Reading Six Feet Under: TV to Die For (21 page)

That same woman stood in the chamber,

seeing Death was a solitary number

(and her children all there to agree).

That same woman stood in the chamber

wondering if she would end up like me.

Peter Wilson

109

nine

Mother knows best:

KIM

Ruth and representations

AKASS

of mothering in
Six Feet

Under

Wendy Lesser of
The New York Times
dismisses
Six Feet Under
’s matriarch Ruth Fisher (now Sibley) as being a mere ‘doormat for the show’s producers to step on’ (2001: 28). Comparing Ruth unfavourably to Tony Soprano’s harridan of a mother, Livia (Nancy Marchand), from
The Sopranos
, Lesser maintains that Ruth is ‘an infinitely less compelling’ character whose biggest problem is that ‘she embarrasses her kids’. Other critics are less than complimentary about Ruth, including Phil Rosenthal, who describes her as ‘the increasingly cartoonish matriarch whose misguided search for direction in her life will become a running gag’ (2002). Linda Stasi has no better opinion of her when she says ‘Ruth is so wooden, she makes Mary Tyler Moore in
Ordinary People
look like an emoting machine’, adding that ‘she is a ready-to-explode mess in ankle socks and housedresses’

(2001). But is this a fair assessment? Is it not true to say that there is more to Ruth than these critics give her credit for, and that she is far more complex than these initial responses would suggest? Surely to dismiss Ruth in this way is missing the point.

If the narrative of
Six Feet Under
can be defined as liminal, with each episode beginning with a death and ending with a burial, could it not be argued that Ruth’s positioning within this narrative represents another kind of liminality: that of the middle-aged, post-menopausal mother with adult children? While orthodox 110

MOTHER KNOWS BEST

psychoanalytical theorists Other the mother in the symbolic (Freud 1995; Lacan 1977), feminists attempt to revise such thinking by bringing her into discourse (Klein 1930; Horney 1967; Cixous and Clement 1986; Chodorow 1978; Kristeva 1980; Irigaray 1991). Despite such attempts there is still a tendency to reduce the mother to her parental role, focusing on the nurturing, breastfeeding pre-Oedipal mother who has meaning only in relation to her children and nothing else. There is little attempt here to clarify what happens to the relationship once the child becomes independent and moves away.

In this instance motherhood is repressed and silenced, invisible to society and reduced to a metaphor (Boulous Walker 1998: 135).

This chapter will examine the complex representation of the mother and the maternal in
Six Feet Under
, arguing that Ruth’s narrative positioning reveals an aspect of mothering that is routinely repressed and silenced within patriarchy. If, as Robert Tobin asserts, Ruth is a good example of ‘a generation of women who had spent their lives entirely under the thumb of patriarchy’ (2002: 87), I will argue that Ruth’s narrative finds her negotiating her way through uncharted territory while offering us an innovative subject position which allows the ‘unrepresentable to emerge from the patriarchal restrictions of representation’ (Boulous Walker 1998: 135).

Just Another Smother Mother?

Superficially at least, Ruth seems to conform to the type of mother traditionally found in melodramatic texts (‘Pilot’, 1:1). Framed in her kitchen she is surrounded by the men in her life; her son David who assumes the role of the patriarch by sitting at the table, criticising his mother and her husband at the end of the telephone. Flushed and busily preparing a Christmas Eve dinner, Ruth’s conversation with Nathaniel is practical and yet critical as she fires off a list of chores for him to do. The tone of this conversation makes it easy to forget that Ruth is Nathaniel’s wife and not his mother, as she talks to him like a recalcitrant child, one that must be cajoled, cared for and criticised to enable Ruth to maintain her role as the ideal nurturing mother. It is not long before this representation is rendered strange and our expectations shattered. Arguably, it is Nathaniel’s rebellion against Ruth’s critical mother’s voice that causes his 111

READING
SIX FEET UNDER

untimely death. Not the long-drawn-out death caused by smoking, but a quick, final totalling of his life, brought about by a momentary lapse in concentration while lighting a crafty cigarette. Ruth’s reaction to the news of Nathaniel’s death is both violent and indicative of how this maternal representation is going to be much more complex than that of her melodramatic predecessors. Domestic devastation ensues and David is met with the sight of his mother collapsed on the kitchen floor, surrounded by the wreckage of her morning’s labour and the words ‘your father is dead and the pot roast is ruined’.

If patriarchal discourse works so hard to silence the mother, then Ruth’s tone here exemplifies a double register breaking through that repression. Nurturing and yet critical, her questioning and rebuking is reminiscent of the role of the mother’s voice in early childhood.

On the way to the mortuary to identify Nathaniel’s body Ruth asks her daughter: ‘Are you having sex? Are you doing drugs?’ (‘Pilot’, 1:1).

That Claire is momentarily freaked by her mother’s questioning is not only because she
is
high on drugs
and
considering having sex with Gabe but because Ruth picks this exact moment to question her daughter. Freud may assert that the formation of the superego

‘retains the character of the father’ (Freud 1995: 642) but here we can clearly see how the mother’s voice functions in this formation.

If the superego retains dominance over the ego ‘in the form of conscience or perhaps of an unconscious sense of guilt’ (ibid.), it is the mother that gives voice to this authority as the primary caretaker of children. The death of Nathaniel relieves Ruth of this burden. As he appears to family members, Nathaniel articulates their guilty consciences and innermost fears; not only does this allow us access to their interior lives but it releases Ruth from the onerous role of giving voice to the ‘law of the father’.

The binary nature of the family home and funeral home further complicates Ruth’s positioning within the Fisher family. If the sex/

gender divide in modern society is due to ‘natural and biological’

functions which assume that ‘women’s primary social location is domestic’ (Chodorow 1978: 9), then Ruth’s liminal status is reinforced by this uncanny fusion of work and home. Ruth may have been associated with the abject due to her role in the ‘primal mapping of the body’ where the child learns about its body through its mother’s role in sphincteral training (Kristeva 1982: 72) but the corpse is the ultimate in abjection as it is literally ‘the place where 112

MOTHER KNOWS BEST

meaning collapses’ (2). In the Fisher home, then, it is arguably Nathaniel and the men that are most associated with abjection, dealing daily with corpses and bodily fluids. As David tells Nate, ‘Talk to me when you’ve had to stuff formaldehyde-soaked cotton wool up your father’s ass so he doesn’t leak’ (‘Pilot’, 1:1). It is Nate’s memory of his father inviting him to touch a corpse that causes him to flee the family business, not the shame associated with maternal authority and toilet training. This notion is reinforced by Nate and David’s argument about the defecation of a corpse (‘The Will’, 1:2). Scolding her two sons for bickering, Ruth ignores the nature of their argument, and neither son shows any of the embarrassment or shame traditionally associated with the abject once the child enters into

‘the order of the phallus’ (Kristeva 1982: 74). Kristeva may argue that there is a split between the worlds of maternal and paternal authority, but this is arguably not the case in the Fisher family home.

If the ‘law of the father’ and maternal authority in the Fisher household are confused, then the uncanny grouping around the dinner table reveals a further confusion. Planning a special family dinner, Ruth reveals that she is having a sexual relationship with her new employer and florist, Nikolai (Ed O’Ross), telling her children: ‘We’re all adults – we’re all sexual beings – we should acknowledge that’ (‘In the Game’, 2:1). Asserting her role as sexual woman with the right to speak about such matters finds Ruth’s adult children sniggering and behaving like – well – children. Even if ‘by 1986, the mother/sexual woman split was healed’ (Kaplan 2002:183), there is no such healing for the middle-aged mother/

sexual woman, as ‘[h]er sexuality simply does not exist beyond her reproductive potential’ (Boulous Walker 1998: 136). Safely en-sconced in the family home, their mother taking care of them and with their own sexual lives, the Fisher children reveal their reluctance to accord their mother the same privileges. The first time Claire meets Hiram (Ed Begley, Jr) she envisages her mother having energetic sex with him on the kitchen counter; later David imagines his mother reaching under the table and informing the assembled company that she ‘can’t get enough of [Hiram’s] cock’ (‘Brotherhood’, 1:7). While the Fishers can tolerate Ruth’s eccentricities, it is her sexuality that causes them the most consternation and is a good example of how

‘In patriarchal terms the feminine should be either woman or mother, never both’ (Boulous Walker 1998: 136).

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READING
SIX FEET UNDER

If Ruth’s children are reluctant to accept their mother’s sexuality it is, arguably, because they want to keep their family intact and unchanging. This dilemma is focused on the
mise en scène
of the kitchen, which, according to Alan Ball, ‘is the heart of the home, the source of nourishment and sustenance, the congregating place, the hearth’ (Magid 2002: 76). Despite the fact that the kitchen holds a central place in the lives of the Fisher family, and especially Ruth, Ball adds that ‘it’s not a completely warm and rosy place, because the Fishers live in the constant presence of death’ (ibid.). Developing this point further, I would suggest that the kitchen is also symbolic of Ruth’s inner journey as, locked in domestication, she gradually becomes lost in her attempt to find a place in the world. Although she is initially positioned as swathed in the warmth of her kitchen, busily preparing the Christmas dinner and anticipating her family reunion, she soon becomes trapped and the kitchen threatens to overwhelm her. ‘The Room’ (1:6) finds Ruth standing statue-like, gripping a saucepan, with her children bustling about her. ‘The Invisible Woman’ (2:5) sees Ruth dreaming of her bare house, stripped of furniture and devoid of life; the domestic space here is cold and unforgiving. Low camera angles, wide lenses and sinister lighting turn the hitherto cosy kitchen into an uncanny prison, emphasising the emptiness of Ruth’s life.

The double register of Ruth’s speech is further evidence that the domestic is a key part of her existence and makes strange her role as a mother. It is not simply that Ruth conflates two registers in her speech but that the clash of tones makes strange her efforts to connect with people. Looking at a nude Polaroid of her younger self, Ruth tells Nate the history of the photo (taken by Nathaniel before he went to Vietnam in 1965), saying: ‘It’s frightening how much we change. Are you staying for dinner, dear?’ (‘The Room’, 1:6). Ruth does not merely sublimate her emotional state to practical issues but allows the inner conflict between domesticity and personal development its full expression. David finally admits to his mother that he is gay, and an emotional discussion ensues. Admitting that it was so much easier when they were small, as they ‘used to tell her everything’, Ruth composes herself to ask if he is staying for dinner.

Through tears she adds the non sequitur ‘We’re having veal’ (‘A Private Life’, 1:12). This equation of food with comfort is not restricted to her children. Hiram takes her out for dinner to tell her, 114

MOTHER KNOWS BEST

guilt-stricken, that he has met somebody else. Ruth takes the news calmly and tells him: ‘Let’s order dessert. That’ll cheer you up’ (‘Knock, Knock’, 1:13). Refusing the toast that Ruth has prepared for breakfast results in Claire being accused of having an eating disorder (‘Pilot’, 1:1), and it is ultimately a solitary dinner in a cavernous kitchen that signals the end of domestic bliss for Ruth (‘Back to the Garden’, 2:7).

If You Go Down to the Woods Today …

If the Fisher family are happy to keep their mother in her domestic role, devoid of sexuality, it is Ruth who forces her children to grow up while exposing the fiction that it is the mother who keeps her children down with her in the Imaginary to fulfil her needs. Realising that her children do not need her any more is a shock for Ruth, but it also illustrates how the sexuality of the mother has to be expelled from the home (‘Life’s Too Short’, 1:9). If it is the ‘
woman-mother
that represents the greatest threat’ to patriarchy and ‘is exiled to the margins of society’ (Boulous Walker 1998: 136), then Ruth here demonstrates the limits of this exile by telling Hiram that women should not go camping while menstruating as bears are attracted to the smell of blood. There is, obviously, a whole discourse here that Hiram is completely unaware of, which reveals the limitations behind the way ‘Christianity balances its ambivalence toward woman, its contempt and idealisation in the figures of Mary and Eve’ (ibid.). If Eve’s ‘aggressive sexuality’ (ibid.) is to be contained in nature then it is only when she is not demonstrating her ability to reproduce that she is safe in doing so. Ruth’s ecstatic midnight wandering reveals the rampant sexuality hidden beneath her prim, repressed façade.