When it comes to nostalgia fuel, look no further than the classic The Golden Girls. Though it originally aired every Saturday night in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it’s now available to stream and binge-watch anytime, anyplace.
With thirty years between the original air dates of episodes of The Golden Girls and now, it’s interesting to watch and see how well the show holds up now. In some cases, the show excels; in other cases, though, the show tends to show its age, and aged fairly poorly in those situations. Kind of funny, since the show is about aging with grace, but we can’t win ‘em all!
Aged Poorly: Body-Shaming
As is, sadly, the case for many nostalgic shows (and still shows today, unfortunately), there are a lot of jokes made at the expense of a variety of different body types.
At the time, it was considered far more socially acceptable to make jokes about other people’s bodies, as Blanche so often does to Dorothy, but that doesn’t mean it was right. Now, these jokes just leave a sour taste in viewers’ mouths as they hope their friends would never say such things about them.
Classic: The AIDS Crisis
The Golden Girls is famous for how they handled dealing with the AIDS crisis. Luckily, the cast of four that makes up the Golden Girls themselves (Estelle Getty, Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan, and Betty White) were pro-gay rights and found it important to raise AIDS awareness.
They even included episodes dealing with the epidemic, including one where there’s a chance Rose might have AIDS, prompting Dorothy to tell her, “AIDS is not a bad person’s disease, Rose. It is not God punishing people for their sins.”
Aged Poorly: Slut-Shaming
Unfortunately, Blanche ends up the butt of a lot of jokes at the expense of her lifestyle. She likes to date a lot of men, and we, as a society, know there’s nothing wrong with that, if that’s what she wants to do.
However, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, this was viewed far differently, and there were a lot of jokes made at Blanche’s expense about her health, her partners, and her choices that simply would not fly today.
Classic: Feminism
The Golden Girls was one of the first times many women saw themselves genuinely represented on television. Four women considered to be “old,” even though they started the show at retirement age, all of whom came from different backgrounds and have different views on the world.
The women support each other, and the show’s main themes center around their found family and the importance of lifting other women up in your life. The show does such a great job with its feminist themes that many still consider it to be relevant to feminism today, even through the thirty intervening years.
Aged Poorly: Racism
Sadly, like most shows of its time, The Golden Girls struggles a bit when it comes to discussing race. As the main cast was comprised of four white women, there can never be a true discussion of race, because so many experiences would be unrepresented.
In spite of their few missteps, though, The Golden Girls does manage to grapple with racism and prejudice, including having the characters work through their own ingrained racism.
Classic: Aging
Of course, everyone knows The Golden Girls is based off the premise that life doesn’t end when a woman stops being a wife and mother and reaches a certain age, but that doesn’t mean the show shouldn’t still be acknowledged for its classic views on aging. The Golden Girls made sure to make it clear that your life isn’t over until it’s over and you’re dust in the wind, and to live every day as if it was your last — because, someday, it will be!
Aged Poorly: People with Dwarfism
An infamous misstep on the show is often cited as one of the funniest moments of the show, as well, which causes controversy amongst different groups now.
In an episode of The Golden Girls, Rose is embarrassed to introduce her new beau, Dr. Jonathan Newman, to her friends, because he is a person with dwarfism. This causes a domino fact of “short” jokes that can easily show the program’s poor aging.
Classic: Disability Rights
In spite of missteps like the aforementioned episode with Dr. Jonathan Newman, The Golden Girls tries to fight for disability rights, as they fight for so many other rights.
Even in the episode with Dr. Jonathan Newman, the Girls try to dismantle concepts of what it means to be “normal,” along with Jonathan himself. In another episode, Blanche gets past her own prejudices about dating a man in a wheelchair — just in time for the guy to tell her he has a wife, and that ends up being the reason Blanche stops seeing him.
Aged Poorly: Transphobia
One of the longest-running “jokes” on the show is Dorothy’s brother, Phil, who is never actually seen on screen, often only mentioned by Dorothy and Sophia, their shared mother. The problem is, when Phil is mentioned, it’s usually to make jokes about his “cross-dressing.”
In today’s society, we know Phil was probably exploring his gender, and the jokes just aren’t funny. Luckily, Estelle Getty, who played Phil’s mother, Sophia Petrillo, stopped the writers from having Sophia make a joke about Phil’s cross-dressing at his funeral, because she knew a mother would never do that. Instead, she gives a beautiful speech about Phil. We wish she could have been written that way from the start!
Classic: Gay Rights
The Golden Girls is perhaps most famous for its staunch support of gay rights. People like Estelle Getty and Bea Arthur were known for their work fighting in the LGBT+ community, and continue to be gay icons to this gay, even if they didn’t identify as gay themselves.
Their work within the community was reflected on the show, too, when they fought hard to not only make sure people understood the AIDS crisis, as was mentioned before, but to make sure people understood gay people and gay rights issues in a way they maybe never had before.
