The Last Jewish Mother on Television

‘The Big Bang Theory’ marks the end of an era. But Asian-American mothers may pick up where Jewish mothers left off.

By Marjorie Ingall for Tablet Magazine

We have seen the last old-school, Jewishly observant, housecoat-wearing, perpetually bellowing, all-devouring, ultra-controlling, super-insular, Yiddishly inflected, son-emasculating Jewish Mother on network television.

Howard Wolowitz’s unnamed mother on the Emmy-winning sitcom The Big Bang Theory never appeared on camera; she just screamed at her son from other rooms in their house or over the phone. Carol Ann Susi, the actress who played Mrs. Wolowitz, died in November, and her last episode aired the same month. While there has been no official announcement about whether the role will be recast (a CBS publicist answered all my other questions but repeatedly ignored that one, despite my noodging tone that would have made Mrs. Wolowitz proud), the show’s executive producer Bill Prady told TV Guide, “There are no plans for any other actress to play the role.”

Mrs. Wolowitz was a throwback to vintage Jewish Mother jokes and monstrous stereotypes, to Philip Roth’s Mrs. Portnoy, to Herman Wouk’s Rose Morgenstern, and to Philip Wylie’s entire Generation of Vipers. She was smothering yet selfish, a gaping maw of need and hunger. And her still-living-at-home adult son yelled back at her and claimed to want to be free of her—an engineer, he actually became an astronaut to escape—but was also dependent on her.

To understand their folie a deux, check out a sample of their dialogue. (As you read it in your head, be sure to scream it.)

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