Including a baby as a character on a series must be difficult. The writers must have to make sure the baby exhibits a personality, yet stays “controlled” in certain scenes. Depending on the show’s mood, the little antics of a babbling, cooing, drooling child could be fitting, or just misplaced.
I have always been turned off by the addition of a baby to a cast. Not because I hate babies (because that would be weird.) But because I hate watching babies on TV. They talk too much. The ones that are too young to say actual words screech and babble and cry. And the ones that can say words say far too many, or they say things that are way too smart or cutesy or precocious for my taste (Think Michelle from Full House or those godawful twins from 7th Heaven.)
But what about when a baby doesn’t say anything? What do we make of that?
That’s what Six Feet Under‘s Maya (played by twins Brenna and Bronwyn Tosh) was like. If not exactly mute, she was … quiet. Eerily quiet. In fact, I’m not sure she said anything at all until Season 5, when she seemed to only say things like “Daddy!” (Or, sadly, “Where’s my daddy?”)
While I didn’t really understand it, it did suit the show. Much of Maya’s life contained one tragic event after the other — the disappearance and then subsequent death of her mother, the impact of her father Nate’s medical condition (AVM) on the family, and then his death in Season 5. In addition, the relationships that her father had with both her mother Lisa, as well as her stepmother Brenda, were strained, emotionally draining, and fraught with dysfunction.
As a pair, Nate and Maya were strong. But Nate’s mental state was crippling to him, and watching him hold a silent and somber-looking Maya in his arms as he struggled with his issues was very tough to watch.
Maya’s silence helped intensify the gravity of the Fishers’ situation. It would have seemed incongruous to make her giggle and chatter all the time when the family was going through such turmoil. But at times it seemed unrealistic. Do you know any babies who never vocalize at all? (Maybe I’m just used to my own baby, who never ever stops talking for one second.) Maya became almost an accessory to Nate’s character, always nearby, very obviously there, and serving an emotional and practical purpose, but never really contributing.
The only other silent baby I know of on television (with the exception of Maggie Simpson) is Lily from Modern Family. I came across numerous online musings — from parenting community forums to Twitter) wondering what’s up with Lily and why she doesn’t talk. CliqueClack‘s own Kona wrote a review in which she wondered if Lily should be declared a mute. It’s just disturbing!
But at least in a comedy there could be the argument that Lily is the “anti-comedic-baby.” Everyone expects babies in comedies to be over-the-top and oozing cute-isms (Yes, I think I just made up the word “cute-isms.”) Lily’s deadpan expression at least has some irony working for it. (By the way, the twins who played Lily for two seasons, Ella and Jaden Hiller, will be replaced by toddler Aubrey Anderson-Emmons when Modern Family returns on September 21.)
Maya and Lily are the silent observers who study things intently, and seem uncannily focused. They don’t seem to let a thing get by them, even if they don’t react or say anything. It makes me wonder how traumatizing Maya’s early life must have been for her, even if she didn’t remember it. She just sat there, perched on her dad’s hip, and watched everything around her dissolve. Seems haunting, no?
But then again, haunting’s what Six Feet Under did best.
Clacked by Rachel Blum-Jose 
on Aug 19, 2011 @ 12:15 EST5EDT
