In November 1972, Norman Lear’s sitcom Maude broke new floor. In two episodes titled “Maude’s Dilemma,” the character of Maude, performed by Bea Arthur, learns that she’s pregnant on the age of 47. After grappling together with her selections, she decides to terminate the being pregnant. These lauded episodes, which forthrightly addressed the topic of abortion, boosted the present’s scores but additionally resulted in backlash and protest that affected TV for years. “We knew some folks can be upset,” Lear told Entertainment Weekly in 1993, “however we had no thought of the conflagration that did comply with.”
The storyline was initially created to win a contest
In 1972, a prize for comedies to handle the subject of inhabitants management had writers for Maude contemplate penning episodes about vasectomies. Then a late-in-life being pregnant and abortion storyline was proposed. At first, the pregnant character was presupposed to be Maude’s finest pal. Nevertheless, after studying an preliminary script, Lear, the present’s government producer and creator, determined it wanted to be Maude, a 47-year-old girl with an grownup daughter and grandson. Lear explained to The New York Times, “I spotted the one strategy to have interaction the viewers’s curiosity was to let Maude get pregnant.” He additionally understood how the story would finish: “Maude can be completely torn, however that she’d come down on the facet, given her age, of not having a toddler.”
The script, credited to writers Susan Harris, Austin Kalish and Irma Kalish, addressed Maude’s contraception selections: Her husband contemplates a vasectomy and a pal asks why she wasn’t utilizing the capsule (Maude explains it gave her migraines). Maude was a feminist who supported authorized abortion, however the present additionally depicts her ambivalence. Whereas attempting to convince her mother, Maude’s daughter Carol (performed by Adrienne Barbeau) says, “If you had been rising up, it was unlawful, and it was harmful and it was sinister. And you’ve got by no means gotten over that. …If you had been younger, abortion was a grimy phrase. It isn’t any extra.” In the long run, Maude makes her determination following a dialog with husband Walter (performed by Invoice Macy), who says, “Within the privateness of our personal lives, you are doing the suitable factor.”
Invoice Macy and Bea Arthur as Walter and Maude Findlay
Photograph: CBS Photograph Archive
Lear needed to combat to make the episode
Although fictional pregnancies had been terminated illegally on daytime cleaning soap operas, a primetime present had by no means had a lead character contemplate and go for an abortion. Maude was set in New York, the place abortion had been legalized in 1970, however Roe v. Wade would not change the legality of abortion all through the USA till 1973. “Again then, abortion wasn’t one thing that was being mentioned on tv,” Lear said.
CBS, the community that aired Maude, was cautious of the storyline. Nevertheless, Lear was a strong producer — along with Maude, he created the favored present All within the Household — so that they did not quash the concept solely. As an alternative, the community provided notes, reminiscent of asking Lear to incorporate a personality who may current an opposing point of view. Lear agreed, including “a pal of Maude’s who was pregnant. She had 4 youngsters that she may ill-afford and was pregnant with the fifth and she or he under no circumstances would consider an abortion.”
Even with this compromise, CBS hesitated when it was time to make the present. They requested Lear for a delay, saying in any other case they would not pay for the taping. However Lear declared that if these episodes did not air, he would not present something of their place. The community blinked and the exhibits had been recorded.
Giant-scale protests did not occur immediately
When the 2 episodes of “Maude’s Dilemma” aired on November 14 and 21, 1972, two Illinois associates, in Champaign and Peoria, opted to not broadcast the present (a 3rd affiliate, in Detroit, had deliberate to skip the present however ended up airing it within the face of protest). Maude‘s viewers nonetheless elevated for the episodes, bringing this system to the Prime 10 in TV scores. There have been objections afterward — almost 400 cellphone calls got here into CBS in New York registering opposition — however Lear has explained that in the first place “comparatively nothing occurred.”
The episodes had been scheduled to look as reruns in August 1973. In response to Lear, opposition flared that summer season as a result of “the non secular proper knew the present was coming.” He described a few of the actions in a 2014 interview: “Then they carried on with signposts and protests and someone laid down in entrance of Mr. Paley — he was the proprietor and conceiver of CBS — laid down in entrance of his automotive in New York. It occurred in entrance of my automotive in LA.”
The protests affected the scheduled reruns: This time virtually 40 associates opted to not broadcast them. And whereas different Maude reruns had offered all of their industrial time, few sponsors could possibly be discovered for these episodes. CBS aired the exhibits however added a warning: “Tonight’s episode of Maude was initially broadcast in November of 1972. Because it offers with ‘Maude’s Dilemma’ as she contemplates the opportunity of abortion, chances are you’ll want to chorus from watching it, when you imagine the published might disturb you or others in your loved ones.”
Arthur later admitted that the response she acquired made her rethink the ending
Even with the associates that opted out, CBS calculated that 65 million viewers noticed not less than certainly one of Maude‘s abortion episodes, both through the first run or as a rerun. Lear noted in 2017, “I wasn’t doing messages, however the writers and I had been conscious of what was occurring up the road, what was within the papers, what we had been experiencing in our personal lives.” And controversy did not preserve Maude from being a beloved and top-rated present for years. First Lady Betty Ford was such a devotee that she dubbed herself “Maude’s Quantity One Fan,” and later helped promote the present into syndication.
Lear felt that the opposition the present skilled “wasn’t ‘the American folks’ talking. It was a minority.” Nevertheless, a few of the letters Arthur obtained prompted her to rethink her character’s storyline. She admitted in 1978, “The individuals who wrote to us weren’t cranks and crazies; they had been genuinely all in favour of and felt sincerely about the suitable to life. At this level in my life, I do not know if I’d allow the present to finish the best way it did. I actually do not know.”
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