, she is questioning the old stereotype of being "used up" as a woman since she must have failed in her first marital attempt. Her assumption that the gentleman is gay serves as a lesson in judging sexuality, one that she must still learn to apply to herself.
Kay and Murphy are baking cookies. This is totally out of character for the Murphy Brown of the last nine years. Kay wears a headset so her hands are free and Murphy uses a speaker phone, both signs of a not-so-average kitchen. The intertextuality between Kay and Lily Tomlin are apparent in this scene to viewers who recognize her as the "Operator" from Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. Indeed, her style of dress and antics are reminiscent of her previously well-known characters including Edith Ann, the little girl who would rock in a giant chair and offer bits of wisdom and analyses.
To further the paradigm, the editors chose to piece the segment into a pyramid with three segments. Rather than the typical horizontal sections, they divided the screen into a triangle that occupied the center bottom of the screen with an apex about three quarters of the distance from top to bottom. The rest of the screen is divided in half, with Kay on the left and Corky on the right. Kay is wearing a silk robe, Murphy has on her pajamas and a skull cap (to hide her straw-like hair), and Corky still has on her wedding veil. Kay takes over in her role as mother, mentor, and support group. Once Corky's "I'll never meet another man" dilemma is resolved, Murphy and Kay get down to the real dilemma.
The dialogue in this segment is typical of many others offered here and throughout the ten seasons of Murphy Brown. In the following dialogue, Bergen and Tomlin deliver a dramatic statement comparing the accepted roles of women and girls from their childhood to the type of "nineties women" they both represent. Kay declares, "Congratulations. Very few women give birth before they bake a batch of cookies." Murphy, laughing, responds, "Not me. I traded in my Easy Bake Oven for a Smith-Corona and I never looked back. I gave my little oven to the boy next door and he made a Thanksgiving dinner that my father still talks about. Which is why I don't bake, so thanks for bringing it up"
Meanwhile their body language is speaking on its own. Kay carefully measures onto the cookie pan each rounded teaspoon of dough, lining them up systematically. Murphy grabs a palm full and ceremoniously plops each glob onto her pan. In the end, each pan of cookies is as good as the other, and Murphy is able to admit, "For the first time in my life I'm dealing with something I can't frighten or intimidate." This offers Kay the opportunity to confess that the reason she sleeps so little is because "I guess if the truth be known, I'm afraid of wasting any more time." She is speaking to her age.
The juxtaposition of each character's personal dilemmas through their dialogue and the visual presentation gives significance to their versatile personalities and roles. Their resolutions speak to the progress that they have made in their relationships with one another and serve as fine examples of what we may hope to achieve. Both Kay and Murphy are facing issues of time, issues that women face continuously throughout their lives. We are always subject to analysis of our looks, behaviors, and attitudes based on our ages and backgrounds. Breaking the stereotype is an on-going battle for each of us. In a forum of reconciliation, we are reminded of the value of friendships and power and weakness. In a follow-up episode, Murphy returns to her childhood home and digs up her father's old ammo case that contains her "own personal time capsule." Inside are reminders of the past many of us have shared as women and as friends: a love letter to Fabian, a Kennedy/Johnson campaign button, a retainer, a Tastee Cake, and a ticket stub from American Bandstand. It's a past that Candice Bergen shares with us and one that we all share with Murphy Brown.
Murphy, recognized as a survivor of the sixties, emerges as a woman that never takes no as an answer. The baby-boomer generation of television viewers enjoys a kinship with the cast of Murphy Brown, one that is reenforced by the intertextuality of the stars of the show as well as the guest appearances of other well-known television and film personalities. The December 10, 1997 episode features Murphy boldly and aggressively attempting to outbid another woman for a chance to conduct a symphony orchestra. She wins out over the woman who turns out to be Olivia Newton-John, playing herself. Newton-John is a well-known breast cancer survivor, but is better known as a popular singer and as Sandy in the film Grease. In a few minutes of air time, the viewers are connected to a web that spans the timeline from our shared past into our present. Ficton and reality merge to create a shared experience.
Merging of text and reality sends a clear message. Within the web of friendships that we foster is the unity and strength we need as humans to endure. Most of us foster these friendships outside the home today, and with the changing roles of women in the workplace, these friendships have expanded to include more men than ever. Neither we nor our brothers are confined to the stereotypical relationships of our parents.
The tenth and final season of Murphy Brown offered a clearly feminist forum to discuss what is generally referred to as a woman's disease: breast cancer. Through the characters that make up the news staff of FYI, we saw the importance and impact that the extended family in our workplace has on our lives as these co-workers and friends allied to battle Murphy's deadly disease. In addition to her character's actions and statements, real and implied, about the roles of men and women as they faced this crisis, Candice Bergen took an extra step to ensure that the message to women was quite clear. On two occasions, 15 October, 1997 and 22 October, 1997, she addressed the audience at the close of the show to offer encouragement and information to those battling breast cancer and for those who were simply interested in learning more about the disease. Additionally, after the October 22nd episode, First Lady Hillary Clinton spoke about the importance of getting a yearly mammogram and a new Medicare benefit for women (Kytasaari 45-46). This reality insert serves to qualify Bergen's character as one worth listening to and endears Murphy to female viewers.
The characters on Murphy Brown represent several aspects of our society. Murphy and Kay represent those of us who hail as products of the Donna Reed television era who roared through the sixties and consider ourselves professionally and personally successful today. Jim Dial is the upper-middle aged man whose values are still considered "old-time" but reflect the influences of progressive women. Corky and Frank represent stereotypes from both sexes who are struggling to overcome those images from within. Since rating in the top five most popular series during the 1992-93 season, Murphy Brown has continued to provide a forum for progressive, feminist thought (Butler 26). By focusing on the real-life issues faced by the men and women who make up the extended family of the workplace, the creator, producers, and cast remind prime time television viewers that men and women from diverse backgrounds may co-exist in an environment of equality and mutual respect.
Works Cited
Butler, Jeremy G. Television Critical Methods and Applications. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1994.
CBS Virtual Press Tour. "Murphy Brown." www.cbsnews.com/presstour/murphy.html: 1998.
Kytasaari, Dennis. "Murphy Brown an Episode Guide." www.xnet.com/~djk/main_page.shtml: 1998.
Miller, Lisa. "Murph's New Turf." MAMM. October/November, 1997: 15.
Warner Brothers Virtual Lot: Murphy Brown. www.virtuallot.com/cmp/comedy/cm09.htm: 1998.
The following information courtesy of the CBS Virtual Press Tour:
Murphy Brown airs Wednesday nights from 8:30 to 9:00 p.m. est on CBS.
Cast:
Candice Bergen Murphy Brown
Faith Ford Corky Sherwood
Joe Regalbuto Frank Fontana
Charles Kimbrough Jim Dial
Lily Tomlin Kay Carter-Shepley
Produced: Shukovsky English Entertainment, in association with Warner Brothers Television
Executive Producer: Marc Flanagan
Co-Executive Producers: Norm Gunzenhauser, Tom Seeley, Candice Bergen, Janis Hirsch
Created By: Diane English
(Susan Wilensky Thompson--I am a native of Savannah, but have traveled and lived in Europe and Hawaii. I have one daughter, Sara and a grandaughter, Susanne (4). I have a son, Bryan, who is in the USMC Reserves, and will be transferring from AASU to Kennesaw State in the fall.
I am employed by Memorial Medical Center in their managed care division, Georgia Healthcare Partnership as the Senior Representative in Provider Network Development.
I am a Senior English Communications major; graduating December 1998. I plan to pursue a graduate degree, with those plans not yet finalized.
In my spare time (ha, ha) I write. I love swimming and fishing. I enjoy listening to many types of music including jazz, classical, blue grass, and (naturally) rock-n-roll. I enjoy a large, diverse family who are quite close. I enjoy living in "the country" where the sounds of the evening and early morning, unhindered by the sounds of modern civilization, remind us how beautiful and fragile our natural environment is.)