How 2023 was like 1977

Barbie, Taylor, Beyoncé … meet Mary, Carol, Leia — and Oscar

In “The Rewatchables” podcast series, the hosts talk about favorite films from years past, including a category called “apex mountain” — when a star, locale or trend hit its historic apex. My Captain Obvious gut feeling is that 2023 was the apex for women in pop culture, but there’s this nagging doubt because of something from a long time ago (perhaps in a galaxy far, far away).

Let’s start with last year. While “Barbie” dominated the worldwide box office, Taylor Swift and Beyoncé rocked stadiums around the country, with Swift’s Eras Tour bringing in over $1 billion. Even the video of Swift’s concerts made more than a quarter of a billion.

Some historical context: Of the top box-office films for each year of this century, “Barbie” is only the second with top billing for a female star. The other? 2016’s “Finding Dory,” with Ellen DeGeneres. I Am Woman, hear me glub.

A little more: Last year’s Best Picture Oscar went to “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” with women in the top two (arguably three) roles. It marked the third year in a row that the Best Picture (“CODA,” “Nomadland”) had a woman with top billing.

You know the last time that happened? Never.

This year’s Oscar is likely to break the streak, with Best Picture going to a great biopic about a white guy and the Manhattan Project.

J. Robert Oppenheimer died in 1967, the same year Carol Burnett became the first woman to have her own major variety show. Spoiler alert: She didn’t bomb.

A decade later came the year that was at least the K2 to 2023’s female Mount Everest. Why was 1977 so significant? Burnett’s show was starting the final season of its historic run, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” wrapped up a historic run of its own and the five films that ended up getting nominated for the Best Picture Oscar had a uniquely feminine twist.

Three of the five had female title characters (“Annie Hall,” “The Goodbye Girl” and “Julia”) and a fourth (“The Turning Point”) had women as the two leads. A woman was only the third star in the fifth film, but she lit up the galaxy.

That would be the pre-Roman-numeral “Star Wars,” with Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia — “a damsel who could very much deal with her own distress,” as the New York Times put it. Not only did she lead while the two male protagonists were still figuring out who had the bigger asteroids, she was light years ahead of most female characters from that era in terms of street smarts and edginess.

If you admire characters like Ripley in the “Alien” saga or Sarah Connor in the “Terminator” films (or more recent film versions of old-time heroes like Wonder Woman and Black Widow), appreciate how much of Leia is in their DNA.

You don’t get to an apex without a lot of steppingstones, and Moore’s show provided several. It spawned three spinoffs: “Rhoda,” “Phyllis” and — in an homage to the Y chromosome — “Lou Grant.” It also revived the career of Betty White, who thrived for four more decades.

But if you’re into symbolism, and our apex mountain certainly is, MTM’s theme song is the star. The second of these two videos has the more common version, which starts with “Who can turn the world on with her smile?”

But the first video shows the original theme, which starts with “How will you make it on your own?” Her character has broken up with her quasi-fiancé, so this frail single woman had to claw her way to survival on the hardscrabble streets of Minneapolis.

In the words of Walter Cronkite, “That’s the way it is.” Moore managed to change it.

Her character became more assertive over the next several years. Welcome to the real world, where women and many male allies fought for everything from the Equal Rights Amendment to the passage of Title IX to abortion rights (remember those?).

But maybe that era’s biggest development that applies to our Barbie world of today is a three-word phrase that a bunch of men made famous.

“Follow the money.”

Because this time our apexed world has lots more women with lots more clout, from billionaires like Swift and Oprah Winfrey and MacKenzie Scott to young singer-songwriters like Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eilish to people in nondescript government jobs like Kamala Harris.

Consider this from the Washington Post: “By the end of this decade, a 2020 study by the business consulting firm McKinsey found, women are poised to control much of the $30 trillion in wealth expected to be possessed by baby boomers. To underline just how staggering a figure that is, the researchers note that it is close to the annual U.S. gross domestic product.”

So there might be another apex yet to come. But even if there is, take a moment to savor this one. It might not be perfect, but it offers the view of a lifetime.

Murphy Slaw

Something old: Here’s an old joke for those of us who relied on — and cursed at — old computers.

Something new: If you want to learn more about Carrie Fisher, as an actress, writer and mental-health advocate, try this podcast.

Something borrowed: If you’re as ignorant as he was (or I was), this is a great iPhone tip. When you hold down the space bar, the keys go blank and you can move the cursor by sliding your finger.

Something blue: Here’s The Onion with our daily reminder not to take yourself too seriously.