The Golden Girls: How One TV Show Turned A Generation Of American Boys Into Homosexuals

February 2, 2010 6:15 PM

The Golden Girls: How One TV Show Turned A Generation Of American Boys Into Homosexuals
posted by scalefree (79 comments total)

Their server is very slow. I think I'll just cut out the middleman and laugh and get angry at the LOLXTIANS.
posted by mccarty.tim at 6:18 PM on February 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

Thank you for being a friend.
posted by collywobbles at 6:19 PM on February 2, 2010 [9 favorites]

503'd.
posted by piratebowling at 6:19 PM on February 2, 2010

Omg you can catch the gay from TV????

*covers her child's eyes*
posted by gomichild at 6:20 PM on February 2, 2010

I know you don't have to be batshitinsane to be a Christian, but the anecdotal data to the contrary continues to rack up.
posted by BrotherCaine at 6:23 PM on February 2, 2010 [41 favorites]

rebuttal: rue mclanahan i rest my case
posted by DU at 6:23 PM on February 2, 2010

Here's something re: Golden Girls that is actually funny.*

*For some values of funny
posted by mccarty.tim at 6:24 PM on February 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

It's satire, though, right? I mean it seems pretty obviously to be satire. Not an especially funny one, would be my personal opinion. But at least there's that.
posted by penduluum at 6:25 PM on February 2, 2010

Well, obviously.
posted by leotrotsky at 6:25 PM on February 2, 2010

The Golden Girls television program was never much to look at. A foursome of Florida geriatrics getting agitated about pharmacy bills and shoulder pads– who could ever find such a thing interesting? But somehow these perky and absurd women wormed their ways into America’s homes for an 8-year run in the 1980s. Maybe it was our desire to see our grandmothers having fun that encouraged us to watch. Maybe we wanted to believe old age wasn’t dominated by infections and hip problems, loneliness and crushing depression before death finally stomps us out like the acrid end of a damp cigarette.

Well, that was unexpectedly harsh.
posted by delmoi at 6:25 PM on February 2, 2010 [8 favorites]

This website appears to be a parody of Christian insanity, and a mediocre one at that in my opinion. Then again, that might just be me being sad because I was really hoping there was some insane pastor preaching about how old sitcoms lead to the rise of gay culture.
posted by mccarty.tim at 6:26 PM on February 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

You might also like: What Every Parent Should Know About The TV Show Glee
posted by scalefree at 6:26 PM on February 2, 2010 [4 favorites]

Google cache link.
posted by subbes at 6:27 PM on February 2, 2010

Well, obviously.

So then we can calm down on the LOLXTIANS this time around and just enjoy the thing for what it is, is what I'm attempting to head off.
posted by penduluum at 6:27 PM on February 2, 2010

Also? Bea Arthur alone is responsible for at least two generations of homosexual boys.
posted by WolfDaddy at 6:27 PM on February 2, 2010 [6 favorites]

So this is like, Adequacy.org, right? Please tell me that's what it is.
posted by Kadin2048 at 6:31 PM on February 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

Or... GILF loving perverts, I mean that Blanche...
posted by jkaczor at 6:33 PM on February 2, 2010

In a dozen years, the next logical step for these people is Florida. Will we see whole sections of this state devoted to horny gay retirees sporting the worst 1980s fashions? High pants and feathered hair and modern architecture? Will they follow in the lusty steps of their forebears, the Golden Girls? When all these gays are in such close proximity to each other, will we see a huge upsurge in illicit homosexual elderly trysts? Will they vote out Florida’s married Christian Republican leaders, like Governor Charlie Crist? Will they embrace any and every cutting edge social issue that will be hip in 2020? Personally, I do not look forward to the day when we’re having moral debates about robot sex, gay jetpacks or houseplant marriage. And worst of all, will the next generation of television executives see the need for a new Golden Girls show featuring silver daddies, poppa bears, wankers on walkers and 50-year old twinks who sit on your lap and suck Metamucil lollipops? America, I will be turning off my tv for good in 2019 just in case.

Yeah, I think it's a parody.
posted by delmoi at 6:36 PM on February 2, 2010

The website shows up on RationalWiki's article on Poe's Law as a "Real life example."
posted by borkencode at 6:41 PM on February 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

But it has Marie Jon in its masthead!
posted by scalefree at 6:44 PM on February 2, 2010

Bea Arthur may have turned our generation on to something, but it certainly wasn't homosexuality.
Sniff, Swig, Puff - Bea Arthur & Rock Hudson
posted by Baby_Balrog at 6:45 PM on February 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

I, for one, cannot wait for gay jetpacks.
posted by brundlefly at 6:45 PM on February 2, 2010 [3 favorites]

What a busy woman Bea Arthur must have been, making all those homosexuals. She probably died of exhaustion.
posted by octobersurprise at 6:56 PM on February 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

Obligatory link to Rufus Wainwright's Bea Arthur story (and bonus YouTube video version!).
posted by hangashore at 6:59 PM on February 2, 2010 [4 favorites]

Best Friar's Club Roast one-liner ever: "I wouldn't fuck Sandra Bernhard with Bea Arthur's dick."

Bea Arthur was actually in attendance, and laughed heartily.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 7:21 PM on February 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

A few years back SNL did a pretty amusing sketch about kids emulating their favorite TV shows, Jackass style. They profiled a group of teenage boys who were so into The Golden Girls they would dress up in their grandmothers' clothing, eat cheesecake on the lanai and swap innuendo. Since this would not be a worthy story unless someone Goes Too Far, one of the boys eventually dies from an accidental overdose of his grandma's blood pressure medicine. At the school memorial service, the glee club sings "Thank You For Being A Friend".

It was one of the darkest things I ever saw them do since Michael O'Donoghue passed on, and I admit I found it hilarious.
posted by Spatch at 7:37 PM on February 2, 2010 [14 favorites]

What a busy woman Bea Arthur must have been, making all those homosexuals. She probably died of exhaustion.

She had plenty of stamina.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 7:53 PM on February 2, 2010 [2 favorites]

ChristWire is a satire website.
posted by Kattullus at 8:07 PM on February 2, 2010

I, for one, cannot wait for gay jetpacks.

Yeah no kidding. I'll take a jetpack, gay or otherwise. I think a teleporter would have to be omni-sexual though, it kind of gets inside everything.
posted by Talanvor at 8:08 PM on February 2, 2010

What an awful, awful show that was.
posted by turgid dahlia at 8:09 PM on February 2, 2010

Today, as this crowd ages we have to wonder what comes next for the Golden Girl generation of American homosexuals. They’re turning 40 and 50 now. Their hair is thinning, their waistlines expanding, their cachet in the cultural scene is long past. Most have settled into heavily mortgaged condos or bungalows in gentrified neighborhoods, bitter at their mid-level jobs with zero hope of becoming a CEO to make their fathers proud.

Come on, Stephenson Billings. Tell us how you really feel.
posted by King, in the hall of the mountain at 8:25 PM on February 2, 2010

I can't say that I remember ever having voluntarily watched an entire episode of this show all the way through, just as I've never voluntarily watched a full episode of "Designing Women" or "Absolutely Fabulous." That makes me either a poor target of satire or a pathetic excuse for a gay man of a certain generation, I'm not sure which.
posted by blucevalo at 8:36 PM on February 2, 2010

lol, it says "irregardless".
posted by wierdo at 8:38 PM on February 2, 2010

I started watching the show around the time my grandfather died. It let me know that my grandmother would be ok living on her own after his death. The 80s were a time when many wonderful fathers and grandfathers died too young and left many wonderful grandmothers alone. I was, for the first time and for all time, understanding of what it meant to move on from death.
posted by parmanparman at 8:47 PM on February 2, 2010 [3 favorites]

When I clicked on the link to read this piece of tripe, I swear these were actually the ads I saw on the page.
posted by plaidrabbit at 8:49 PM on February 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

What an awful, awful show that was.

No. You are incorrect. This show is freaking hilarious, witty, and despite it's appearance upon first viewing it's humor can be pretty risque at times.

Hell yeah I defended The Golden Girls.
posted by deacon_blues at 8:49 PM on February 2, 2010 [22 favorites]

Is it just me, or does it seem that Stephenson Billings "protests too much"?
posted by hippybear at 9:01 PM on February 2, 2010

I think it might have been watching my father's reactions to the Golden Girls that made me comfortable with coming out to him.
posted by yesster at 9:03 PM on February 2, 2010 [3 favorites]

Before the Golden Girls there was Gilligan's Island.
posted by Tube at 9:07 PM on February 2, 2010

Many studies have been done on why the gays love The Golden Girls, but science can’t fathom the moral challenges and social upheaval of those historic times.

Of the two links they cite, one is a bio of a gay comedy writer and the other is a "21 Things We Love About the Golden Girls" article on Gay Community News. Science!
posted by electroboy at 9:10 PM on February 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

Just because of that episode where Dorothy, Blanche, and Rose go to the nudist resort?
posted by Mael Oui at 9:12 PM on February 2, 2010

The one thing I hate about epic websites like this is the people that take it seriously. The comments on this thing are almost youtube grade oxshit
posted by Throw away your common sense and get an afro! at 9:19 PM on February 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

God, I loved The Golden Girls. That's where I learned what the word "slut" meant, as well as many other things that probably weren't very appropriate for an inquisitive kid. Now that I think about it, while most of the kids in class were learning about sexuality via Basic Instinct, I had to piece it together from The Golden Girls. I'm not sure which would be preferable.

The 80s were a time when many wonderful fathers and grandfathers died too young and left many wonderful grandmothers alone.

At least until Hal Linden, Alan King, Terry Kiser, and Morty Seinfeld came along to, y'know...
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:47 PM on February 2, 2010 [2 favorites]

I really love Fatal Farm's alternate opening sequence to Golden Girls [mov file].
posted by painquale at 10:00 PM on February 2, 2010 [3 favorites]

I didn't realize it was a parody until the over-the-top writing made it clear, because sadly, the premise is not clearly parody. When Mr. Rogers died, tons of these soulless cretins came out of the woodwork to screech about how he caused the rise of the "gay agenda" by turning American boys into "wimps". The rabbit hole goes pretty fucking deep, you guys.
posted by DecemberBoy at 10:03 PM on February 2, 2010

Let's be honest: Without The Golden Girls, there would be no Seinfeld.

Jerry = Dorothy
Kramer = Blanche
George = Rose
Elaine = Sophia
Diner Booth = Kitchen Table

IT'S THE SAME SHOW!!! (Yeah, okay, not so much, but it's occasionally fun to imagine the characters from one show in scenes from the other. The Contest much?)
posted by Sys Rq at 10:22 PM on February 2, 2010

Someones got to show this to Betty White so she can bless their hearts
posted by Blasdelb at 10:46 PM on February 2, 2010 [2 favorites]

No. You are incorrect. This show is freaking hilarious, witty, and despite it's appearance upon first viewing it's humor can be pretty risque at times.

Yeah. When it was on I avoided watching it for the longest time then happened upon it one day and was too lazy to change the channel. (And I was a teenage boy, so apparently it's a surprise I'm not gay now (or am i?))

I laughed my ass off. It was a particular risque episode, something about Blanche dating and screwing some much younger man, and I thought it downright bawdy at times. Long live Golden Girls.
posted by zardoz at 11:06 PM on February 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

folks, the word you're looking for here is "troll"
posted by pyramid termite at 12:25 AM on February 3, 2010

I was at my parents house, about a month ago. I was watching TV with my dad, right? And the gay pride parade was on that weekend. And they had a live feed ... well, not like a live feed but they were showing the parade, right?

And all of a sudden these three gay Indian guys came on the screen ... I don't mean came on the screen but they appeared, right? And these three gay Indian guys are like "Hey, we are Indian and we are gay! We represent the gay South-Asian Community!"

And my Dad looks at me and goes: "That is disgusting. Do you know them?"

I'm like: "Why the hell would I know them?

"Because they are of the gay, and you are in the entertainment business."

~Russell Peters
posted by bwg at 4:16 AM on February 3, 2010 [2 favorites]

This is hilarious in the sense of "not really very funny."
posted by Mister_A at 5:17 AM on February 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

So nobody read "About the Author" at the end?

" Stephenson Billings is an Investigative Journalist, Motivational Children's Party Entertainer and Antique Soda Bottle Collector all in one special, blessed package! Fanmail me [e-mail] ! "

hmmm...
posted by etherist at 5:37 AM on February 3, 2010

The link is unsubtle, unfunny parody.

That out of the way, I want to relate the most mundane brush with fame ever. My friend was staying at his wife's grandmother's place on the west coast. An email popped into my inbox one early afternoon with the subject line "golden flakes from golden girls."

In it, my friend explained that he was eating Betty White's cornflakes. Grandma was a friend and neighbor of Betty White. The day before my friend and his wife arrived, Betty White stopped by the house because she was leaving town and had some food that would spoil before she returned, including a box of cornflakes.

My friend has never met Betty White, but she bought him breakfast.
posted by Mayor Curley at 5:45 AM on February 3, 2010

Regardless of his intent, the ad server he's slapped onto the top of that page has resulting in some sweet "Gay Mature" dating ads.
posted by clvrmnky at 5:47 AM on February 3, 2010

Will they vote out Florida’s married Christian Republican leaders, like Governor Charlie Crist?

The biggest open secret about Governor Crist is that he is a closeted homosexual.
posted by grubi at 6:38 AM on February 3, 2010

Biggest open secret in *Florida*, I should say.
posted by grubi at 6:45 AM on February 3, 2010

Well somebody's got a bug up their ass, don't they?
posted by Leezie at 6:54 AM on February 3, 2010

What a busy woman Bea Arthur must have been, making all those homosexuals. She probably died of exhaustion.


She must have got up very early in the morning. I can't even get down to the gym! Her diary must have looked odd: “Get up in the morning, convert, persuade, traumatize, convert, convert, convert, persuade – lunch- convert, out, convert -afternoon tea - normalize, destory a marriage, convert - quick shower…"
posted by lysdexic at 7:22 AM on February 3, 2010

Really, some of you didn't pick up this was parody? We should have a reading comprehension test before you're allowed to post to Metafilter.

Golden Girls rocked in large part because all the actresses are fucking gold. Particularly Bea Arthur and Betty White. And the writing was good. I am confident that growing up watching this with my mother helped make me the homosexual that I am.
posted by Nelson at 7:35 AM on February 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

Her diary must have looked odd: “Get up in the morning, convert, persuade, traumatize, convert, convert, convert, persuade – lunch- convert, out, convert -afternoon tea - normalize, destory a marriage, convert - quick shower…"

Two in ten is not enough. Are you doing your part?
posted by Spatch at 7:49 AM on February 3, 2010

Do I have to start loving Golden Girls now too? Ugh. This being gay thing is difficult. Is there a nice big severance package if I decide to quit?

wait a minute...
posted by greekphilosophy at 8:10 AM on February 3, 2010 [2 favorites]

This show was awesome, and the ladies were all very funny. Case in point:

Betty White sent her sick former co-star, Rue McClanahan, a get well card and bouquet. McClanahan is recovering from a stroke. Betty White allegedly wrote on the card, “I hope you die, so I can be the last Golden Girl.”

Sources said McClanaham understood the humor of it and enjoyed a good laugh.

This is the funniest thing I have seen all week. I crack up imagining sweet old Betty White saying this.
posted by I am the Walrus at 8:19 AM on February 3, 2010 [5 favorites]

I crack up imagining sweet old Betty White saying this.
While Betty White has played sweet (and sometimes old) characters, I believe the Real Betty White (tm) to be far far more dangerous than you could possibly imagine.
posted by WolfDaddy at 9:29 AM on February 3, 2010 [2 favorites]

From everything I've read about her, most displays of sweetness on Betty White's part are a velvet glove concealing an iron fist. If you ever watched her character Sue Ann Nivens, The Happy Homemaker on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," you'll know what I'm talking about. That wasn't acting.
posted by blucevalo at 10:54 AM on February 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

Oh Betty White, you can always put that award where your heart ought to be.
posted by greekphilosophy at 11:07 AM on February 3, 2010

It's just that these thieves make me so damn mad! You know who you are! Thieves!
posted by box at 11:11 AM on February 3, 2010

Really, some of you didn't pick up this was parody?

Were the rest of the writings by the same author parody? Is that entire website parody?

I spent some time poking around on that website and came away not entirely sure that it WAS parody by authorial intent, and so have to give it a seal of earnestness. And I'm someone accused of having a very dry wit, so either the humor is far too subtle, or else there is something more going on with the content at christwire.org than the ironists would like to admit.
posted by hippybear at 11:33 AM on February 3, 2010

The whole site is parody - but you're right, hippybear, that the humor is incredibly subversive and subtle. I also appreciate dry wit, but this one almost flew under my radar. (Like mirandasings08 on YouTube.)

I suspect the reasoning behind it is that it is an even more virulent strain of lolxtian humor - which is to say, humor that Christians themselves will take part in by taking the bait. If only one of them forwards along articles about the subversive nature of Glee then it's achieved its true point, which is to expose fundamentalist Christians as non-thinkers. Otherwise, it remains hilarious for the rest of us and we read it and laugh and move on.

This is, of course, modeled on other sites that were NOT parody. For example, Patriotic Americans Boycotting Anti-American Hollywood, used to offer critical movie guides for people interested in only supporting True American Cinema. It included things like an exhortation for members to avoid "Elf" because it featured "Ed Asner - a known Communist sympathizer." Eventually, the site got so contentious that they closed up shop. Now it hosts something about casinos that I wont even bother linking to. But this is preying on that community - which in turn serves as "comedy" for the rest of us. Whether we approve of that kind of victimization-for-comedy is another thing entirely.
posted by greekphilosophy at 12:16 PM on February 3, 2010

Bea Arthur passed away in April. She left $300,000 to the Ali Forney Center an organization in New York that takes care of gay youth and was in eminent danger of closing. Every night 125 kids have a place to sleep and food to eat because of her generosity. (cnn link)

And, this was in addition to her $40,000 donation from her show on broadway, "Bea Arthur on Broadway: Just Between Friends," that she made to the center in 2005.

Thank you for being a friend!
posted by Craig at 12:34 PM on February 3, 2010 [5 favorites]

WolfDaddy: "While Betty White has played sweet (and sometimes old) characters, I believe the Real Betty White (tm) to be far far more dangerous than you could possibly imagine."

See also.
posted by brundlefly at 1:15 PM on February 3, 2010

It has to be a parody, because the premise is that boys WATCHED Golden Girls (frankly, I've never met anyone who has watched the show, so I don't understand how it was ever popular).
posted by Running Sandals at 1:59 PM on February 3, 2010

When I was a boy, I watched it with my grandmother. Also: Murder She Wrote & Wheel of Fortune.
posted by brundlefly at 2:06 PM on February 3, 2010

As a boy, I watched The Golden Girls of my own volition.
posted by Sys Rq at 3:14 PM on February 3, 2010

Oh, I watched it of my own volition as well. I looked forward to watching it with her.
posted by brundlefly at 3:15 PM on February 3, 2010

As a boy, I grew out of Golden Girls in three or four minutes. In fact, that may have been the last straw - I could hardly even watch M.A.S.H. after that.
posted by sneebler at 4:23 PM on February 3, 2010

I love most that the article traces a perfectly logical trajectory from cheesecake to public sex.
posted by yellowcandy at 10:15 PM on February 3, 2010

I only came here to say two things:

First, the linked dealie is annoying and pointless. It slanders gay people and it slanders a great TV show, Golden Girls. Yes, it was a great TV show - all four characters were played by consummate comedians. They are marginalized because they are female. The general critical reaction to Golden Girls, when it was on the air and even today, is one of the least veiled displays of sexism I know of; I genuinely don't think you can name a better set of comedians who were on television at the time, and yet because they were old women the show was seen as some kind of 'gimmick' or something. Goddamn, that pisses me off. It was fucking funny, okay? And this web site linked above slanders it in the name of... skewering right-wingers. Because the thing that the internet needs most is another parody of right-wing craziness. [*MASSIVE EYE ROLL*] This is pointless, and moreover it does injustice to two groups (again, gay people and the TV show Golden Girls) for nearly no reason at all. I hate it.

Second, one demonstration of how utterly uninformed this piece of stupid is can be found in the interesting fact that the primary producer and head writer of the TV show Golden Girls was none other than Marc Cherry, one of the more prominent gay republicans in Hollywood; Jamie Wooten, another gay man, was also a major writer on the show. So: if Golden Girls sometimes appealed to gay sensibilities, the reason is that it was often written by gay men.

Third, and finally, Marc Cherry also happens to be the creator and head writer of one of my favorite television shows now in production, Desperate Housewives, a subversive, witty, thought-provoking character drama which is often panned like Golden Girls was - although Desperate Housewives is disliked for different reasons; the right hates it in a knee-jerk way because it's about women; the left hates it because it hates all bourgeois suburbanites who deign to accept the designation of 'housewife.' Meanwhile, the show continues quietly to introduce frankly revolutionary ideas about women and their power in society - where it has traditionally resided, where they now find it, and where it might lead in the future. The title of the show unfortunately plays to certain sexist notions about women, but I have a feeling even this is intentional, as the show's name is anything but unconsidered; it's explained in the first episode, when a character whose husband recently left her for his secretary mentions his excuse: a bastardized reference to Thoreau, 'most men lead lives of quite desperation.' "Really?" she says - "and what do women lead? Lives of noisy fulfillment?"

If making that show, or Golden Girls, makes me gay, then I say: bring on the goddamned dancing horses.
posted by koeselitz at 11:41 PM on February 3, 2010 [3 favorites]

Two of those things I came to say. The third bit is a free sample. Now g'wan, get outta here.
posted by koeselitz at 11:42 PM on February 3, 2010

It's the missing link between extremists and crazy people, the belief that rightness is so fragile that a warmed-over TV comedy can destroy it.

Honestly I think this is very robust.
posted by grobstein at 7:04 PM on February 7, 2010