Reading Six Feet Under: TV to Die For (22 page)

Hallucinating her dead husband, she tells him that she misses what they had, to which he replies, ‘Well, go find it again.’ The next morning Hiram tells a flushed Ruth that she had never before been so passionate with him. Ruth’s laugh here is reminiscent of the

‘Laugh of the Medusa’ outlined by Hélène Cixous (1980), and while it is clearly a source of discomfort for Hiram it is also a warning of what lies hidden beneath Ruth’s repressed exterior.

If Ruth’s sexuality is initially positioned as akin to nature and outside the domestic environment, what of the other side of the 115

READING
SIX FEET UNDER

binary, the ‘domesticated image of the Virgin Mary, the mother devoid of sexual desire’ (Boulous Walker 1998: 136)? We first see this side of Ruth in the pilot episode the day after her hysterical confession of a long-standing affair at Nathaniel’s funeral. Now composed, with hair loose, she asks Nate to stay for a few more days. Evoking the memory of the idealised mother of Nate’s childhood, Ruth gets her own way. Waiting for the outcome of Nate’s surgery (‘The Last Time’, 2:13), Ruth, hair flowing, is clearly situated as the ideal mother surrounded by her children, and is reminiscent of Michelangelo’s

‘Pieta’, the iconic sculpture of maternal suffering. Discovering that she is grandmother to Nate’s daughter Maya, (‘I’ll Take You’, 2:12) gives Ruth a chance to relive a part of her life that she had so reluctantly left behind. Happily falling back into the role of nurturing mother, cradling her granddaughter, hair loose and tousled, Ruth is positioned as the Madonna, the ultimate icon of idealised maternity.

This positioning may initially seem unproblematic and in keeping with the binary of Virgin Mary / Eve that I have argued is traditionally sanctioned by patriarchy, but Ruth’s assertion that ‘a woman’s hair is the gateway to her sensuality’ (‘The Eye Inside’, 3:3) retrospectively problematises this assumption and hints at Ruth’s grasp of her positioning, along with her ability to manipulate it.

Speaking Fiercely From the ‘I’

Ruth may be aware of how she is positioned but it is clearly not going to be an easy escape for her. Having tried many strategies to fill the void left by the death of Nathaniel, Ruth finds herself at a meeting of ‘The Plan’ (‘Out, Out, Brief Candle’, 2:2) and is clearly attracted to the idea that she can achieve self-fulfilment regardless of her own unhappy past. Moved by the graduation speeches, especially from a 41-year-old woman who speaks ‘fiercely from the “I”’, Ruth seizes her chance to achieve similar subjectivity, and later that day confronts Nate and David about the whereabouts of the $93,000 she invested in the business. Seeing the new casket wall recently purchased by her sons, she indignantly demands to know how they paid for it and asks to see receipts and accounts. To the bemusement of her sons she tells them, ‘I am speaking
fiercely
from the “I”’, and fierce she is: body shaking, clenched fists and an angry expression on her face.

116

MOTHER KNOWS BEST

Unaccustomed to this kind of power she asks, ‘Do you mind?’ before leaving the room with a flourish.

‘The Plan’ (2:3) proves to be cathartic for Ruth, and her angry outburst at the seminar the following day sees her again speaking fiercely from the ‘I’. Clearly exhilarated by her success, Ruth seizes on this discourse and spends the next episode forgiving old enemies and speaking to her family in building metaphors. It is not until she discusses Keith’s niece, Taylor (Aysia Polk), with David that he is moved to tell her: ‘Mom, I’m happy for you if this whole Plan thing of yours has enabled you to draft your own blueprint or patch up some of the cracks in your foundation but … just between you and me you’re starting to sound like a crazy person and I think it’s time you kept that shit to yourself and minded your own fucking business’

(‘Driving Mr Mossback’, 2:4). While her children are tolerant of Ruth’s eccentricities and accept her as an adult with the right to have her own life, here she goes too far; the combination of the mother’s critical voice and the subjectivity accorded it by the Plan makes this a voice too powerful to be accepted by her family. The Plan may promise happiness but it does not offer an unproblematic solution to Ruth’s dilemmas, and, further, it does not offer a solution to her repressed and silenced positioning within society and her family.

As if to emphasise this, ‘The Invisible Woman’ (2:5) shows Ruth, alone, contemplating old photos of her young family. It is a moment of pure despair as it becomes clear to Ruth that her role as a ‘stay at home’ mother has become redundant. Obviously, this is the downside to an occupation so lauded by society, and, with the repression of mothering in culture, is something that rarely finds representation.

Left alone, Ruth faces the reality of her situation and loses hope of ever finding her subjectivity again.

The arrival of her granddaughter seems to offer Ruth an opportunity to relive the part of her life that she so obviously mourns.

However comfortable Ruth may feel, Maya is not
her
child, and it is not long before the cracks begin to appear in her relationship with her new daughter-in-law, Lisa. Unaware of how mothering has changed in the past 30 years, Ruth feeds her granddaughter peanut butter (‘Perfect Circles’, 3:1). Lisa phones her and agitatedly informs her mother-in-law the error of her ways. Apologising, Ruth explains that peanut butter was never a problem when her children were young. This simple defence of her actions shows the intransigent 117

READING
SIX FEET UNDER

position occupied by Ruth. Having been a mother in the late sixties and seventies does not prepare her for being a grandmother now, and Ruth is clearly made redundant by her ignorance of the mothering skills expected in the twenty-first century. Dr Spock may have been good enough to dispense wisdom to mothers of Ruth’s generation, but here Lisa reveals how the ideology of mothering has completely changed. In order to continue her role as childminder to Maya, Ruth will have to educate herself into what is expected from modern mothers and carers. This brutal fact shocks her into realising that, not only is she finding it impossible to re-insert herself into society, but also that she can no longer rely on the now outdated mothering skills that have carried her through her key role in life.

‘The Eye Inside’

It is Bettina (Kathy Bates) who temporarily rescues Ruth from this untenable position – a straight-talking, irreverently mischievous woman who embodies the transgressive possibilities of the unruly woman. Kathleen Rowe suggests that the unruly woman’s power comes not from the fact that she signifies castration but rather that she threatens patriarchal belief systems. ‘What most threatens that set of beliefs is not (or is not
only
) the vagina, but the female mouth and its dangerous emanations – laughter and speech’ (1995: 43).

Ruth is appalled when Bettina steals a scarf on their shopping trip (‘The Eye Inside’, 3:3). Confidently confiding in Ruth that ‘fortunately women our age are invisible, so we can really get away with murder’, it is clear that Bettina is aware of the fact that in society’s eyes both she and Ruth not only are invisible but occupy a liminal space. The shopping trip proves instructive, as the banter between the two women shows us a side of Ruth that has been hidden up until now.

Shoplifting a lipstick, Ruth begins to embrace her liminal status, while tentatively, with Bettina’s guidance, she begins to uncover the woman that has been submerged under her all-encompassing role as mother.

‘Nobody Sleeps’ (3:4) sees the complete transformation of Ruth under the tutelage of Bettina. If motherhood is to be the focus this week, then Lisa’s problematic path towards her ‘nurturing mother’

role is contrasted with Ruth’s trajectory out of it. Waking in his 118

MOTHER KNOWS BEST

marital bed, Nate attempts to rouse Lisa. To his horror it is Ruth purring sexually at his side, and not his wife. Of course, the classic Freudian interpretation of such a dream is of the son’s Oedipal desire for the mother – and we soon discover that Nate’s nightmare is becoming a reality when Ruth and Lisa are framed together in the kitchen, looking uncannily alike. It would seem that Nate’s dream is not simply about his desire for his own mother but shows a tentative understanding of just how his Oedipal journey has led him to repeat his father’s life. The sins of the father are not only revisited on Nate, however, as it becomes clear how this repetition impacts upon women.

Being cared for by Lisa and befriended by Bettina, Ruth is shown a way out of the rigidity of her roles. From the ‘Pilot’ episode onwards Ruth has struggled with split subjectivity – mother to her family and sexual woman to her lover and hairdresser, Hiram. While she has, in some ways, managed to merge these subjectivities, the introduction of Bettina’s unruliness and Lisa’s nurturing unleashes a merging of all her past selves and underlines Rowe’s assertion that the unruly woman’s ‘rebellion against her proper place not only inverts the hierarchical relation between the sexes but unsettles one of the most fundamental of social distinctions – that between male and female’

(1995: 43). Laughingly revealing uncomfortable truths about herself and her sons, Ruth crosses a line and forces them to reveal
their
repression. Not only does she cross the line of family secrets laid bare but she also tipsily crosses the line between funeral and family home and death and life. Languishing on the set of the following day’s funeral, Bettina and Ruth enact their own deaths, and later, accompanied by a now awake Maya and a merry Lisa, dance to the words ‘I’m an ordinary girl. Burning down the house. Wait till the party’s over.’ It should be clear enough that Ruth’s Medusan laugh in ‘Life’s Too Short’ (1:9) has come full circle, found its joyful expression and signals the death of the old Ruth.

*

*

*

It is clear that Ruth still has many mistakes to make despite her liberation by Bettina. Her friend’s departure in ‘The Trap’ (3:5) leaves Ruth alone again. Impulsively hugging Bettina on the stairs the women observe Arthur Martin, the new apprentice who will provide Ruth with an alternative focus for her newly unleashed self. It should be no surprise that Ruth becomes a voyeur over the course of season 119

READING
SIX FEET UNDER

three; after all, she has attained a new symbolic status and ‘
her
desire sets things in motion’ (Kaplan 1993: 204). Stalking Arthur, she actively pursues her desire, kissing him unexpectedly on the lips and then doing it again despite his protestations (‘Tears, Bones and Desire’, 3:8). Regardless of his six previous marriages, Ruth impulsively proposes to George Sibley out of loneliness, and shows us that Ruth may have completed a journey but, in many ways, she is still repeating old patterns (‘Twilight’, 3:12). Marriage may not be made in heaven but it does fulfil Ruth in many ways; and it is one way of ensuring adult company and a fulfilled sexuality. Lisa’s death at the end of season three also returns Ruth to a mothering role, albeit that of surrogate mother to the now motherless Maya. The patriarchal family may be reconfigured but it again promises to test the limits of Ruth’s liminal positioning.

Kaplan suggested as long ago as 1983 that ‘the Mother offers a possible way to break through patriarchal discourses since she has not been totally appropriated by dominant culture’ (1993: 11). It is clear that the death of the patriarch in
Six Feet Under
allows representations of mothering, and especially the middle-aged mother, to become, for better or worse, reconfigured. Emerging from the death of her husband, Ruth’s journey towards a new symbolic role clearly problematises many assumptions about the maternal role along the way. Ruth’s narrative may not be particularly revolutionary (after all, she does marry a man who receives faeces in the post (‘In Case of Rapture’, 4:2) rather than enduring a life of loneliness), but the fact that Ruth has a narrative at all is due to the fact that
Six Feet Under
lifts the lid on repression and exposes numerous liminal spaces for us to see. It seems to me that steeping each narrative in the omnipresent threat of death allows traditionally taboo and dangerous areas safe expression. Ruth’s narrative may not tell us if mother knows best, but it does give us a rare and honest glimpse into her world.

120

ten

‘Like, whatever’: Claire,

JANET

female identity and

McCABE

growing up dysfunctional

Let’s face it: Claire Fisher is a mess. She takes crystal meth, is in the habit of falling for unsuitable and often highly unstable young men, pinches a severed cadaver foot to place in a classmate’s locker for lovelorn reasons, is suspected of being an arsonist and has had an abortion. Critics agree she is acting out – a teenage rebellion put down to the sudden death of the father she had yet to know (Leonard 2001: 93; O’Hehir 2002). But are her ‘mistakes’ the blunders of a grieving daughter dealing with the loss of her father, or a symptom of a confused young woman groping for an identity in a post-feminist, post-patriarchal world?

Being a series that takes the demise of the paterfamilias as its starting point,
Six Feet Under
offers, superficially at least, a unique opportunity for producing a female subject who is beyond patriarchal constraints. But, and as I shall argue, this is no easy task. This chapter traces the complex narrative territory negotiated by Claire Fisher as she seeks to understand who she is – an uneasy journey from perceived invisibility to troubled teenager and struggling artist. An unexpected addition to the Fisher clan, born some 14 years after David, Claire feels that she has missed out. No one noticed her growing up: her elder brother had left home, her other sibling was closed down and closeted, her father too busy with dead bodies in the basement, her mother preoccupied with keeping house, and her family home full 121