Trailer for all episodes of "The Golden Girls"/Disney
They say there's nothing more disappointing than meeting your heroes, but getting sick of a TV series you once really loved isn't a hit either.
How fortunate that re-watching "The Golden Girls" (all seasons are now available on Disney Plus), one of the most beloved television sitcoms ever, evokes real waves of laughter and not just recorded ones, just like in the past.
"The Golden Girls" re-emerged with excellent timing, at least for the 40+ year olds and fans of American TV.
The content broadcast these days is depressing, violent and dark (in the spirit of the times) and most of us suffer in front of countless news reports and are harassed by true crime series.
But in the eighties?
Everything was good, just find your shoulder pads and press the remote.
As soon as the first episode came on and the famous opening song was heard: "Thank You for Being a Friend", I started to get excited.
Thank you for being friends.
"The Golden Girls"/ABC
"Yes, everything is gold"
In 1985, a sitcom that described the lives of four women aged 50 and over, sharing a house in Miami, premiered on the NBC network.
The innovation was that the heroines are not four young women but women in transition and in the north.
Each of these wonderful women got their own characterization: the smart one, the beautiful one, the innocent one and the one who really likes to say everything.
Four wonderful actresses were cast in the lead roles:
Beatrice (Bee) Arthur, a star of theater and television (who made an excellent guest appearance as Larry David's mother in "Calm Down"), played Dorothy Zbornek, a divorced, cynical, funny and bitter teacher.
Dorothy's husband, Stanley (one of the most beloved recurring guest roles), left her for a young flight attendant and moved to Hawaii and she needed a new place to live.
Roe McClanahan, a theater and soap opera actress, played the glamorous widow Blanche Devro, the owner of the house where the girls lived and a classic southern belle, fond of dating, sex and men.
The legendary Betty White, America's queen of entertainment and one of the stars of the sitcom "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", played the beloved Rose Niland, a widow from Minnesota, innocent, sometimes stupid and very funny, who became a super popular star following the show and played on television and in the movies until she was almost 100.
Estelle Getty, stole the show as Sofia Petrillo, Dorothy's older Italian mother, who moved in with the girls after her ancestral home was set on fire.
She soon became a character who says everything inside, telling funny stories about her past as a child in Sicily and hinting at past connections with the Italian mafia.
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with the typical clothing.
"The Golden Girls"/ABC
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Each actress also had a style of clothing that set her apart: Dorothy always wore a sophisticated oversize that emphasized her tall stature, Blanche Devreau always dazzled the colorful screen, with glamorous and flattering outfits, Betty White was the queen of the pastel colors of the group, and Sophia, who is older than the other girls, almost Never parted with her handbag, just like your grandmother at a bar mitzvah.
The iconic sitcom created by Susan Harris (who was also behind another legendary sitcom - "Bubbles"), aired from 1985 to 1992 on the NBC network.
Throughout most of his life, he was ranked in the top ten of the Nielsen index, and garnered 68 Emmy nominations and 11 wins over the years, including Emmy awards for each of the lead actresses in the series (an achievement that neither "Friends" nor even "Seinfeld" can boast of).
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The friendships and the big heart gave her longevity.
"The Golden Girls"/ABC
They put everything on the coffee table
During the seven years in which the series was broadcast, it boldly put on the table some of the most charged issues that troubled the US in those years: homosexuality (in the first episode, the series was accompanied by a character of a gay household manager named Coco, who mysteriously disappeared afterwards), organ donation, Racism, ageism, gambling addiction (shout out to Dorothy), plastic surgery, sexual liberation, relationships, stalkers, betrayals, parent and child relationships. And for the first time, the women themselves were at the center of the plot and not just content with subplots.
In the United States under the Reagan regime, when Homosexuality and the AIDS epidemic were considered issues that should be hidden under the public agenda in the hope that they would disappear, it was very refreshing to see a show that allowed itself to deal with these issues in prime time. In episode 17 of the fifth season, which aired in 1990, Rose is forced to undergo a test to detect the AIDS virus, after she is informed that she may have A blood transfusion she received in the past was infected with the HIV virus. The dilemmas and tension accompany her during the episode, as a white, straight woman and dealing with the possibility that she might actually be carrying the virus, was groundbreaking and unprecedented in prime time television. Of course, she is negative at the end. This is an American sitcom after all , what did you expect?
Beyond the laughter, what stood out most in the witty writing of the series and gave it its long shelf life, was the friendship and the big heart that were at the center of all the relationships.
Whether it's the love that prevailed between the friends or the love between mother and daughter, the concern, the dedication, the constant encouragement not to give up even when the situation is difficult, and above all the ability to laugh at any situation, however complicated it may be.
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She continued to climb even after the "Golden Girls".
Betty White/ABC
RuPaul's favorite series
The fearless attitude that characterized the Golden Girls, and perhaps characterizes women and in general people of a certain age (we are adults and we don't care what they think of us), is what made the series also an LGBTI icon of the first class, and one of the most beloved series of the drag priestess RuPaul. Whether it's the kitsch style of clothing, the witty and uninhibited humor or simply the dynamic of bites alongside hugs, which dominated the conversation in the colorful living room and in the kitchen at home in Miami, over a box of purchased cheesecake of course.
Another reason that may have made the girls LGBT icons (especially Bee Arthur) , is that the girls have become a "family that chooses" for each other.
A term known today among members of the community, many of whom were forced to disconnect from their families due to coming out of the closet or a gender change process, and find in their immediate community the best, and perhaps better, replacement for the family they left behind.
The girls also became a family for each other.
The four of them left their previous lives behind (were widowed or divorced), became less relevant to their children and grandchildren and were spared picking up the grandchildren from kindergarten, with Booster in the back seat.
Probably wouldn't exist without the Golden Girls.
"Sex and the City"/GettyImages
From the Golden Girls to Sex and the City
Beyond being a series that heralded a new era in American television, "The Golden Girls" influenced women's series and representations of women in the television industry in the 90s and 2000s as well.
The popular opinion is that "Sex and the City" could not exist without "The Golden Girls" first.
The similarity between the two series has already ignited a real academic debate in universities across the US. The main argument is that the promotion of the discourse on sex and sexuality to prime time, specifically in the conservative 80s, created the right climate for series like "Sex and the City". They also pointed to The similarities between Blanche and Samantha, Rose and Charlotte, and Sophia and Dorothy and Miranda and Carrie, are not accidental.
The engagement with the "Golden Girls" did not end even after it reached its end. Before the eighth season, Arthur decided that she did not wish to return for another season. The creators of the series gave her a happy ending , in which she marries Blanche's uncle and leaves home for a new life. Although an attempt was made to produce a sequel series with Blanche, Rose and Sofia called "The Golden Palace" (with a guest appearance by Dorothy, as is the best spin-off tradition), but the audience did not receive it with the same love And it went off the air after just one season.
Each of the women went on to have successful careers of their own, but Betty White surpassed them all. White, who was nominated for an Emmy seven times for her role as an announcer and won it in 1986, became Queen after "The Golden Girls" of the guest roles. During the following years she appeared in almost every popular series: "The Simpsons", "Ellie McBeal", "Community", "The Lawyers", "Malcolm in the Middle" and much more.
In 2010, at the age of 88, following a popular online petition, White was invited for the first time in her life (and last, as it turns out), to host "Saturday Night Live".
In 2021, she passed away a few days before her 100th birthday.
She was also the last of the "golden girls" to leave us.
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Guess who came to stay?
A long list of more and less famous actors and actresses have been guests over the years and the many episodes of "The Golden Girls".
A guest appearance in the series was no less desirable than in "The Love Ship", with a special emphasis on older actors who might not find room for guest roles in "LA Attorney" or "Miami Vice".
The long list also includes Bob Hope, George Clooney, Merv Griffin, Sonny Bono, Mario Lopez, Julio Iglesias, Leslie Nielsen, Jerry Auerbach, Burt Reynolds, Debbie Reynolds, Mickey Rooney, Jeffrey Tambor, Dick Van Dyke and perhaps the guest appearance that beckons the Israeli audience the most: Quentin Tarantino in the role of an Elvis Presley impersonator, in a double, unforgettable and tear-jerking episode, dealing with Sofia's second wedding, in the fourth season.
The overwhelming popularity of the series around the globe led to the creation of international versions of "The Golden Girls" all over the world, from Great Britain (where it was canceled after one season) to Greece, where it actually gained tremendous popularity.
In 2009, the Israeli version of The Golden Girls aired on Channel 10, with an unforgettable Israeli cast, Miki Kem as Dorothy's counterpart, Hanna Leslau, Blanche's counterpart, the local Tiki Dayan Khroz, and of course Rivka Michaeli, Sofia's counterpart. In the Israeli version, her character was changed of Sofia from Italy with a mafia flavor to a former fighter partisan, always equipped with the key phrase "One day you wouldn't survive in the woods". The series aired for six seasons and 69 episodes, a considerable achievement for Israeli series, and received positive reviews during the years it aired.
In the end, whether we saw the four wonderful and witty women of the "Golden Girls" as our lost sisters, mothers or grandmothers, they are ingrained in our collective cultural memory thanks to their witty humor, our ability to identify with them and our nostalgia.
As Dorothy says with her famous crooked smile at the end of the series: "Women like this don't grow on trees."
Do they survive rewatching even in the second decade of the 21st century?
The answer is yes.
They are still really funny and relevant, and the many topics that occupied them continue to occupy women every day all over the world.
"The Golden Girls" is available in its entirety on Disney Plus.
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