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Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast
Ever had something you love dismissed because it’s “just” pop culture? What others might deem stupid shit, you know matters. You know it’s worth talking and thinking about. So do we. We're Tracie and Emily, two sisters who think a lot about a lot of things. From Twilight to Ghostbusters, Harry Potter to the Muppets, and wherever pop culture takes us, come overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit.
Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast
The Golden Girls: Deep Thoughts About Pop Culture's Favorite Foursome of Fearless Women Over Fifty
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"It's like we say in St. Olaf—Christmas without fruitcake is like St. Sigmund's Day without the headless boy."
On this week's episode, Tracie and Emily prove that you can go home again to beloved pop culture from the 1980s, as long as you're talking about The Golden Girls. The episodic adventures of Dorothy, Blanche, Rose, and Sophia weren't written with the Guy sisters in mind (they were in elementary school when the show debuted in 1985), but they loved the snappy comedy, the relationships between the four women, and the comforting knowledge that every problem would find a solution within 22 minutes, plus commercials.
Emily also found comfort in Betty White's portrayal of the constantly underestimated Rose Nylund, whose sweet-but-dim persona allowed her to make some of the most biting commentary of any of the characters since no one expected it. As someone who was also consistently treated as "sweet" because of how she looked, White's example taught Emily how to use being underestimated to her advantage.
While much of the more risque comedy sailed right over their oblivious heads as children, Emily and Tracie learned a number of feminist and socially progressive lessons along with the delicious snark and silly St. Olaf stories since show runner Susan Harris intentionally set out to make a subversive show and the four lead actors were all committed to gay rights, anti-racism, and feminism in addition to being gifted comedians.
While not everything in The Golden Girls has aged as well as the four main characters, it is one of the rare 1980s pop culture phenomena that is both of its time and very much ahead of its time.
Thank you for being a listener. Throw on the headphones and listen again!
Mentioned in this episode:
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1074829590
This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
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We are Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our family as the Guy Girls.
We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com
We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, and analyzing pop culture for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, and whatever else we find.
And it also gave a kind of rounded view of aging and a rounded view of the difficulties of marriage, of friendship, of finance, of finding your way in life after a point where the happily ever after is supposed to be done.
Speaker 2:Have you ever had something you love dismissed because it's just pop culture, what others might deem stupid shit? You know matters, you know it's worth talking and thinking about, and so do we. So come overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit.
Speaker 1:I'm Emily Guy-Burken and you're listening to Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, because pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head? On today's episode, I will be sharing my deep thoughts about the 1980s-era sitcom Golden Girls with my sister, tracy Guy-Decker, and with you, let's dive in. So, tracy, I know you've seen the show we watched it together in the 80s and early 90s but tell me what's in your head about the Golden Girls?
Speaker 2:I love that show so much. The first thing that comes to mind is the soundtrack or the theme song Thank you for being a friend. That's a great theme song, yeah, but I really I actually have seen many episodes fairly recently as well, so it's not that's a great theme song, sort of this alternative idea of what it looks like after 50. Like they're not living in nuclear families, none of them are living with men, even though they're all straight and they're living together and sort of having that core friendship group be the kind of anchor for home life as like an alternative that now I'm like damn, that really appeals and I don't know if I understood in the 80s what an alternative that is that most people don't get. So that's the thing that comes up the most for me right now, although Dorothy, blanche, sophia and Rose are very real for me. So I don't want to spend too long on this because I really want to get into your analysis. So tell me, why are we talking about the Golden Girls today?
Speaker 1:So I'm going to remind you of something that I am certain you don't remember. I think I was about 10 and you were about 13. And I said to you which golden girl is your favorite? And you said to me Sophia of course I know you don't remember this and I know why you said that, because she has the most biting responses Because in my head it was. I was like it's Rose. Rose was my favorite.
Speaker 1:I would not have been able to articulate why Rose was my favorite and it took me years to be able to figure it out. And part of it is has to do with the fact that Betty White kind of took on I think she was typecast but took on the Rose persona after that, where she and part of it has to do with she was this adorable older lady. Where she and part of it has to do with she was this adorable older lady. She was remarkably pretty If you look at pictures of her. I mean, she was remarkably pretty as an older woman, but if you look at pictures of her as a young woman, she was a knockout and she had blonde hair as an older woman.
Speaker 1:But you know you also have this expectation of pretty older women of not having a thought in their head, and so people would assume. And then Rose Nyland, you know, was kind of the ditzy like tell these stories that made no sense from St Olaf, and so people assumed she was dumb. And then she would come out with these incisive, like just like scalpel sharp remarks and you couldn't tell if she was saying them without knowing how how much she was cutting you down or if she knew exactly what she was doing. And that was what I liked, even as a 10 year old yeah, it's this.
Speaker 2:you're reminding me of that, like right now in my life, like I'm realizing, like I am always the snarky bitch in the room, so it makes sense that Sophia was my favorite. I mean, sometimes I'm mad at myself for the snarky bitch in the room, so it makes sense that Sophia was my favorite. I mean, sometimes I'm mad at myself, I cannot hold it in.
Speaker 1:I am the snarky bitch in the room and the thing is from the jump people have looked at me and they see like, oh, sweet little Emily, we need to protect sweet little Emily One of my kids' favorite stories, which I shouldn't have told them this. But when my eldest was three and my youngest was a babe in arms, we were with friends who did not have children. The eldest was sleeping in his stroller and the youngest could not understand English. And one of my friends said shit and went like, oh my goodness, oh no, to me, not to my husband, to me, because of saying that in front of the baby and again, this is like because of the Betty White influence I said, oh, you don't have to worry about that. This one's first word's probably gonna be clown fucker, because that is just like subverting the expectation of the sweet-faced. So that is part of why I want to talk about this, not necessarily now, but that is something that I have been thinking about, and then we've been talking about some heavier stuff, so I wanted to get into it. That's why now, but Betty White teaching me that it didn't matter that I'm underestimated, because that's something that has bothered the crap out of me my entire life. Always has always bothered me that people look at me and go, oh sweet little Emily, oh, we can't say anything in front of her, she's going to clutch her pearls has always bothered me and part of what I have taken from Golden Girls is how Rose Nyland, as played by Betty White, just doesn't let it affect her. It's just, you know, believe about me what you want, yeah, yeah. So that's why there's a bunch of other stuff that is, I think, really important about this show and I'm very glad I watched as a tiny child, even though so much of it went over my head. Right, I watched as a tiny child, even though so much of it went over my head.
Speaker 1:This show was so subversive. It was normalized for me as a six-year-old because it came out as of 1985. It was 1985 to 1992 that it was normal for there to be a show about these older women over the age of 50. So these three women in their 50s. And then Sophia was in her 80s because she's Dorothy's mother and that seemed normal to me. But it was incredibly subversive.
Speaker 1:It was very intentionally progressive. Susan Harris, the showrunner, had been working on the show Maud, that Dorothy was, excuse me, that Bea Arthur had been on and she had been the one to write the episode or was behind the episode about Maud's abortion, and so she had worked on All in the Family, which had also been a very progressive show. So she was intentional in being progressive and these four amazing talented actors were on the vanguard for a lot of gay rights. So that was an intentional thing and was something that I was imbibing as a child and I'm very glad that I was doing so, even though there are some things that look very dated now, although there's a lot that I wonder if they'd be allowed to put on TV now, that if it would seem too progressive or too woke. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1:And it also gave a kind of rounded view of aging and a rounded view of the difficulties of marriage, of friendship, of finance, of finding your way in life after a point where the happily ever after is supposed to be done. So there's a lot in there that's just absolutely lovely and using a lot of the sitcom tropes that you expect like you've got the man-hungry or the very sex-hungry character in Blanche, because every sitcom in the 80s has one character who's always on dates. But you use that trope and you subvert it in a lot of ways, even though you lean into it in a lot of ways. You've got the dumb character that you subvert in a lot of ways. And then you also have some really lovely mother-daughter character interactions between Dorothy and Sophia every episode. But then you see the characters' own children and their mothers come as guests every few episodes. So it's amazing.
Speaker 2:So remind me and our listeners it's seven years worth of shows, so you're not going to give me everything, but like, paint a picture of these four women and the basic, like universe, and maybe I imagine there's like an episode or two you're going to want to go into greater depth for, but remind us of what's happening in Golden Girls.
Speaker 1:So it apparently started off as a joke. So someone was asked it was an older woman comedian was asked to talk about Miami Vice and she joked that she misheard it as Miami Nice and she was like, oh, finally, retirees, return furniture. And someone was like, oh, that would make a good show. So it started off as a joke and I think it's NBC, I'm not so certain. But they're like, actually, you know what? Let's green light this? Susan Harris, as I said, is the showrunner, as I understand it, and so the story behind it is we have Blanche Devereaux, played by Rue McClanahan. She is a widow and it is set in Miami. She owns the house. Now, rue McClanahan was from Oklahoma, which surprised the heck out of me when I learned that, because her southern accent sounds so realistic to me, although it's one of those. Where does it sound realistic? Or was I six when I first heard?
Speaker 2:it. Yeah, I think that's hard to discern.
Speaker 1:And so she had played, I believe, on Maud. She had played a character who was like the Rosen Island character. She had played a kind of sweet but not that bright character and they did not want her playing the same type, whereas Betty White on and I'm blanking on it, another prominent show in the 70s had played a man-hungry character like Blanche. So they intentionally switched those actors, those two actors sort of traded, yes, interesting, because they again they didn't want them stuck playing to type. So Blanche owns the house.
Speaker 1:I cannot recall how they first meet each other because they are not friends initially. But Rose Nyland is also a widow. She's from St Olaf, minnesota, and for financial reasons she and Dorothy Zbornak, who is divorced from Stan Zbornak who cheated on her, all need a place to live because they can't afford to live by themselves. So it starts off with they're going to be living together. They don't really know each other that well. Dorothy's mother, sophia, was living in the Shady Pines nursing home because she had a stroke which made her lose her filter, which is the reason for her snarkiness, which made her lose her filter, which is the reason for her snarkiness, and that is something. And Sophia Petrillo is her name, so she's played by Estelle Getty, who was younger.
Speaker 2:She was like a year or two younger than Bea Arthur Bea Arthur, yeah, who played her daughter.
Speaker 1:So and again, probably because I was six when I saw it for the first time, I feel like her age makeup is impressive for a sitcom. Yeah, seriously. So it wasn't the original intent, but Sophia comes to live with them because she hated Shady Pines and she can't live on her own. Also, they can't afford it because of that recent stroke that she had. That's the kind of dark reason behind why she always has the quips that she does. So Sophia is originally from Sicily, so when she tells stories she'll start with a picture at Sicily, 19-whatever.
Speaker 1:And Dorothy is a retired teacher. Rose grew up in St Olaf, minnesota, and so she tells ridiculous stories about St Olaf. And Blanche tells stories about I think she's supposed to be from Atlanta but she's Southern, and so she tells stories about her father, big Daddy. And then Dorothy is the one who is like, has this very dry, sarcastic wit who, like makes fun of her friends when they say something like oh, are you upset about this? And she'll be like, no, she's mad that they keep changing the taste of Coke, or something like that. So the show is also remarkably topical in a lot of ways. So there was an episode that I so they keep changing the taste of Coke. For example, there was an episode I watched a few years ago where someone's trying to make an appointment for them on Thursday evening and everyone's like nope. And he's like, oh yeah, I get it the Cosby show, which means something different now than it did then.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I mean at the time like, yeah, you had to be home on Thursday night to see the Cosby show.
Speaker 1:It was appointment TV. And then there was an episode I just watched this week where the four of them are coming back from a Madonna concert, which I think is kind of cool in that they just accepted that this is like they're of the moment. They're not worried about looking dated because this is when it's happening. So those are the four characters and that's the setup. So with these four they are kind of archetypes in some ways. I mean, they're not archetypes, they're more like sitcom tropes. In regular sitcoms you get the sex-hungry character, so that's Blanche. You get the sweet but dim and that's Rose. You get the super sarcastic and that's Dorothy. Then Sophia's kind of like the without-filter sarcastic, I'm not sure. Like she seems a little bit different, like I'm thinking friends. You get those Like Chandler's, the super sarcastic. You don't have someone who's the like the Sophia type in that. But what's wonderful is the four of them really love each other, even though they really annoy each other a lot yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I want to talk about. Well, first I want to talk about how subversive it was to have a show about four women over 50., and this is a subversion that I don't think I realized Well, I know I didn't realize as a kid. Like it just was, like, this is just a show that I like to watch because it was funny, even though a lot of the humor went way over my head. When I first rewatched the show as an adult I was like I cannot believe my parents let me watch this, because there were a lot of sex jokes that were like dirty.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of sex in the show. Yeah, I recently rewatched most of the first season and there's all I mean. It's not like open door sex, but we are meant to understand that these women are having sex, yeah.
Speaker 1:And very much enjoying their sex lives.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I am very glad that our parents let us watch it because it's not shameful. Watch it because it's not shameful and it's not like they. They tease blanche for how I don't know how to say it like for how, how much she enjoys sex with a variety of men. I'll put it that way because I don't want to say promiscuous, because there's a negative connotation to that, but it's just she likes men, she likes sex. Yeah, sleeps around and all of that is a positive thing for her.
Speaker 1:And I remember it making me kind of vaguely uncomfortable as a kid because I knew that's what it was about, but I didn't really understand a lot of the specifics. I didn't understand, but the idea that, like, she could do that and her friends could make fun of her for it but not anything to be ashamed of, I think was pretty great. And, in fact, during the height of COVID in 2020, one of my favorite memes because there were a lot of memes that went around was someone wrote like a short script of what the four women would say about quarantine and the only line I remember was Sophia would have said well, they consider Blanche's bedroom an essential service. So they need to keep that open. So I need to keep that open. So, like again, like that's, there's an element of slut shaming to that, but it is the teasing and ultimately it is not like the show does not shame blanche for it and like there's two specific plot lines that I want to bring up that make that abundantly clear.
Speaker 1:There's one where Blanche takes a class and the professor won't give her an A and so she tries harder and she tries harder and she turns in I don't remember if it's a test or a paper or something like that and she still doesn't get an A and he basically makes it clear that if she sleeps with him he will give her an A. And this is like the show intentionally gave that storyline to Blanche, because she sleeps with men all the time. But she says I have my pride and my dignity and I worked hard for this. I did my work and I know that I deserve an A for the work that I did and I make my choices and you can kiss my A and she leaves. So the show is making it clear she is not someone who is indiscriminate in what choices she makes in the bedroom, right, and she's not using sex to get things she just likes sex and so like.
Speaker 1:this is not something she will be shamed for or discriminated against for. This is just who she is and fuck that guy.
Speaker 2:Or actually don't.
Speaker 1:As the case may be. The hell with that guy, right. So that's one like it's an amazing, like you go get them Blanche moment, you go get them Blanche moment. The other really amazing storyline is there is an episode where Rose has an AIDS scare and again the show was intentional in giving the AIDS scare to Rose and it's because she had a blood transfusion when she had a gallbladder surgery and so she's freaking out.
Speaker 1:And she has a conversation with Blanche where Blanche says you know, take it easy. And she's like no, I'm done. Like everyone keeps saying to me, take it easy, I don't want to take it easy. And she's like I'm a good person, this shouldn't happen to me. And Blanche says this is not a bad person disease, this is not punishment from God. And Rose says yes, but like I haven't slept around like you. And Blanche says to her like that is not how this goes and like they have a bit of it, like it's tension. And Rose says like it's just, I'm a goody two-shoes, I did the right things and then I got, I had surgery. And it's this very poignant, vulnerable, raw, angry and funny conversation where Blanche makes it clear you don't have the right to judge me. This is a disease that has nothing to do with morality. It's just health and illness.
Speaker 1:It happens, and this is what it is, and like it doesn't reflect in any way on your moral character, which having that episode come out in the 80s- yeah huge, and part of the reason why blanche and rose talk about it is because blanche got tested at one point and it came back negative and so she hadn't told anyone. And she told Rose when Rose is having this. And so Rose asks her like how did you handle it while you're waiting for the results of your test? And Blanche says to her well, I didn't tell anyone and I was just an enormous bitch to everyone. And Rose says, oh well, no wonder nobody knew, which is again why Betty White?
Speaker 1:So like. That's what I mean about how like the show doesn't shame Blanche. The show, like gives Blanche the dignity of being like. I like sex. So what? Even though Sophia will actually use the word slut sometimes, which I think if it were made today, 40 years later, there would still be teasing, but that word would not be part of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is interesting to in my mind to note that Blanche is a widow and the implication is that she was, in fact, faithful to her husband during his lifetime. So I think that is an important like sort of backstory in terms of respectability even though she's very much sleeps around now, very much sleeps around now but I think that that piece of it is like a respectability band-aid kind of thing for this character by putting that backstory.
Speaker 1:Well, and that's one of the things, so an interesting. So before we started recording, I was talking about how it even it does talk about like it has some representation of disability as well. So at one point Blanche is asked on a date by a man in a wheelchair and she struggles with it. She struggles with it because she's like I don't know how this would work, how would we go dancing, you know things like that and she comes to the conclusion he's a man like any other man, and I like men. And so she accepts the date and then finds out he's married and she's horrified because she doesn't cheat and doesn't help others cheat, and she says something along the lines of who knew you could be a jerk in a wheelchair? Or something like that. So, which I find it's interesting disability representation.
Speaker 1:There's a similar episode and this one I remember from childhood where a little person asks Rose out do you remember this one? Yes, and she goes through a similar sort of thing and they end up going out, they have a good time, and then he tells her he can't date her and she's like, no, it's fine. And she's like we can make this work and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and he's like, no, it's fine. And she's like we can make this work and blah, blah, blah, blah blah. And he's like, no, it's because you're not Jewish. And I remember that stuck with me because we're Jewish and I just remember thinking like that poor guy, his dating pool has got to be pretty small.
Speaker 1:And excuse the pun, it's not an intended pun the best kind some of this, I feel like, is what you get in tv prior to the streaming age, because every individual show is self-contained. Now there were some longer story arcs. So at the end of the series, dorothy falls in love with a new man played by Leslie Nielsen, whose character name I can't remember, and so she marries him and moves I can't remember where. So there is like a story to have a ongoing story arc like today.
Speaker 2:Right right, things are less, slightly less episodic. Yes, like episodes are slightly less episodic now and more like chapters in a longer story, in an overarching story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so you get fewer like sitcom tropes and like there's good and bad to that. I think that you get stories that are more like characters, that are more fully fleshed, because, as much as I love the golden girls there, there is a sense of like you know you're watching four actors on a soundstage.
Speaker 2:There's definitely something a little formulaic about the dialogue but at the same time, like there's comfort.
Speaker 1:It's a comfort food type of show, like I can put it on in the background and just kind of look up to make sure I don't miss the physical comedy. Yeah, it's a type of story that I think is really beneficial at a certain point in your life in learning storytelling. I also had the thoughts when my kids were younger, when we started our weekly family movie night because my kids can watch whatever they want on Netflix and they watch exclusively stuff made for kids a lot of like content that is not like inappropriate for kids, but like references, sexuality. They had no idea what was going on. So, for instance, we watched Adam's Family's Values and my kids were like I think 11 and 8, or maybe 10 and 7. And it's not like a sex scene, but you know, clearly Fester and Debbie have sex and like the kids are like what just happened? And I was thinking about why they don't know.
Speaker 1:When I would have, even as a seven-year-old, I would have known, and it's because I was consuming sitcoms that were written for adults as a six-year-old, whereas they can consume stuff that is specifically geared to them.
Speaker 1:Now, whether that's a good thing or a bad thing I don't know Like. On the one hand, I think that it means that the stuff I didn't understand went over my head and it was fine, but I knew there was something there that I was going to understand later, whereas my kids were like I truly don't understand what's happening. And then it feels like there's a more of a gatekeeping between, like adult I don't want to say adult entertainment, but entertainment not meant for kids and that feels like a shame, because there's a lot of really great stuff that is not bad for kids. In fact, this, I think, was very good for me and good for you to watch, even though it wasn't meant for us. I think it benefited us as small children to watch this and I think that's one of the downsides of having whatever we want to watch at the click of a button these days. It's an interesting take.
Speaker 2:So, before we hit record, you mentioned and you have said about how this was intentionally progressive, but you, like, listed a bunch of things. So you said intentionally progressive around AIDS, around gay marriage, around disability and around racism. Now I heard you talk about AIDS and disability, but can you tell me about this show vis-a-vis gay marriage and racism?
Speaker 1:So I'll talk about the racism one and I haven't gotten to the episode.
Speaker 1:So some of this is based on some reading I've done and my hazy memories, because obviously I haven't watched all seven seasons.
Speaker 1:So for the racism and I know it's repeated elsewhere as well, but the specific episode that's mentioned I believe it was in Pop Culture Happy Hour on NPR is Dorothy's son, who is white, wants to marry a black woman and Dorothy is very uncomfortable with it.
Speaker 1:And what I think is fascinating and what the NPR team talked about in this is that she of course, comes to accept this and is okay with it. But the show makes it clear that her discomfort is a sign of racism. But it doesn't mean that Dorothy is a bad person and that racism doesn't equal bad, that good people can hold racist ideas and discomfort. Good people can hold racist ideas and discomfort because the idea that racism equals bad and if you're a good person you're not racist is this kind of binary that we need to get rid of, because all of us are capable of carrying prejudices carrying and that we need to examine those racist beliefs and work to root them out and sit with that discomfort and work on anti-racism and the fact that a show is doing this in the 1980s all taught to think about racism that racism is bad.
Speaker 2:I'm a good person, therefore I can't be racist, which the effect of that is that we just don't examine and won't own it. This is white people obviously won't own their racism because they don't want to admit or even face the possibility that they are bad people. So to have a mainstream show, sort of say, like even good people have absorbed racist messages in the 1980s, yeah, that's a big deal now I mean to be fair.
Speaker 1:There was an episode I saw I was, I think, after betty white passed away. I watched like I went back and watched several episodes. There's an episode where dorothy, blanche and rose end up being put in jail by accident and the show used visual shortcuts to show that the women they were in prison with were scary, one of them being it was a black woman, and watching that I was just like, ooh, that didn't age well and scary to Dorothy, who is the most self-assured and like doesn't take shit from anyone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no nonsense yeah.
Speaker 1:So and that's like I remember seeing that and going like I would never. I mean, of course I didn't notice that as a child. Of course that's something that was an easy shortcut in a 22-minute sitcom in 1987 or whenever and it got me thinking like, well, what would you do now to show that someone's scary like and like? I didn't have an answer for that because you know we're using tropes and things like that. Anything that I could think of is still like reducing a person to something that is not reasonable or fair, clearly.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I mean like face tattoos and bloody knuckles from the fight she was just in, maybe Anyway.
Speaker 1:So now, as for gay marriage, I believe it's a friend of Dorothy's who is a lesbian whose longtime partner has just passed away, and so it's showing that she's grieving as a new widow, and so there's some funny commentary on that as well, where Blanche is getting confused. It's like oh, wasn't Danny Thomas. They're like no, that's Lebanbanese. And then the friend is like interested in rose? And then blanche is kind of offended that she's interested in rose and not her. So so there's the. The show is making it clear that lesbians are people. Lesbians are people too. Gay men are people too.
Speaker 1:How progressive but it was honestly, I know I mean it doesn't sound like much, but considering the fact that he's gay, she likes girls was considered a reasonable punchline in 1980s sitcoms. It is. It was progressive and the fact that the characters had to confront their own prejudices about this. It wasn't just like, oh okay, lynch is coming. It wasn't just like, oh okay, lent is coming. It wasn't just a situation where everyone was okay.
Speaker 2:It gave the audience a way in it gave a model for like having hard conversations, which I never thought about Golden Girls as doing that. But you're reminding me, and I'm thinking about the ones that I've watched recently, like ones where, like Blanche, actually sort of feeling a little guilty, like she's being unfaithful to her dead husband's memory by the way that she lives, or like I watched one where Dorothy's like kid is getting married and so she has to be in the same space with Stan, her ex, and how uncomfortable she is and how uncomfortable that is for her. Who's this no-nonsense, always-on-top-of-stuff character? Want to oversell it?
Speaker 1:but I'm just right now in real time processing like these characters gave us models for like looking at hard stuff in ourselves and like working through it with friends, which, like we could all use a little bit more of I think, yeah, yeah, there's a a fantastic early episode where Rose has been dating a man who she really likes and he wants to take her on like a cruise overnight and she's concerned about it because she has never been with anyone but her husband. Right, I saw that one recently. The conversation she has with her friends where they're really encouraging her, like no, like this is not in any way like a betrayal of Charlie, which was her husband's name, and please do whatever you're comfortable with, but like it's OK. And then also seeing the lovely response of her beau, who is so gentle with her.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, because he cares about her not just sex, although he's also very funny when he's like, yeah, it was very hard for me too, and she's like so she says something like so, you didn't do it. He's like, oh no, I did, I just felt bad about it. So like there's a. It gets into these really interesting conversations and very different ways of looking at the world, because Blanche clearly didn't have a problem and part of it is like Blanche is clear that she wasn't a virgin when she married her husband, whereas Rose was. And like they don't shame Rose for having lived the way that she did, right, and they don't shame her for being cautious and uncomfortable and worried, they just encourage her. Something that and I know I've seen the final episode, but I was reading the transcript that, as Dorothy is leaving after she's married Leslie Nielsen, which is not his character's name and they're all crying, and she says something that really struck me, which is I never thought that I would have this.
Speaker 1:Friends like you and times like this, and when life feels cold, I will think back on our time together, on our time together, and I have this tendency to feel like I've reached the end of certain part of my life and like, for instance, I went to a friend's wedding gosh in like 2004 or 5, and I was just like I feel like I've come to the end of friend's weddings, which is ridiculous. I feel like I've come to the end of friends' weddings, which is ridiculous. But it was just like I don't know who else is what other friends I know who are getting married and like. But some of it has to do with the fact like, and I consistently feel like I've learned all I'm going to learn, and I know that comes from the fact that, like between the ages of I don't know, like five and 12, you're learning new things all the time and then it slows down so it feels like, okay, I've come to the end of it. And so when I learn something new and realize that's become part of the furniture of my mind as an adult, it like takes me by, like serious surprise. I'm like, oh, wow. So that really struck me, that Dorothy is saying like I didn't know that there was this new chapter ahead of me and now it's behind me.
Speaker 1:But it is so important and that's something that I think that's why this show is so beloved and why it has persisted for so long, why people love it so much, why, like we were just at Fan Expo in Chicago and like we see Golden Girls merchandise there. Not a huge amount, but still 40 years after it initially aired, four years after the final actress passed away, there's still Golden Girls merch available and new stuff. And it's because we all have that sense of like okay, I've made my nuclear family, I have done all of this, I've retired from my job. What else is there? And yet there is still more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the Golden Girls proved that retirement is not just waiting to die, and there's so much learning and growing, which is amazing and fun and love yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think we need to start wrapping up. We're like our time is a little off. So I want to make sure that you are there, any additional points that we haven't made yet.
Speaker 1:The fact that there is like open and frank discussions of aging. Another important moment Sophia makes friends with a man who has Alzheimer's. She doesn't know that. She finds out later from Dorothy and the way that her response is like you know, people think that if you get to my age you should just be happy you're alive. But it's. That's not the case. Like you know, you have to have something to get up for in the morning. Even if you do, life can still spit in your face and so, like that unflinching look at how hard it can be. I just kind of want to show that. I just want to mention that, because that's so impressive that they do that, because so often with sitcoms you only want to focus on the good stuff, unless it's a very special episode.
Speaker 2:Right, Right. I do think it's worth noting too, though, like watching this show, I'm 49. And like I think Blanche is supposed to be like 54, or maybe Rue McClanahan was 54 when it came out, and I'm like that is not old people. Like when I was a kid, those ladies were ancient, and now I'm like they're not that old.
Speaker 1:Well, there's a point where Blanche takes a pregnancy test and they do talk about menopause and perimenopause. So I am curious about, like I mean, our parents were in their 30s when it was when, if they thought it seemed old, yeah, and what women in their 40s and 50s thought about it. Apparently, like there's a 52 year old woman who was in an audience of where I think it was Rue McClanahan and Betty White were on a talk show, who was just like thank you for helping me recognize how gorgeous I am as a 52-year-old woman. You know stuff like that. So like maybe they're not that old because we had the Golden Girls.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a really good point. That's a really good point. Yeah, maybe they helped us, yeah.
Speaker 1:So just one other thing I want to mention that I haven't had a chance to is the mothers and daughters. We have a lot of really great mothers and daughters, specifically Dorothy and Sophia you did mention that actually Just that their relationship is lovely. They drive each other nuts but they really love each other. And then we also see how these women are navigating their relationships as mothers to adult children and as adult daughters to elderly mothers, and we don't get to see that often we really don't.
Speaker 2:There's very little pop culture or any kind of cultural like mother and daughter, like a good mother is a dead mother, as the way we were taught.
Speaker 1:You know, like all of the fairy tales, if the mother's still alive, she's all, so yeah yeah so, but it's just, it's from the 80s is worth revisiting this, so is it really really?
Speaker 2:is. I found it to be as well. All right, let me see if I can reflect back what we talked about. So I'm actually going to start with the personal that you have really strong affinity for and affection for, betty White's Rose Nyland, in part because she sort of taught you that being underestimated isn't actually a reflection on you, it's all about the other person, not you and also that you can sometimes use it to your not you, and also that you can sometimes use it to your advantage when you come out with that biting insight that the other person is not expecting because they are underestimating you.
Speaker 2:We also talked about the ways in which this show was deeply subversive and in some ways intentionally so, like if the subversion is about sort of being intentionally progressive. It was subversive to have a show about four aging women, and that was a subversive thing to do in the 80s. I think it would be a subversive thing to do today. Aids and the very clear message that this is a disease and there is no morality attached to it. It is just a disease like any other, and sort of pushing back on the idea that good people don't get AIDS. It also talked about gay marriage and reminded us that lesbians are people too, because apparently we need to be reminded of that. They're not not, in fact, robots. Also, you, you noted that there was some intentional work around racism, reminding us that the good bad binary does not help us, not in those terms, obviously, but also some examples where the show runners were guilty of that of racism, so that's worth noting.
Speaker 2:Let me think we also spent a good amount of time talking about blanche and her sexuality and the ways in which, though there was some sort of dated language and slut shaming, especially from snarky sophia the show in general does not judge blanche for the fact that she enjoys sex, and enjoys it with multiple men, and, in fact, with the episode that you named, where a professor sort of tries to get her to have sex with him in exchange for something, the show shows us that she has sex because she likes sex, not sort of transactionally, and that's important to her, and so that's worth noting. I also noted, though, that it did give us sort of a respectability backdrop for her to make it okay I'm putting quotes around that that she is so sexually active with multiple men now, by making us see that she was in fact, faithful to her husband when he was alive, I do think it might be asking a bit much to have an 80s show From the 80s, I agree, I agree.
Speaker 2:I'm not mad at them for it, but I do think it's worth noting that the way that we were able to stomach this fairly progressive idea in part was through giving the character a respectable background. You named, fairly close to the end of our conversation, the fact that this show gave us sort of a clear-eyed view of aging that was vulnerable and open and honest and also humorous, but not just humorous in all sunshine and roses. We talked about the fact that this gave us as children like models for an alternative way to grow older, that the idea that retirement is not just waiting to die, the idea that female friendships among women can be a core home for us, which is very subversive, and also sort of gave us some models for like doing hard work internally and also sort of with our friends and like having those hard conversations. What did I forget?
Speaker 1:Oh, I think just there was a representation of, like disability representation, which we wouldn't have expected and watched now means that I feel like my kids are losing out on the ability to kind of enjoy stuff that's not necessarily made for them but they could have something that would help them, that would be beneficial to them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that insight of yours made me sort of think that, like, our kids are not being trained as to how to consume media that was not made explicitly for them, yeah, yeah exactly that's where I landed, on that insight of yours, which I think is an interesting one that we should come back to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cool, well, this is great. I loved this show so, so much, and even like I recently started rewatching it, actually like after the inauguration, when I needed to totally escape. I escaped into the Golden Girls and it was exactly what I needed. So thanks for bringing it around. So next time I'm going to bring you my deep thoughts about Rain man, so we'll see how that holds up. Well, I'll see you then. See you then. This show is a labor of love, but that doesn't make it free to produce. See you then and, of course, share the show with your people. Thanks for listening. Our theme music is Professor Umlaut by Kevin MacLeod from incompetechcom. Find full music credits in the show notes. Thank you to Resonate Recordings for editing today's episode. Until next time, remember pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head?