Dear Golden Girls – Thank You For Being a Friend

Before there was Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda – there was Blanche, Dorothy, Rose and Sophia. These four ladies – the OG Sex and the City, if you will – may have had more miles on their engines and lines on their faces than Carrie and her crew but there was nothing these silver-coiffed beauties couldn’t get past in 25 minutes.

When The Golden Girls first premiered in 1986, I was the tender age of 12. What did I know about life beyond tweendom – let alone being a middle-aged widow and/or divorcee trying to make ends meet and live a meaningful life? Absolutely nothing. But that didn’t stop me from watching this show – or enjoying it for what it had to offer to me then. Which was little more than a quick and simple storyline and some hilarious one-liners.

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Still – something about this show resonated with me – and apparently with a whole lot of others. This classic sitcom dropped onto Amazon Prime as of September 14^th – and if I’m to believe everything I’m reading on Facebook, to great fanfare.

By today’s standards, it’s perhaps a bit hokey but keep in mind storylines revolving around geriatric sexcapades and racial bias were the height of provocative back in the mid 80s. The Golden Girls, with open discussion of their booty calls and forays into the dating world – paved the way for future female characters – often younger and tauter – to do the same.

Before my life revolved around going to parties and driving and working part-time, Saturday nights meant a bowl of popcorn, a can of Coke and 30 minutes spent with my beloved Golden Girls. This was back when life was simple and being old seemed a long way off.

Well more than 30 years have passed since then and life has pushed forward – taking me along for the ride. And here I am – still a good decade behind these ladies although truth be told – I’m nipping at their heels faster than I’d like.

In typical Gen X fashion, I eagerly donned my favourite Golden Girls t-shirt (I own two) and told my husband I was looking forward to re-watching this golden oldie – maybe even alongside our teen daughters. His grim response was to let it lie.

“You’re going to be disappointed,“ he cautioned. “You’ll see – it won’t hold up.”

But I wasn’t. And it did.

My girls didn’t last five minutes into the first episode but as for me – it was just as I remembered – in all its glorious cheesinesss and simplicity. Blanche has remained ageless and oversexed, Dorothy is ever the husky-voiced beanpole, Rose still a chatty airhead and diminutive Sophia – all these years later, still content to sit on the wicker sofa uttering sarcastic insults to the lot of them.

I can’t deny it – the show is a tad dated with its persistent laugh track and the occasional boom mic dropping into plain sight overhead. And just as I can rest assure that the sun will rise each morning, each Golden Girls episode starts with the classic theme song followed by the static exterior shot of the sprawling Miami Beach bungalow these ladies call home.

As a viewer, you are required to accept certain elements that may otherwise seem downright implausible. For example, each woman’s roomy bedroom consists of a spacious sitting area and these trim ladies eat an awful lot of cheesecake into the wee hours of the night. But so what. If I can accept the fact that Monica and Rachel could afford a New York city loft on the salary of a caterer and coffee shop waitress, then I can most certainly relax and enjoy the comings and goings of women of a certain age dressed in smart pants suits and mules clacking from living room to kitchen to lanai. (Do you even know what a lanai is? I do because I googled it.)

If you’re hoping for character growth and/or change throughout the course of the series – just know that you won’t find it here. In most cases, you get what’s expected: Blanche exuding her Southern charm with bosoms heaving; Dorothy in her gangly splendor and decidedly unflattering shirt dresses and flowy pants combos; Rose with her clueless innocence and boring stories about her bucolic Minnesota hometown; and Sophia – Dorothy’s mother (though in reality, actress Estelle Getty is a year younger than actresses Bea Arthur and Betty White). Standing just shy of five feet, Sophia comes to live with the three friends after her retirement home burns down in episode one. This sweet little old lady is actually on the salty side – telling the other three like it is – and then some – often to hilarious effect.

But there is great comfort in predictability. And for whatever reason The Golden Girls works. Just like The Tiger King works. No one knows precisely why – it just does so for the love of God, don’t question it; accept it and move on.

They are ex-wives and widows, mothers and grandmothers – but the plots don’t necessarily revolve around these aspects of their busy and full lives. Because when it comes to The Golden Girls, there is more to life than just being a wife and mother. If we’re lucky – a whole lot more, in fact.

Re-watching this show, all these years later – is a strange and unusual experience for me. It is a magical feat of uniting past, present and future all together in a 25-minute program featuring four old broads living their best lives.

Not only am I thrust head-first into the dramas surrounding Blanche and gals – but also into the life of a slightly awkward 12-year-old girl – who didn’t know a thing that lay beyond seventh grade. Only now, three decades have passed and I’m living the life of a slightly awkward 40-something, marvelling at how remarkable this gem of a show truly is to be able to touch the lives of various generations with nothing all that much in common.

What The Golden Girls did for us back in the 80s and continues to do now even from beyond the grave (although interestingly enough Betty White – the eldest cast member – remains the only surviving member.) – is to remind us that women are funny. Even women of a certain age.

Kids will grow up and move away, marriages will end, jobs will change – but just as these women have taken pains to show through their navigation of middle-aged predicaments involving sex, love and friendship – there is much more to come. And judging from The Golden Girls, it’ll be hilarious.

Dear Blanche, Dorothy, Rose and Sophia – you were funny then and you’re funny now. Thank you for being a friend.

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