“Margo’s Got Money Troubles,” on Apple TV, explores harsh realities facing many modern mothers. Created by David E. Kelley, the show mixes the sacred with the profane, love with fear. Characters rise above their circumstances while also being crushed beneath them. It is in this dichotomy that we view glimpses of grace in a fallen world.
When Margo Millet (Elle Fanning) unexpectedly becomes pregnant after sleeping with her married college professor (Michael Angarano), she chooses to continue the pregnancy, despite her difficult circumstances, but that doesn’t stop the reality of those circumstances from barreling toward her. When Margo demands money from the professor, he agrees to set up a trust fund, but only if she signs a non-disclosure agreement saying that she will not name the father of the child. Desperate for cash, she turns to the website OnlyFans, on which adult-content creators perform for paying subscribers.
Everyone in Margo’s life advises her to terminate the pregnancy. When she tells the father, the first words out of his mouth are: “Well, I want to be there to support you in any way possible. I would start by calling Planned Parenthood.” When she accuses him of making her decision for her, he babbles about respecting her body until he fearfully lowers his voice, and asks “Are you Catholic?” Margo rolls her eyes and replies, “No! But terminating a life, that’s something to think about.”
“As is aborting your future, Margo,” says Mark, the father of her child.
Margo cries after hearing her child’s heartbeat on the ultrasound. The scene is heartbreaking. When she gets home, she asks her mother (Michelle Pfeiffer), “Do you want to see the picture?” Her mother dramatically rolls her eyes in disgust and declares, “No.” Later she doubles down: “I don’t celebrate this tragedy for one second. Your life as you know it—no, check that—as you never got to know it, is over.” The message is clear: This baby is a mistake and continuing the pregnancy is going to ruin Margo’s life.
In many ways, these warnings come true. When Margo interviews with a recruiter, she expresses her desire and openness to do anything in order to provide for her child: “Whatever job there is. Even manual labor. I’m open to digging ditches, even.” The interviewer leans in, looks at her with a mixture of pity and contempt, and replies, “Looks like you’ve already dug one.” To corporate America, the baby is just a distraction.
It’s not Margo’s first choice, but in her desperate sleep-deprived delirium, OnlyFans is the only lifeline she can see. When collaborating with other veteran content creators in the industry, they warn her, “People are going to tell you to kill yourself…. Your life’s about to change, and not for the better.” When he discovers what she is doing, her formerly deadbeat and recovering heroin-addict father (Nick Offerman) grows serious: “This is not something an honorable person does.” Incredulous, she spits back, “I have a son who needs to be provided for. How dare you judge me.”
To Margo, judgment is the greatest sin. She deeply feels the weight of everyone’s judgment but refuses to let it influence her behavior. She remains impulsive and idealistic throughout her ordeals. She throws her phone across the room when her friend admonishes her for sleeping with her professor. But she realizes that as clumsy and as cruel as her friends may be, they may have a point. She just doesn’t operate with the kind of humility it would take to let that feedback translate into real change in her life.
The show humanizes sex work. She’s not a nameless face or body, she’s Margo. Margo, who is a talented writer. Margo, who got knocked up by her professor. Margo, who loves her son Bodhi. Margo, who has mommy and daddy issues.
What does it say about the United States that a story about a woman resorting to sex work to pay for diapers seems credible? The United States offers 12 weeks of unpaid leave, and then state-funded public education generally begins at age 5 for kindergarten. Most women in the United States cannot afford to not work for five years, so what are they supposed to do? One in four women in the United States return to work within two weeks of giving birth because they cannot afford to take more time to heal and bond with their child.
This is where the consistent ethic of life meets the reality of the modern material world. If we want women to choose life, we need to look clearly at what we are actually asking of them. Nearly half of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned. One in five mothers are affected by mental health conditions, and mental health conditions are the leading cause of maternal deaths. This is a public health crisis. Margo is a good waitress, a good college student and a good mother, but we’ve made these things incompatible.
There is a lot of nudity, violence and vulgarity in “Margot’s Got Money Troubles.” And the show does glamorize the sex work. Margo’s eyes light up as her OnlyFans page floods with dollar signs and heart emojis. Working through OnlyFans offers her flexibility, freedom and finances. Margo sees her OnlyFans as a medium of storytelling and a way to gain “fans” for her writing. “I don’t do porn, I make art,” she says. In the final episode, her mother begs her not to auction off photos of her vulva. “This pays for health care, child care, rent,” Margot argues—while admitting that she doesn’t want to stop anymore. She likes the life that OnlyFans affords her.
“Margo’s Got Money Trouble” has a complicated relationship with morality and religion. Margo’s dopey stepfather Kenny (Greg Kinnear) stands in as the show’s Jesus’ advocate. He’s quick to pop in with an out-of-touch platitude, but the show does give him a few moments of genuine wisdom and heart. He gives a beautiful speech to Margo before he marries her mother about how much he loves her mother and how their relationship was well worth the wait. The show has an undercurrent of yearning for Christianity’s earnest wholesome hope, but with a dash of snark at what it sees as its naïvete.
The Millets don’t trust religion. “Is it a cult?” sneers Margo when her mother joins the church choir. Margo’s dad teases her: “How is church? Are you enjoying church?” Her mother flips him off in response. Margo’s caught in the middle. When Kenny tries to draw parallels to Mary Magdalene, she quickly corrects him, “Maybe don’t compare me to a sex worker from the Bible.” (This is a common misconception: There is no Biblical evidence that Mary Magdalene was as prostitute.)
“Margo’s Got Money Troubles” is as messy as motherhood. It holds space for complexity, impulsivity, suffering and humor. Through storytelling, we can engage with troubling ideas from a safe distance and process the parts of our stories that are messy. We can think through consequences without feeling the full weight of them. Roger Ebert described cinema as “the empathy machine.” At their best, stories should give us a window of understanding into lives we will never know. “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” achieves this lofty goal.
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