Who is popular today?

As Laura Petrie, stay-at-home TV mom, wife to Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore refused to wear dressy skirts, frou-frou heels, or pearls. Laura wore pants, specifically capris because, Women don’t wear full-skirted dresses to vacuum in.
Studio heads wrung their hands. She looked good. She looked so good they were afraid. Afraid housewives would be angry that Laura and/or Mary looked too good in pants. Sponsors were concerned about the fit of her pants, using the term, cupping under which Mary Tyler Moore assumed meant, My, you know, my seat –
That there was a little too much definition. They tried to limit the cupping under as much as possible. Mary Tyler Moore, aka Laura, was not allowed to wear pants in more than one scene. Three episodes it lasted until they grew lazy and forgetful. There were no riots,
there was definitely cupping under. Suits nodded their balding heads. She got absolution from men everywhere. Women breathed a sigh of relief too: that’s what they wore at home. We all vacuum in pants now, and then. And then, and now our pert bottoms sway in unison, pants cupping under and everyone watching.

Veteran television actress Mary Tyler Moore arrives at the 50th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, Sunday, Sept. 13, 1998. Photograph: Mark J Terrill


Today’s poem is from Victoria Kennefick’s debut collection Eat or We Both Starve (Carcanet). Further information on victoriakennefick.com