Rob, you know what I wish you'd do? Something!

So, I'm going to do it again. I'm going to change things up from my original plan.

You, dear readers, who probably barely remember the plan I set up when I first started this Month of Blogging are probably wondering why I keep doing this or mentioning it. But, I'm a person who really likes rules and boundaries and I have a really hard time breaking rules - even my own. So any time I change things up from what I said I was going to do, I feel guilty.

But, I'm going to do it anyway.

According to my original plan, today's post would be about style. But I'm going to do that tomorrow instead. Why? Because I have a whole idea of how I want to do my hair and possibly a little makeup. Also, I made part of what I'm wearing tomorrow so I want the ensemble to be complete and this evening was spent in polishing that hand-made piece. This is, in fact, what I truly had in mind when I thought of the whole Style Sunday thing: I'd pick out an outfit from a movie or show or photo shoot and recreate it. So, I really want it to be perfect.

Anyway, this week launches the next theme in this month's blog-a-thon: The Dick van Dyke Show. Okay, okay. It's not a movie. But it's from the 1960's and, well, it's a fantastic show. So I'm going to devote some time to it. It's my favorite TV show so I'll probably be devoting a lot of time to it in the future.

It's such a great show. Mary Tyler Moore is both a fashion icon and a feminist icon. The writing on the show was surprisingly progressive for its time. Plus, you've got to love Dick van Dyke.

I have all sorts of topics I'd love to discuss about the show. But for this blog post, I'll stick to talking about the pants. Oh, the infamous pants. When the show was originally aired, most TV housewives wore dresses and pearls for everything. When Mary Tyler Moore was cast in the role of Laura Petrie, she changed that by wearing her own cigarette pants. Not only wearing them, she insisted on wearing them. She fought for the right to wear pants on screen. At the time, the producers were afraid it would be inappropriate for her to be wearing pants. She argued that no one thought of her as indecent when she wore them out to the grocery store in real life. In the end, they compromised and she was allowed to wear pants in one scene per episode. As an avid pant-wearer myself, I feel like I have a lot to be grateful for Mary Tyler Moore.

There's an episode in the show called "Give Me Your Walls" where Rob Petrie (Dick van Dyke) says to Laura, "just remember, honey, that I wear the pants in the family." Then, they both look down at her pants and he adds, "I mean that I wear the decision-making pants in the family."

This would be a frustrating line in any show other than the Dick van Dyke Show. It's totally a father-knows-best, the man is the head of the household kind of gender role rubbish that pervaded television (and still tends to rear its ugly head now). But, in the Dick Van Dyke Show, I can laugh because I know that this sort of line always comes around to be proven wrong. Every time Rob Petrie tries to exert some sort of masculine superiority, he always winds up eating humble pie, or at the very least, come to terms with the fact that he's often wrong. I'll probably wax eloquent on their relationship another time but Rob and Laura, throughout the show, are partners and share everything. So any time Rob challenges that, the episode explores how wrong he is. For 1960's television, it's pretty incredible.

Anyway, here's to Laura Petrie and Mary Tyler Moore and breaking barriers through fashion choices.