Lazy Movie Weekend: Does having it all have to come with such enormous shoulder pads?

Remember Comic Relief? I don't know if it's still a thing, but I remember spending the better part of the 1990s watching Comic Relief on HBO. There's something about 90s era standup that makes me insanely happy. When I was younger, I didn't understand all/many of the jokes, but that seems irrelevant now. One set I remember was Paula Poundstone's 1990 set, which included a section about about shoulder pads. Someone once told her that shoulder pads were created to make a woman's hips look smaller. This whole part makes me laugh and laugh. Even today, almost 30 years later, I'm still giggling about this.  If you're ever worn shoulder pads, you know Paula's pain. You can watch the entire bit here.

I always think of this joke when I watch the movie Baby Boom. I don't know when I saw this movie for the first time, but since I was the type of child/teenager who reveled in watching age inappropriate movies, let's go with early teens. Diane Keaton is a personal hero of mine and one of the famous women who taught me how to dress like a woman. She also stars in one of my favorite movies about the October Revolution, which I watch every year on Valentine's Day. Anyway, Baby Boom is one of the most 80s-tastic movies I can think that doesn't involve a rag-tag group of teens trying to save a community center through dance (yes, this will be a future LMW post). It's not just the shoulder pads, although they are epic, it's everything about this movie. Baby Boom was part of a cycle of movies in the mid to late 80s which featured role-reversals for parent figures and focused on parenting as the central plot point of a film. Other movies that fall into this group are 3 Men and a Baby (directed by Leonard Nimoy!), Mr. Mom, She's Having a Baby, and the Look Who's Talking series.

What's unique about Baby Boom was that it focused on a woman in the role of the bumbling, inept caregiver. J.C. Wiatt, Keaton's character, has zero interest in being a mother when we first meet her. She's married to her job in advertising, has a uninteresting romantic relationship with Harold Ramis, and owns more clothing with shoulder pads than one person should own. She's the perfect 1987 power woman, complete with power suits, the right apartment, and the ability to look at tiny food in overpriced restaurants like it's the greatest thing ever. I love J.C. Wiatt. In 1987, having the female lead of movie not have an interest in being a mother, but to focus on her career and her lifestyle was both revolutionary and indicative of the culture of women at that time. Women were going to college to go to college and to go into the working world, not just for their MRS degrees. The 80s were an odd time if you look at female empowerment, the structures of corporations, and how success was measured. Women were trying to "have it all" without being the ones to define what "all" meant.

J.C. gets a surprise when Elizabeth, the daughter of a distant cousin, is dropped into her life following the death of the cousin and his wife. J.C. is Elizabeth's only living relative so she takes temporary custody of the baby from a delightful English nanny and proceeds to try to figure out how to be a mother. She has no idea how diapers work, isn't sure what to feed a baby (note: it's not pasta, but that is a great scene), and offers a coat check girl her credit card to watch Elizabeth while she has a very important lunch including more very tiny food and an old dude who owns a grocery store chain (he will be important later). She buys every toy at FAO Schwarz, but makes the decision to give Elizabeth up for adoption. The Tiger Lady, as she's known at work, cannot be a mom.

Of course, Elizabeth doesn't go anywhere. Adoptive parents are found, but they're the most stereotypical Midwestern conservatives ever, so J.C. backs out of the process and decides to be Elizabeth's mother. The rest of the movie involves her finding a nanny (Victoria Jackson before she got so hateful), arguing with a very James Spader-y James Spader over flash reports, and eventually deciding to leave New York and move to Vermont. This is after the senior partner of her firm tells her she has to take easier accounts so she can be a mother. He, after all, has a wife at home to do "whatever she does," so he can work 90 hours a week and call that a life. J.C. has to make a choice: career or motherhood.

Vermont brings J.C. and Elizabeth lots of things: a beautiful old farmhouse (that's falling apart), a nervous breakdown, an orchard (that will be the way to the future), Sam Shepard. It also happens to be how J.C. bring her Tiger Lady life together with being a mom. She takes the homemade baby food she makes for Elizabeth out to general stores around Vermont and sees an opportunity to create a small business that allows her do what she wants and spend time with her daughter. Of course, her success leads right back to the advertising firm and New York...if she wants it.

I think we all know how this ends. What's interesting to me about Baby Boom is how resonant it still is today. We're still asking ourselves questions about "having it all," but now we call it "work/life balance" and think that being busy is a badge of honor. (PS: there is no such thing as work/life balance at least not in the way most people think.) People are waiting longer to have children now, mostly for financial reasons, but also because we (and I mean the big "WE" of the world) are finally understanding that there is no magic timeline for how life is supposed to go. Not everyone is going to get married in their 20s, have a career and babies in their 30s, and whatever other things one is supposed to do on that fixed timeline of "success." It's not uncommon for people today to give up their work life and do something out of the ordinary, like create a line of homemade baby food or distill whiskey in their garage or become a cocktail apothecary. While there are still pockets of people, and by pockets I mean most of the white dudes in Congress, who believe a woman's place is in the home and we have to return to "traditional values," it seems like most people are embracing the breakdown of the life timeline.

One of the other things I appreciate about Baby Boom is the the elevation of woman's work into a multi-million dollar business. Not only that, but she's the one that will take Country Baby to that mark, not her former bosses. It inspires me to keep my dream of owning a craft collective/cafe in the back of my head. J.C. could come to Wine & Craft day anytime she wants. What this movie says to me is that there are no limits to what you can do, but you have to make the decision to do whatever it is you want to do. AND it's okay if what you want changes and shifts. Life doesn't exist on a timeline.

Next weekend on the Island: I visit a cat cafe! This is either going to be the greatest event of all time or I'm going to come home with 17 cats. Some would argue this is also the greatest thing ever, but I'm not ready to be that crazy cat lady...yet.

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