MovieChat Forums > The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961) Discussion > Laura Could be Insufferable At Times

Laura Could be Insufferable At Times

posted 7 years ago by [email protected] (6052)
14 replies | jump to latest

Mary Tyler Moore was a great talent and very funny. But oh boy, sometimes I wanted to slap Laura!

She could be such an obnoxious, self centered brat!

I watched "Too many Stars" last night. Laura made sure that Mrs. Billings got Rob to direct the community talent show again, thus assuring Laura of the lead role. She knew that Rob disliked directing the shows, but hey, so what? As long as your husband was in charge of assigning the roles and you'd be assured of the lead?

In this episode a very talented and beautiful new neighbor sang and danced better than Laura.

Laura couldn't be mature and accept the fact that someone, gasp(!) was more talented than she. The musical was entitled "The Gold Rush Girl" which Rob of course had to transform into "The Gold Rush TWINS" in order to keep his immature little wife happy.

If I was Rob, I would have told Laura , "Sorry, but our new neighbor has more talent."
After all, Laura kept saying, "These are open auditions." (yeah, just so long as she got the lead role!)

I think Rob was looking at the practical matter of being frozen out of his bedroom for several months. If Laura didn't get her way she could be a spiteful shrew.

He was always doing his best to make her happy, but she so often whined and carried on like she was living with some mean abuser.

[–] strntz (12686) 7 years ago

Every character has their quirks or even demons, otherwise what would the fun be of watching them? What these quirks are exactly vary from head writer to head writer, but generally, Laura is written as sometimes ditzy, sometimes neurotic, but always a loving mother and wife.

[–] [email protected] (6052) 7 years ago

Yes true, no character is perfect or else it would be boring to watch him or her.

Laura loved Rob. I think what bothered me more about her behavior was the way she could be so insanely jealous at times. Rob loved her and never gave her any reason to doubt his fidelity. But Laura went ballistic when he had to work with beautiful celebrities.

Even Mary Tyler Moore commented on that in an interview. She said that Laura turned green if Rob was in the same room with a good looking woman!

[–] strntz (12686) 7 years ago

Yeah, true. But certainly not limited to Laura. If you think about it, most TV women in the 50s and 60s seemed abnormally jealous. Lucy was, Jeannie was, Samantha Stevens... even Lily Munster..

Funny, never gave that a lot of thought but it does seem to be a common thread!

[–] [email protected] (6052) 4 years ago

Of all the women you mentioned, Samantha Stephens was the only one who rarely became jealous. She accepted that sometimes Darrin would stay at the office and work late with beautiful models. It was her mother Endora who tried goading Sam into distrusting her husband.

[–] jasonmovieguy (182) 6 years ago

Well the women HAD to be jealous on the show because in real life the men were all sleeping around. It was expected. Lucy was always jealous of Ricky, and the TV Ricky Ricardo was a faithful husband. But not in real life. Desi slept with so many women (and a man) that Lucy became immune to it. But I don't think I know any CEO TV/Film/Music head honcho who isn't going to get action on the side. It's a stressful business. Ricky Ricardo was a suave band singer, and Latin. In real life, Ricky Ricardo would have many girlfriends on the side - and then his bratty wife to go home to.

[–] kwestmo (4385) 6 years ago

I am in the middle of the third episode and in each, she is quite insufferable.

[–] Cookiegirl1957 (2) 4 years ago

I said this once in a FB group and basically got a silent gasp! how dare I say something negative about the exhalted laura? Shes a nag, a whiner and hes always apologizing to her, or hiding something that he knows will make her mad
..he lives basically in fear of her..

[–] [email protected] (6052) 4 years ago

LOL A "silent gasp"! Mary Tyler Moore's performance was wonderful. She really learned comedy fast and kept up with a cast of pros.

But Laura often had to have her own way...or else!

One episode I recall is the one where Rob had an early golf date against her wishes. She was having a family reunion that evening and she was sure he'd be too tired to be a good host. Unfortunately Rob came down with a bad case of the flu. It wasn't caused by his golf game. But he was terrified of telling her that he was sick.

He tried to tough it out until he collapsed.

Another time Rob and Jerry decided to buy a boat together. Laura was against it and she said that she'd always be the same sweet, lovable girl, "But NOT to YOU!!" She threatened Rob a lot.

[–] liscarkat (18977) 3 years ago

Sometimes she was a pain in the ass, but she was so hot.

[–] avortac4 (3752) 2 years ago

There are many points of view to all this.

First, when you compare her to modern women (just watch some 'Tayler the Fiend''s youtube videos and Replicant Fish's youtube videos for perspective), she's a sweet angel, whose quirks are easily forgivable. Most men would LOVE to have a wife like that - she's not perfect, but she's 'perfect enough' that this kind of emotional childishness would be easy to forgive.

If we lived in a world, where those things were the only faults in women, and yet the wives of this world would be as faithful, as sympathetic, as empathetic, caring, self-sacrificing and husband-adoring and supportive as Laura (she even tried to save a huge amount of money just to buy Rob a great present), these kind of things would be easy to forgive. After all, who among us is emotionally perfect? I am sure you and all of us here, have SOME childish or emotionally imbalanced part about us, that would be JUST as 'insufferable' as anything Laura has ever expressed.

Second, there's a balance about things. Sure, Laura can be selfish and petty, but that's pretty much expected of women. After all, when you have pedestalized 50% of humanity and protected them from the consequences of even their own actions (little girls have always known how to tie their parents around their little fingers - female-gendered entities are masters of manipulation), and even their own emotions a lot of the time, what do you really expect?

Women are often shown as petty and selfish, emotionally childish and immature, because that's what they ARE in real life.

Of course the politically-correct agenda doesn't allow us to face the facts, we MUST ALWAYS BLAME MEN for everything. So now Laura's female pettiness is somehow CAUSED by Ricky's actor 'sleeping around'.

[–] avortac4 (3752) 2 years ago

Do people that blame men for everything ever stop to think how HARD it is for a man to 'sleep around', unless they're a high-status man? Men have way more active sexuality that constantly demands satisfaction - as Bill Bur said, the dick (not the Van Dyke kind) is constantly saying "Do it, do it, fking do it!". This is true. Men have this powerful dictator between their legs that demands sex every single second of their waking life.

Women can abstain from sex easily, especially since nothing is building up enormous pressure. Men generate new sperm constantly, and it needs to be released, or it will become explosive pressure, and if it's not released, there will be 'wet dreams'. Women do not have this constantly mounting pressure that physically increases every second.

However, since women are the gatekeepers of sex, while men are gatekeepers of marriage and long-term relationships, it's usually women that can decide exactly how much sex will happen. Men can't sleep around without women WILLING to let them sleep around, and most men don't get this kind of women (if they get any at all).

So is it any wonder that when a man finally becomes a celebrity or some other high-status male, and thus finally has OPTIONS to release this pressure, they yield to the ENORMOUS temptation? You shouldn't be so harsh, because it's a ridiculous thing to ask someone to resist THAT LEVEL of temptation. Women couldn't do it, either. How many women can resist the temptation to have babies? They MUST have them, at least in some form, but we never even notice or care about this, although it's the same thing, just in different form. Women must cuddle something constantly, even if it's just a stuffed toy or a designer rat - I mean, a small dog. How many women have CATS? I don't think there's a female youtuber that doesn't.

[–] avortac4 (3752) 2 years ago

Anyway, back to Laura's selfishness..

It IS a sitcom, so even the 'normal female selfishness' that most married men are too familiar with, is exaggerated a bit for comedic effect - how could it be otherwise?

Laura is emotionally immature, but what woman isn't? Have you met emotionally mature women that could handle competition from other women in a mature way? Neither have I.

If a real woman was in a situation where her husband was basically forced to adore a 'better woman', how well do you think she would / could handle it? I mean, look at what's happening with modern women in Tiktoks and others, where they complain about dating, while having 20000 followers on Instagram and dating apps - they say ridiculous things, like 'I can't find a man'. So NONE of those 20 000 men are good enough for ya? And this from a very plain or even ugly woman.

When you look at how immature women generally are in the world, Laura's immaturity doesn't seem bad at all, and can almost be seen as a 'cute quirk' without many harmful consequences.

I keep thinking of the 'hair bleaching-episode', where Laura's insecurity really shows up - it's funny and cute, how she's SO scared of what Rob will say, when Rob has been shown to be a very understanding and even simpy guy for his lovely wife. In real world, a woman that gorgeous would not care what that simpy husband thinks, she would have been riding the carousel for years at that point anyway, behind her husband's back.

By the way, all those poeple that blame 'men for sleeping around' (an achievement for a man - no ordinary man can do this, they will have to become 'extraordinary' in one way or another, and that takes LOTS of HARD WORK, whereas any relatively human-looking woman can just sit on a barstool or write 'hi' on a dating app and get 8 million men instantly wanting to get into her pants) should look how much women cheat.

[–] avortac4 (3752) 2 years ago

It's like that old, funny story about some women loving some useless celebrity so much, she told her boyfriend she would s*ck his c*ck in front of her father, because she loves him so much, and the boyfriend should just shut up and take this kind of insanity. Then the boyfriend simply said some woman on a TV show is 'cute', and she lost her crap and angrily marched away, telling him he can just watch it alone, then.

The hypocrisy knows no bounds, but people are still blaming MEN for everything - even a fictional woman's emotional immaturity.

How's THAT for inequality.. men have to buy you a drink, stop the ax murderer from coming through the window, watch your female sports for ya and even get the blame if a woman's emotions are immature!

[–] CarolTheDabbler (584) 2 years ago

Checked to see who wrote this show, and here are their first names: Carl, Sam, Bill, Jerry, Garry, Carl, Dale, Howard, John, Sheldon, Martin, Frank, Bill, Ernest, Joseph, Walter, Ed, Norm, Ronald, Jay, Art, Ben, Lawrence, Fred, Rick, Joseph, R.S., Harvey, Lee, Ben, Arnold, Lois, Jack, Leo, Ray, Jack, Nathaniel, Joan, Howard, Ronald, and Jack.

Of those 41 writers, the vast majority (36) are presumably men. Only Lois and Joan (who wrote only one episode apiece) are presumably women, with three others (Dale, Lee and R.S.) who could easily be either.

Just sayin'.