The Journey of (Marvelous) Mrs. Maisel: Social Work Reflections on Season 1

by SaraKay Smullens, MSW, LCSW, DCSW, CGP, CFLE, BCD

(Editor's Note: Please join me in welcoming SaraKay Smullens. This is the first of a series of reviews/commentary she will write for The New Social Worker. SaraKay welcomes feedback and discussion.)

     Oh, yes! The Amazon Prime original series, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, with the multi-talented Rachel Brosnahan (remember her as the terrified witness, Rachel Posner, in House of Cards?) in the starring role, is Marvelous. The series and its star walked away with both the Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice awards in January and are setting the stage for Season Two. Depicting life in 1958 New York City for a privileged Jewish family, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel concentrates on universal challenges—separation from parents, individuation, marital fulfillment, professional direction, and balancing of myriad responsibilities.

     The primary message of this touching, funny, addictive, splendidly written, and magnificently acted ensemble production is one social workers understand well—if you do not find yourself, it is next to impossible to live well with another. Before I get to a “But-However,” a loud Spoiler Alert.

     “But-However,” if you are going through or have gone through a divorce (if so, me too), chances are strong that you, and your clients, have not had the kind of support that Miriam (Midge) Maisel is blessed with when her husband Joel (Michael Zegan) tells her at the series’ beginning that he is leaving her. For starters, money is not a problem for her and her children.  Plus, her husband turns out to be a good guy. 

     As the plot progresses, we can see our clients’ truths and our own. Although Joel is having an affair with his young, unassuming secretary, his involvement is a symptom, not a reason for his decision. Joel leaves because he can no longer live the way Midge and their four parents insist that he must and also because he feels “less than” in contrast to Midge’s confidence, brilliance, beauty, and likability.

     Social workers are well aware of how feeling “less than,” as well as all deep insecurities (so often displaced on others), lead to emotional, physical, and sexual  abuse. Exacerbated by an adversarial legal system, the result is brutal custody and divorce proceedings. We know well that all custody and divorce proceedings belong out of an adversarial arena, which is a strong message of the (5 Academy Award winning) 1979 film, Kramer vs. Kramer, where the legal system drives kind people to cruelty. (More about this follows.)

     In “Mrs. Maisel,” however, adversarial direction is far from Joel’s mind-set.  He is drowning in societal and familial expectation, a far cry from pathology.  Always concerned about the well being of his wife and children, he realizes that time away is the only way to begin to find himself, and he does begin. Further, his decision jump-starts the same necessary path for his wife.

     As Mrs. Maisel evolves, the 1979 film, Kramer vs. Kramer, comes more and more to mind.  Here, another couple, Ted (Dustin Hoffman) and Joanna (Meryl Streep) also have time apart to find themselves. Depicting a time frame 20 years later than Mrs. Maisel, it is Joanna who leaves. Later, when she returns, her husband and son have bonded, but Ted has paid a professional price for this bonding.  A cruel adversarial custody and divorce process pits two decent, well meaning people against each other. Although Joanna is awarded custody, she decides it is in their son Billy’s best interest to remain with his father.

     Far more child centered than Mrs. Maisel (I do not remember their children’s names, if they are indeed given), Kramer captures conflicts in a period when traditional male-female roles are openly questioned and given voice. With so many work pressures and his own ambition, how does a man find time for his wife and his child?  What are the choices for women?  How are expectations of each partner addressed?  How does a wife cope with her husband’s abdication of the roles and responsibilities she believes are necessary, and his expectation that he live life precisely as he believes he must—those he feels entitled to?

     After seeing this film, I told anyone who had the patience to hear me that Joanna left Ted and Billy far too quickly, as was the couple’s decision to divorce. Of course, my script preferences would have destroyed Robert Benton’s phenomenal screenplay calling attention to pressing issues of the day. 

     Still, I knew that in real life, a social worker could guide Ted and Johanna toward what their generation offered—opportunities for a more equitable balance of roles, choices necessary for each couple to confront in its own way (ones non-existent in the lives of Mrs. Maisel and her family.  If they had been, Midge’s mom [Marin Hinkle] surely would have been the CEO of Bloomingdales!)  What Ted and Johanna deserved was an opportunity to examine whether two who held deep capacity to love and respect others could negotiate choices in role balance and expectation. A social worker would also ask: How will you feel if your partner moves forward and chooses another? What is really in Billy’s best interest? Is love still alive?  If so, can it be built upon? 

     In a time frame about 20 years prior to Kramer, Mrs. Maisel parallels a couple’s similar choices with respect to the decision to divorce before the societal shift Kramer presents. In Maisel, however, the focus is on young marriage of the economically privileged, a familial imposed goal as soon as possible after the completion of college. Here parents look at divorce as a family failure and humiliation.

     Mrs. Maisel presents these issues in both societal and psychological perspective. Joel’s confidence and “emotional sense of direction” have been buried by enmeshment, insisted on by well meaning parents who have no idea of the harm they are inflicting. Stymied in a professional direction that he detests at the beginning of the series, we think that he yearns to be a stand-up comic. In the last segment, however, we learn Midge has fallen into a common trap of the time—her ambition is displaced on her husband, who knows that though he is a clever guy with one-liners, he is a rotten stand-up who steals comedic material in an effort to please his wife.

     In episode after episode, we see that Midge is tough. Caught off guard when her husband announces he is leaving her, she does not cave. Being arrested for showing her breasts, which she cannot fathom her husband would leave, does not faze her. Further, she easily (charmingly) can walk over others to get what she wants.

     Social workers know of course that there will be “trouble in paradise” in the world of Mrs. M the moment we see Midge and Joel’s well-meaning but controlling parents impose the lives they think essential on their “children.”  We are moved by the poignancy depicted in the universal challenges of the mother-daughter relationship and the wisdom of Midge’s father (Tony Shalhoub) when he advises his daughter that in marriage each will inevitably grow and change, and the glue that leads to a marriage that endures is love.  

     Two decades before a revolution in role options is the backdrop in the separation of Joanna and Ted Kramer, the same questions that faced them face Midge and Joel. It will be fascinating to watch Season Two as The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and her entire family confront the challenge of change, a constant in each life since the beginning of time. Of course, the most fascinating aspect of this series will continue to be Mrs. Maisel (before Ms. was a choice), as in Season Two her life evolves, both on stage and off.

SaraKay Smullens, MSW, LCSW, DCSW, CGP, CFLE, BCD, whose private and pro bono clinical social work practice is in Philadelphia, is a certified group psychotherapist and family life educator. She is a recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Pennsylvania chapter of NASW, and the 2013 NASW Media Award for Best Article. SaraKay is the author of Whoever Said Life Is Fair, Setting YourSelf Free, and Burnout and Self-Care in Social Work. Her writing has been published in peer-reviewed journals, newspapers, and blogs. SaraKay's professional life continues to be devoted to highlighting destructive societal forces through communication, advocacy and activism. Read more about her work at SaraKaySmullens.com.

SaraKay’s papers on the urgency of removing all issues of custody and divorce from an adversarial process can be found with her advocacy and activist papers in the library of her undergrad alma mater, Goucher College.  They are available for research and scholarship by contacting Tara Olivero, Curator of Special Collections.