Keris Stainton on the TV women we love...
Last week Gilmore, this week Golden...
Rose: "You don't understand. Everyone likes me-I'm the nice one! Dorothy is the smart one, Blanche is the sexy one, Sophia is the old one, and I'm the nice one! EVERYBODY likes me!"
Sophia: "The old one isn't so crazy about you."
How I love the Golden Girls. Set in Miami (Dorothy: "It's wonderful dating in Miami. Every single man under eighty sells cocaine.") it features four women - Sophia, Rose, Dorothy and Blanche - living together following retirement and divorce.
Sophia (Estelle Getty), who's turned sarcasm into an art form. ("The Best of Carson is coming on." "In here?" "No, in Hollywood, but they pipe it through these little wires and it comes out in here.") and stories of the old country (Sicily).
Dim-but-sweet Rose (Betty White), whose tales of her home town of St Olaf - "No, I can't drink milk. I reminds me of the time Cousin Enoch fell into the vat of milk at the dairy." "Was he hurt?" "Oh no, in fact it began the annual tradition of the St Olaf milk-diving tournament. I won three times in the low-fat division. Eventually they discontinued the event when several spectators were caught dipping their Oreo cookies in the winner's swim trunks." - were a guaranteed crowd-pleaser.
Blanche (Rue McClanahan) was my first introduction to a promiscuous woman ("Come in for a nightcap." "Oh, I don't want to put you out." "But I like to put out ... I mean it's no trouble.") who wasn't a baddie or a paean.
Dorothy (Bea Arthur) who holds them all together and whose eye-rolling responses to the other three mirror the feelings of the audience. Abrasive, intelligent, funny, charming, Dorothy is one of my favourite TV women of all time.
Friendship, mother-daughter relationships ("You'll have to excuse my mother. She suffered a slight stroke a few years ago which rendered her totally annoying."), retirement, dating after divorce - all frequent sitcom fodder, but given a twist by featuring older women who so infrequently appear on TV at all and certainly not in such a realistic manner.
But Golden Girls certainly wasn't an issues show (any issues tackled were tackled with a lightness of touch) it was hilarious (and still is, in fact it's hardly dated at all).
Dorothy: "You couldn't sleep either, huh?"
Sophia: "No, I'm sleeping so good I thought I'd come try it in the sink."
