An Ideal Timeless Sitcom: The Golden Girls

I have an unusual obsession with 4 white women: The Golden Girls. What is it that draws me to love these ladies with a hearty laugh? I can see myself in all of them. Rose Nylund, Dorothy Szbornac, Blanche Devereaux and Sophia Petrillo make up the tight click of sassy older ladies who brought laughter, wit, friendship and cheesecake to the 80's.

If you grew-up in the generation of The Golden Girls, whether you liked them or not you knew who they were from their printloud and lounging 80's style. Each unusually square outfit paraded on the tube made us think of  tacky fun at its best!

Watching these ladies  remains an exhilarating and exciting sensation partially because of how rude they are to eachother. I always love Dorothy's witty and dry comments cutting Rose's lack of street smarts. On the other hand it is always thrilling to hear Rose bust out something rude herself. For example by calling Blanche a slut.  My personal all-time hero is Sophia because of her ability to balance poking witty comments at all her younger roomates. She damn funny.

The Golden Girls is one of my favourite shows of all-time because these women make race, gender, class and nationality invisible and rather encouraging smiles to the forefront of living rooms across multi-racial North America, now and then.

I remember watching The Golden Girls with my Ba (Grandma). My Ba spoke very little English and would always look forward to tuning in on the tube to see these funny ladies (Ba also had a fond spot for Sophia like me). The cutest part was while watching Ba would dictate to me what she thought was happening, and I would tell her if her interpretation was correct. She always knew what was going on. I feel Ba understood each woman's characteristics and personalities. The show did well to develop 4 distinctive female characters. Even Ba with little understanding of the language they spoke could tell the intentions and sentiment of each woman from show to show.

The Golden Girls ran from 1985 to 1992 and even today when I catch them on a TV rerun or pop in one of my DVDs - Dorothy, Blanche, Sophia and Rose still manage to captivate me. The writing is so intelligent that though today's viewers may not understand all the pop culture references from the time, they can still appreciate the fundamental messages this show brings around appreciating aging, adjusting after the divorce or the loss of a spouse, survival and embracing the continual lessons life offers. These sisters made us believe we could do it for ourselves.

Which girl did you relate to the most? Leave a comment and let me know!