A: You do what all great actresses do -- study the role!
While actresses are paid to act like ideal housewives, the reality is they aren't housewives. However, the irony to me is that I have seen better examples of how to act like a good housewife in movies and television shows than I have in real life; because women I've known are working women who pull double duty as part-time housewives rather than being 100% dedicated to making their homes and families better as a homemaker. And if a working woman isn't a dedicated housewife, how can she teach anyone else how to be a full-time housewife? She can't, unless it's her job to act like a housewife on screen!
Movies and television shows are forms of programming, and as a midlife housewife I enjoy watching quality programming that promotes being a happy, obliging housewife. Modern movies and scripted television programs, that feature women leaving their homes and men to chase careers (or other men!) in order to feel fulfilled, are more outdated than a 1950's housewife. I mean, I lived through the '90s already, and it's totally getting old now that I'm over forty and the programming hasn't changed, just the faces. It's time for something different, something better, and something that speaks to me as a neo-traditional housewife.
That's why I created a Women @ Home movie list on IMDb, to share my favorite movies and television shows that capture the empowering side of women as devoted homemakers and loving housewives, so others can enjoy them, too! It’s not easy to find popular programming that depicts women being happy at home instead of rushing off to work, but my fine eye for detail works hard to not miss those overlooked characters and heartfelt homemaking moments that don't seem to exist in movies or television shows any more.
Here’s what’s on the list so far and nothing is from the 21st Century:
The Donna Reed Show: Oh, to be Donna Stone! But is the show satire or is it parody? To me it’s quality programming for girls and women, and boys and men too, because modern men need just as much help with traditional roles as modern women do!
National Velvet: How lucky Mr. Brown is to have wise Mrs. Brown, for she is not the standard homemaker! She won fame for swimming the English Channel as a young girl, and in the film she manages the books in her husband’s butcher shop when not making sure her home is under control, which realistically depicts where many homemakers prefer to work when not in the home – in the family business by their husband’s side!
Overboard (The Original): Taming a shrew for the better by turning her into a homemaker! While Annie’s vile attitude toward housekeeping is as offensive as it can get for house-proud homemakers, the creative cleaning montage is always a hoot! Whether it’s parody or satire about housewife life, it’s just nice to see a woman transform for the better and become a master of housework, rather than letting it master her by fighting it every step of the way, which is the only thing that Hollywood teaches women to do nowadays!
Swiss Family Robinson: A shipwreck can’t wreck Mrs. Robinson’s spirits nor lower her standards!
Coal Miner’s Daughter: Before Loretta Lynn was a country music legend, she was a rural homemaker who survived multiple hardships that most women today would not tolerate in any way. Her husband wasn’t a saint and her life was far from ideal with more kids than money, but the two stayed together and worked through everything to create something truly legendary – their marriage!Summer Magic: Charming songs to sing along with and two empowering wife characters in one delightful Disney movie! Mrs. Popham is a Maine homemaker to be reckoned with, while Mrs. Carey lovingly embraces a new financially uncertain future as a widow with three children who uproots from the well-to-do city life to a big yellow house sans maids in rural Maine!
Freaky Friday (The Original): Essential to watch every Friday the 13th! Mrs. Andrews knows that being a homemaker isn’t easy work, and that’s exactly what her daughter finds out on a monumentally busy Friday the 13th! It gets better with age and so does Barbara Harris; watching it at 40 is not the same as watching it as a non-critical-thinking child with an impressionable mind that hasn’t experienced real life yet!
The Glenn Miller Story: The world may never have known Glenn Miller’s sound if his devoted wife hadn’t pinched the pennies to help him finance his musical dreams! She gracefully endured hardships as a struggling musician’s wife and even experienced a miscarriage on the road; she continued his legacy after his mysterious disappearance that left her unsure if he would ever return. Bittersweet life lessons made beautiful with captivating actors (James Stewart and June Allyson) and the uplifting sounds of Glenn Miller’s big band swing music!
Little House on the Prairie: Mrs. Ingalls is a strong faithful pioneering matriarch whose devoted and loving care for her family made her wealthier than Mrs. Oleson could ever dream of being!
Poltergeist (The Original): Mrs. Freeling would rather make the kids’ beds than watch football with her husband and his friends – now that’s a homemaker after my own heart!The Birds: Mrs. Brenner is a widow who endures on the family farm in Bodega Bay after her husband passes, leaving her to raise their young daughter while she looks forward to weekend visits from her criminal lawyer son who lives in San Francisco. While dialogue exposes the sadder side of homemaker life when a husband passes and leaves a wife without a purpose, the hidden reality behind the scenes is that careers work the same way!
Leave It To Beaver: Mrs. Cleaver manages her traditional home of two boys and an engineer husband without breaking a sweat or losing her cool! She isn’t a pushover, but she knows when not to argue with Ward because all smart women know there’s no point in arguing with a husband. She also deals some hard lessons to her boys in order to help them grow up into well-mannered men!
Happy Days: Happy Days are here again and Mrs. Cunningham makes the fictitious 1950s look absolutely fabulous as a happy homemaker in a stable traditional home! Satire or parody doesn’t matter when it’s all about seeing a woman be happy in her role as a homemaking housewife!
The Wonder Years: Mrs. Arnold handles her home like a CEO who knows her role! She eventually becomes a CEO too, as the narration tells in the final episode of the series; after her husband passes and the children grow and leave, she heads out into the world of work, as was typical of women back in the day who waited until the home was empty to go out and pursue a new career. And maybe that’s why women live longer than men!
The Sailor Takes a Wife: There’s no cuter housewife than June Allyson in an apron! An adorably cute, albeit dated, tale of newlyweds who throw themselves into the experiment of marriage with high ideals that clash with real life realities to create G-rated slap-stick misunderstandings that are a charming blast from the pro-housewife past!
Smart Woman: Instead of a traditional homemaker, this film features a society wife whose husband gets suckered into the grips of a gold-digger while his wife is away caring for sick family – talk about nerve! The traits of the husband are not what every woman may want, but that is totally not the point. The point is that when a woman loves her husband and wants him for herself, she will stop at nothing to get him back, even if it means outsmarting him at his own game!
A Christmas Story: Mother Parker's got a 1940's houseful on her hands during the holiday season and she takes it all in patient stride, with imaginative Ralphie and young Randy, along with her feared furnace fighting husband who knows how to make everything right when Christmas dinner unexpectedly goes wrong -- take the family out to eat!
It's a Wonderful Life: Mary Bailey, played by none other than Donna Reed, is the epitome of a devoted homemaker! She doesn't need a perfect house -- she makes an old fixer-upper perfect by adding a womanly touch as only a loving housewife can do!
See all of my IMDb movie lists here including over 40 movies to enjoy during the long dark November Nights!
Got any programming recommendations? Please leave them in the comments!
