If everybody loves mothers so
much, why are there so few
good ones on TV?
To judge from today's
sitcoms, anyway, you never
would guess this was the
country that invented
Mother's Day. Where
television once celebrated
motherhood, it's now
likelier to treat the
condition as something akin
to mental illness. Outside
of a very few shows, "Mom"
is generally portrayed as an
unwelcome visitor who exists
solely to embarrass her
grown children.
Which is just one reason
Patricia Heaton is glad she
landed on CBS' critically
beloved Everybody Loves
Raymond. A mother herself,
Heaton is happy to play one
of prime time's few positive
mother figures.
"It's been a very, very
happy relationship all
around. I'm very satisfied
with it,'' she said. "I just
think it's nice as a mother
in my own life to be able to
have that opportunity on TV
to have her be real and
funny and crazy a little
bit. I found in being a
mother that it's a really
hard, important job, and I
think it kind of gets short
shrift on TV... The wives
and the moms on most family
shows are the most
underwritten,
under-appreciated roles, and
the hardest to do.''
Like her character, Ray's
wife Debra, Heaton has three
small children, ages 7
months, 2 and 4. Raising
them, she says, is the most
important job in her life -
a job she shares with her
husband, English actor David
Hunt. But it's not a job
that TV treats as very
important, and she thinks
she understands why.
"In one sense, there's a
sort of mundaneness to
motherhood ... Your life
consists of keeping up with
the laundry and picking up
the kids' toys and taking
them to school and picking
them up, and making the same
four meals over again: hot
dogs, macaroni and cheese,
peanut butter and jelly and
pizza, of course all
accompanied by French
fries.''
If it's that mundane, why
talk about it? Well, because
it's important -- even if
it's not always hilarious.
"You're developing human
beings who are going to go
out into society and
hopefully make it a better
place ... Now how you put
that all in a sitcom and
make it really, really
funny, I don't know. I'm
just glad that on this show,
Debra carries some weight.''
As happy as she is playing
Debra now, she did have some
qualms about the role when
the show began. Heaton says
she loved the humor in the
first few Raymond scripts,
but was less enchanted with
her own role. For a while,
she says, she was afraid
that Debra would be a
typical TV mom: a slightly
shrewish straight woman
whose lines boiled down to
"Oh, Ray.''
Luckily, she says, that
changed as the writers
developed the character, and
as she developed a chemistry
with Romano. Plus, she says,
she finally got her own
penchant for motherhood out
of the way: "It helps that
I'm not pregnant this year,
so they're free to move me
around."
Heaton's character even
bears a passing resemblance
to her own mother, a
stay-at-home mom. With one
major difference: "My mother
should have been paid so
well.
"I feel privileged to be
able to portray
realistically a mother on
TV. It's the role actresses
like to do the least. You
like to be Suddenly Susan or
Caroline in the City, to be
single and have fabulous
clothes ... But the way it's
worked out on this show, I
think it's the best woman's
role on TV right now.''
