I find the line "Is the man asleep during it?" really great because it implies that she sees trans men as men from start to finish, rather than a woman who undergoes a surgery to become a man. Trans men are men and trans women are women, whether they've had gender affirming surgery or not, so it's refreshing to see.
I also think the line is great because you can tell she's not disgusted or anything with the idea, she's just genuinely curious on how it works; I just think that's really nice to see.
My favourite part of this whole episode is Sophia saying that she has a werid hunch about him, and when he reveals his deadname, she just says "With that nose, I knew he was Italian!", completely ignoring the trans part.
whats interesting about her, is the way she is portrayed as an old traditional lady of her time, but she so often subverts what our brain is automatically lead to think she means. she's a very nuanced character, especially for the time
@@irishrunner27when gay characters are on the show, Sophia is the one who is the most chill. She’s the one who explains to Blanche why her gay brother wants to marry his partner and be part of an out gay couple. It’s Sophia who knows that Jean is a lesbian and is like “I like Jean. She happens to like girls instead of guys. Some people happen to like cats instead of dogs.” And then that line ends with a funny joke about whether lesbians shed. Her character in these moments mirrors Estelle Getty’s open acceptance of the closeted gay writers on the show. She vowed to protect them from homophobia and losing their jobs/reputations.
@@craisins95right? She’s brash but wholesome. Like a lot of older people we have today, who might not know the right things to say but their heart is in the right place
My grandma died before I came out but I remember an odd dinner conversation. Trans people had come up in a political context and someone had to explain to her what that was. She looked thoughtful for a moment and then said, (paraphrased) "Oh we knew a lady like that in Edson in the 50's. Quite tall. Very friendly. Not sure why anyone would care about something like that. Mind your own business I say." I'm not saying that people were more accepting in a general way. But the situation around trans identities were not yet politicized and polarized in the same way. Gayness was the political hot topic at that point. At best transness was basically ignored and at worst seen as an oddity. The older generation (as seen on Golden Girls) were maybe extremely ignorant but it wasn't something to freak out about, especially if it wasn't your own family.
@@oooh19 Are you serious? The person was trans and my grandma commented on her height merely as one of her characteristics. Or do you also think my grandma identified her as trans as well because she was friendly?
One thing that so helped Golden Girls was that it had a leaning towards being pro-gay due to many of the people involved in its creation. The girls were supportive of HIV victims and had friends and family who died of AIDS. Matt Baum goes into how much gay men loved the show and their involvement. Gay men might not always be great about trans identities, but they are more likely to have exposure to the trans community, which allows for increased likelihood of learning to be less judgy.
That reminds me the channel hasn't covered Don Mancini's Chucky doing well with casting Glen/Glenda in the current series on Peacock and Shudder. The representation is intentionally challenging but validating
The show was planned to be super gay but the butler got cut after the pilot episode. Still, my little trans ass saw Dorothy and decided fine. If I have to be a lady when I grow up I'm gonna be like the sassy smarty-pants grandma. Then as I got older I'd hear other celebrities joke that Bea Arthur is actually a man and she'd have the best comebacks like "what does your wife think? 😉"
the HIV episode i guess made Sophia's actress uncomfortable (since she was acting afraid of Rose during it) since she was a mom figure to a bunch of younger adult people/gay men in theater (referring to them as her kids) and had to see a few of them pass from HIV/AIDS, so portraying Sophia like that made her unhappy. But the editor for the scene where Blanche tells Rose 'its not a bad person's disease!' made him cry since it helped him feel validated- as he was gay and his partner was diagnosed with HIV (something along those lines- it was talked about in a retrospective of the series)
@@viewer409 No it isn't. Our day to lives might be different. But we are all members of the same community. Every time you try to drive a wedge between gay and trans people you do the work of bigots for them. Just stop it.
Every time I find out about a trans man character in an older show I am completely caught off guard since we are so chronically invisible, to the point that when I realized that something was different about me, I didn't even know that trans men *existed*.
For a while I stayed with my grandmother while my family found a place to settle. For a while, almost every night was spent watching HGTV and Golden Girls and eating popcorn. We used to watch them till about 11pm, to which I'd then go to my room and either stay up till 2 or go to bed. It was out 'Good Dream Routine'. I'm thankful for those memories and I'm even more thankful shes healthy and well.
holy shit, I've misunderstood the term "Indian giver" for about 20+ years now, lmao. My grandfather would to use that term all the time, and I once asked him what it meant. He told me: "someone who gives a gift, and then takes it back".... So my middle school brain took that as "This is a reference to the US, setting aside land for the natives, only to take it back when it was convenient". Ya know, like "one who gives to Indians". Never did it cross my mind that it was a negative stereotype for natives. Frankly, I never had the context to understand the term in any other way.
interesting that i spent my life thinking the same thing, i always thought that it meant the US giving to the natives, then stealing everything back from them. i googled it and apparently the US believed that the natives "gave" them the continent and then tried to take it back? like, i mean, that's some entitlement. such propaganda, i remember reading in a history book i had in school about how settlers "cleverly bartered" with the natives to get Manhattan Island for "$14 worth of trinkets" and it was written there as if to suggest they were massively proud of their business savvy. . .and yeah, now i see this is why capitalism took hold in the country. "virtues" being praised and desired, such as being able to swindle folks out of valuable assets because the ones holding those assets don't know the true value
Same. The reverse just makes zero sense to me and even as a child I never understood it. I always thought "Indian giver" meant "giving to (and taking back from) Indians" I still stopped using it a decade or so ago in part because it still felt mean spirited to bring the shit up, even if (in my mind at least) I was faulting white people, and in part because the language was moving away from 'Indian' in general. A lot of my indigenous friends still use it pretty freely but it just feels like their word to use and not mine.
I watched Golden Girls religiously with my grandma Yaya. Ever since i was little and visited, we'd stay up and watch a few episodes. She'd call us the golden girls. I ran away from my parents at 18 across the world and transitioned after many years of fighting attempted conversion. I still talk to Yaya and all she asked was "am i safe?" and "am i happy?" I'll be visiting her at the end of the month for the first time in 7 years and in her words "im the only golden boy allowed in the club." Kindness atttacts and cultivates kindness and i think genuinely we as a society are better for golden girls existing and im glad they'll remain even as i grow old and become a grandparent myself.
I am so happy your grandma Yaya is there for you and that you can be the Golden Boy in the club ❤ I'm proud of you for making it through all the hardship and I am so excited for you to be able to see her and have her accept you with open arms and safety and comfort
Just have to point it out, but: shocked that the episode surrounded a trans man. Of all things that surprised me, that was the biggest. Especially in the 80's! Like, sure- there were other trans episodes on shows in a similar time (and even some very affirming/supportive and well pulled off ones!) but by and large these episodes all share the same thing in common: they center around trans women. Any sort of positive trans rep at that time is great to see, but it's always a treasure when someone acknowledges that trans men and trans masc individuals exist (and share the same struggles in trying to assimilate in a cis/het focused culture).
Same!! I'm always surprised when trans men are acknowledged even in current media, so to see something that highlights us back in the 80's is as surreal as it is delightful.
That’s something I’ve noticed a lot of too, and it makes me really really want to find out why. Like somebody needs to make a video essay on this. Is it because cismen are more obsessed with trans women, due to the idea of being “tricked” into sleeping with them and “being gay”? What’s the proportion of trans women and men representation in media, and which tends to be more positive?
@@salem-01 I would say the focus on transfem rep and lack of trans masc rep both stem misogyny and toxic masculinity going hand in hand. In asian countries there are a lot of transfem character-but the caveat is that they’re pimps or prostitutes due to the disgust at the idea that trans women could possibly be someone they could sleep with; they’re the butt of a joke. it’s disgusting for a ‘man’ to want to denigrate ‘himself’ to be a women, even if there’s a significant transfem or amab community that presents as fem they are constantly in the spotlight for being against what a ‘standard man’ would represent. Meanwhile those who are afab are ignored due to them having less rights in general, not to say that there weren’t trans men, James Berry was a very prominent trans man in the 1800s, but those who are afab would not be heard because they were already oppressed due to their perceived gender under the patriarchy and lack of right to speak and their lack of right to be seen at all in general-because the world at large does not see them as men, their rights don’t matter, and because they are afab they don’t get to speak as they are supposed to be a subservient class (which in itself is an issue, as the amab transfems are held to an impossible standard and are looked at all the time due to not being perceived as women) an ‘incorrect man’ needs to be taken down a peg, meanwhile an ‘incorrect woman’ can be ignored since they’ll be locked in the kitchen anyway-does that make sense?
@@salem-01i honestly think it's patriarchy. To bigots what they perceive as women wanting to be men is natural, being a woman is inferior. And to be honest, they don't care about what who perceive to be women at all. For who they perceive to be a man to intentionally lose privilege and become the inferior being is threatening.
i feel like its important to note, that when golden girls was being made Most trans men were living stealth. and it was before the internet, so i feel like getting a trans actor for the role wouldve been extremely difficult if not impossible
Golden Girls is a gem of a show, I recommend it to all of my fellow queer friends that are sitcom fans. I don’t know a lot about the other actresses, but I do know that Bea Arthur was a pioneer queer advocate: she ran and funded homes for queer youth and safety. And I think the other actresses either tacitly or openly endorsed that as well. It is a product of its time, it isn’t the most progressive thing to exist. But man does it genuinely try. Like genuinely it tries to be good and woke and accepting. It’s amazing that a show from that era can be better about these issues than a show from like HIMYM.
All 4 of them were huge allies. I follow a lot of Golden Girls fan accounts, & during Pride month there were a lot of angry comments from bigots claiming that “the girls will be rolling over in their graves!” if they saw drag queens impersonating them etc. No, they’ll be rolling in their graves at the thought of homophobes & transphobes claiming to be fans of theirs!
Estelle Getty (who played Sophia) was also a staunch advocate of LGBTQ+ rights. She actually cared for her gay nephew when he contracted HIV/AIDS until his death. She later helped open a hospice for AIDS patients in her nephew's hometown, which apparently is still operational.
@@Silvermoon424Many of the writers & crew of the Golden Girls were young gay men. I can’t remember who it was or what his job was, but I remember hearing an interview with someone who worked on the show, and he said that when he was fairly new to the job, Estelle took him to one side and said something along the lines of “you don’t have to worry about being yourself. You’ll be safe here. You’re one of us.” When he asked what she meant by “one of us”, she said “gay!” The term “ally” wasn’t really used back then, and Estelle had so many queer people in her life that they referred to her as an “honorary gay”. Whilst terms like that are now outdated, I though that was such a sweet anecdote.
All of them were huge allies. They all worked actively around the AIDS crisis, raising funds, engaged in activism and education. I believe all of them started their careers in theatre as young women which goes a long way towards explaining their life long allyship.
I’m going through some transphobic bigotry at work. I hope more people would watch your videos to understand what we go through when they treat us in negative ways
Speaking of The Golden Girls there's a cartoon called "The Amazing World Of Gumball" who also did a parody of this show. And it's ALSO kinda a trans episode too!
LOL in a roundabout way sorta haha. i never thought of it like that, i mean “crossdressing” is sort of a huge part of the show and not even just for humor, it just happens a lot. even gumball himself has lots of moments where he wears dresses and in a season 1 episode he has on a cheerleader uniform and he isn’t even embarrassed about it, he loves it and the humor there isn’t that “oh boy in dress” it’s that he just doesn’t know how to be a cheerleader lol. gumball is like my fav show so i could go on about the queer stuff in that show cause there’s a LOT of
Having a show that came out in the 80s be better than many shows that came out 10, 20, even 30 years later shows how ridiculous it is to try an excuse those shows based on when they came out. Golden girls may not have handled it perfectly, but it shows that it was absolutely possible to be better than things that came after it
It's because it was funnier to treat trans people as a joke. Toxic masculinity was becoming a hot topic in those ages and trans people went against that; "they're not real [insert gender here], real MEN do [insert stupid stereotype here]" even if you were a trans women, you still have the short end because "real men" only date "real women". If women itself at this time were mostly sexualized, I'm glad we are out of those times. Oh by the way, this all happened in the US, I know outside the US things went different, in my country of Argentina waaaay better, like real good.
This show always had such a kind feel to it. Also, iirc the actresses (at least Betty White, Estelle Getty, and Bea Arthur) all had progressive views and engaged in social justice causes.
Rue McClanahan was too! She supported several LGBTQ+ causes, and one of her final performances was a in a one-off Broadway benefit show that protested against proposition 8.
I was so worried the golden girls had bad representation. I haven’t seen all the episodes, but I adored watching it with my mom! It’s so good to see how this show represents trans people well
@@BOGOworms4sale Golden Girls is not only pro-LGBT all the way but is one of the several shows that severely helped in normalizing the LGBT community in media towards the end of the 20th century. I believe when Dorothy’s actress died her will stated to donate most of her funds to homeless gays and lesbians who were kicked out of their homes by their parents for coming out.
dammit what do i have to do make this video get a million views. this sitcom is the reason i survived high school as a lil gay baby in appalachia. suffice it to say this show means a lot to me!!!! good video. good girls.
I’m indigenous and I grew up with the term “White man giver” I’d never heard the reverse before and I struggle to make sense of it since we weren’t the ones taking land, signing treaties to not take more land, and then taking that land anyways. Random tangent but these were the first thoughts in my head.
Having idioms that directly reference a version of history that didn’t actually happen, but would make colonizers look better if it had, is really effective propaganda. It’s not meant to make sense if you understand what actually happened.
I have no idea why the idiom exists but fwiw I know I at least was raised with the expression from a like tiny tiny age and I didn’t even find out the origin until I was in my 20’s and I saw some articles posted about it (and immediately stopped using it of course!) I think I questioned it once or twice because it did seem to be an odd expression but I figured it must have an innocuous origin if it was something my parents who wouldn’t generally use anything derogatory used casually to me when I was a little kid and just never knew, so it’s likely the writers had no malintent, but it still really sucks that it’s an expression and I do remember being really confused that it related to treaties when white people we were the ones who kept taking land away and changing things. Systemic racism’s a hell of a drug 😅
Some people are exceptionally good at projecting their own negative qualities onto others. Helps with dehumanizing and validating the mistreatment they do.
I grew up w/ the phrase, but my Mum said it was because the Pilgrims invited the Native Americans to Thanksgiving as a sign of generosity, then decided to take back that generosity & fuck them over. So... What I'm learning it means now feels gross. My Mum's interpretation makes way more sense, but I still stopped using it when the word "Indian" was getting open push back. [Still kind of confused, tbh, since most people I have talked to at reservations & cultural events refer to themselves that way, but I'd rather err on the side of caution as a white bitch lolol].
Golden Girls was one of my comfort shows while I was in the hospital after I had my son. He was in the hospital for over a month. I was scared for a lot of it even though he was kicking ass in the NICU, and Golden Girls was one of the things I was able to watch almost daily between the periods when he was awake and asleep. The show was amazing. Sure, there were iffy moments, but overall it's almost like the writers knew people in the queer community or something.
dennis prager ad for their new hate video immediately below this. Truly disgusting how youtube lets these people advertise their bigotry anywhere they want but still they claim to be "censored" and "canceled"
it's very refreshing in a sea of trans episodes that revolve around "finding out" trans people, that the punchline of sophia's plot this episode is that she clocked him being an italian
I feel like the vibe with a lot of Golden Girls episodes that focus on progressive things is that one or more of the characters will usually be starting in a place of ignorance or discomfort. The episode then shows how they deal with that, and often exists as kind of a road map for the people at home on how to respond. Like, it shows the fears, it sometimes shows disgust, but then the character works through that and lands in a more understanding place. Which my family has told me genuinely was very helpful for many issues they might not have understood at the time
me, a trans man who's half italian, seeing this episode: •.• also, the oldest trans person i know of was a roman empress! i believe she invented the whopee cushion
I think those 90s and early aughts shows you mentioned were just nastier in general. Transphobia, homophobia, fat-shaming, appearance-shaming... all these things were present in older shows to some degree, but it was more a reflection of the perception at the time. The later shows didn't simply REFLECT those views, they actively helped SHAPE them, by pointing them out and reinforcing common stereotypes as a way to get cheap laughs.
i also think it’s nice that the character (from what i can see; i haven’t watched the episode) got to come out on his own terms, or at least got to say it himself. i think it’s far too common for trans characters to be outed in some way, and while that’s an experience that deserves to be adressed, it’s often not handled with the grace that it deserves, and it’s just nice to see a character have some control over their own coming out.
Hey Lily! I love your content and there’s an episode that I think would be interesting for you to cover. Back in the mid 2010s, I was a huge fan of My Little Pony. I remember there being a gender-swap episode in it called “Brotherhooves Social.” Although it wasn’t actually about trans people, it has some jokes/moments with trans implications. This caused the episode to be pretty divisive, especially among trans members of the fandom. Some loved it and saw it as pro-trans, while others felt it was transphobic. I would love to hear your thoughts on it!
This could pair excellently with another mlp episode from a bit later than that one, Surf And/Or Turf It’s definitely more in the framing and coding than anything explicit, but choosing between two worlds can absolutely be a trans/nonbinary experience and I found myself relating a lot to that episode (it’s why my ponysona is a hippogriff)
On one hand this wpuld make for great content, on the other i get it if Lilly doesn't want to touch mlp with a tenfoot pole. People are really weird about it.
Yesterday I was watching "The Nanny" and found an interesting episode of where Fran dresses up as a guy (best makeup ive ever seen tbh) maybe you should give it a look? Season 2 episode 9
The Nanny was very progressive for the 90s. Considering the actress' heart was broken by her first husband (he was gay all was forgiven but it still must've hurt esp at the time) she could've gone full vengeance mode regarding the gay characters. She went George Lucas directing Willow instead, but a TV show. Nanny is my comfort show to this day.
@@falconeshield I'm watching the show honestly shocked at how well made it is. I'm glad it wasn't just a nostalgia thing for me, cuz the writing is great. I'm especially surprised how dark it is. Like the episode before the one I mentioned had her mom asking Niles if their owen was a gas owen. He said yes, and she stuck her head into it. 😭😭
I know someone out there has to have a time series for transphobic media depictions that accounts for the boom in consumable media, possibly by turing it into a %? IDK, but based on this series Lily appears to be right so far, and based on her series I hypothesize a kind of bell curve of good trans rep. Like, we go from few (surviving) mentions of transness at all, to a few diamonds of mediocre ok rep, to an explosion of terrible rep, then finally to where we are today with more rep that's actually good, but also a bunch of "you tried"-s and opem transphobia
there def is a bell curve, when i came out to my grandma she was 95 at the time, just a couple years ago, she was just like “are you sure you want this” me “yes” her “okay, i love you” based af grandma ❤️ miss her
oh right what i meant to add to this is yea boomers are the worst about it, while systemically we were most oppressed probably around when my grandma was growing up it seems like that generation really didn't care that much or at worst usually were just like “oh i don't like that” and moved on without making it so big a thing
It's so fucked up that after just a couple of days after this video came up, us looking at a show from the 80s about a trans mayor that got accepted. A mayor in Alabama got outed as trans and they killed themself. We keep thinking that we have advanced as a society and things are so much better now... But things are far from ideal.
I recently watched the 2010 movie "Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives" and found it to be quite interesting from the persective of media analysis. Despite initially expecting it to be cheap, shallow, and transphobic, I found myself enjoying it and recognizing a few interesting themes in it. While it has obvious flaws, it takes an interesting approach to portraying trans people, and I would love to hear your opinion on it.
im a junior in HS, and i’ve been bullied by teachers(only two thank god) for being queer and videos from people like Lily and content like hers is really reassuring. It’s nice to know I as a gay trans guy belong somewhere, if not where I am now, so thank you Lily, for making a community like this one. This channel and community restore my faith in humanity
As someone else who was bullied by teachers (even one is too many), it can really change you. I'm very glad that you have content and visible, positive creators. And sorry if this sounds trite, but you belong wherever you are - it's bullies that don't. You'll grow into an empathetic adult with a supportive community and they'll be stuck there, stagnant
Hey thanks for looking directly into a video camera and saying "slurs were still slurs in the 80s." I think it's something that has been left unsaid for too long.
I avoided this show like the plague and then about 6 years or so ago my late husband put it on for me and further inducted me into LGBTQIA-hood. I look forward to your videos and am so so happy you chose this because I've been thinking about him so much today and even though I can barely make it through the theme without crying I feel so warm and happy watching this it's like he's here with me.
Somehow everything in my life comes back to the golden girls. One of the first times I saw a trans man character on television and he was treated pretty well considering the time etc.
It really is. It’s my favourite show of all time. For my 40th birthday earlier this year I went to a drag brunch at a Golden Girls pop up restaurant in New York. The drag troupe were called The Golden Gays and they were awesome!
its one of my fav shows, only issue really is sometimes it does a little questionable joke about like dorthys crossdressing brother, but 99% of the time its just good cozy comfy show
@@pisscvre69 Spoiler alert for those who haven’t watched it: * * * Although Phil is never shown on camera and his crossdressing is often used as a throwaway punchline, the episode with his funeral is so heartbreaking. I thought they handled it with a lot of sympathy and nuance. Sophia feels like she failed as a mother that he son “turned out like this”, and resents Phil’s wife Angela for not stopping him from crossdressing and for respecting his wishes to be buried in black lacy lingerie. She accuses Angela of enabling him. Angela tells Sophia that there was nothing wrong with Phil, that he was a wonderful man and a loving, caring husband and father.
I'm hoping the "and if I stick my finger in it, I'll have to clean it off" was just Sophia thinking the worse and that it might be something dirty cause yk, politicians can be dirty and do dirty things and not an obvious gab at the trans thing
Just found you a few days ago and binged all your videos. Not sure if anyone else has suggested it, but Psych has a trans episode in the first season I believe. Absolutely love that show, but I don't think they handled transness in that episode very well and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Thanks for all you do!
Since you mentioned wanting to look into examples of trans rep from older shows, I'd recommend taking a look a Matt Baume's channel. He covers a lot of LGBT+ representation, particularly in older sitcoms. I know he's got videos on some of the first gay characters on television and I'm pretty sure he's got videos on some of the first trans characters as well. I would love to hear your perspective on more of the older examples of trans rep. :)
this might sound weird but did you get a good pic or anything of that drawing on the marker board? I would absolutely 100% buy a shirt from you with this exact drawing on it , it's so fucking good
Learning about this episode makes the Amazing World of Gumball parody episode of the Golden Girls even funnier. In that episode, Gumball and Darwin think their dad is cheating on their mom, when in reality he's just cross-dressing in order to hang out with a bunch of Golden Girls parody characters. It's absolutely hilarious and i would highly reccommend it
One of the best moments of this show was when Blanche said AIDS is not a bad persons disease...it is not God punishing people for their sins." So many public views at the time were incredibly dehumanizing and homophobic about HIV/AIDS but this show openly criticized religious excuses people were giving for why the epidemic was deserved.
I'd love to see an analysis of Absolutely Fabulous. It's an older show, and one of the stars has since come out and said that her character was trans. The actress is not, but the jokes and references were in the show frequently enough that it wasn't a "Dumbledore is gay!" moment.
I love this show so much! Watched it every night when I went to bed for over a decade! Love it even more since I discovered one of the staff on the show later in life came out as a trans woman!!
I'm old enough to have watched the show in the 90's. I'm french, i started with the dubbed version but we were fortunate enough to also get access to a subtitled version on television soon after. I was OBSESSED with that show. I can tell you: it really was groundbreaking at the time. As others said, the show was not always perfect, but wow, they really tried. And on top of that, it was really funny. Each episode was a delight. We didn't have the internet, so I knew nothing about the actresses' activism, I learned that pretty recently, and it got me very emotional. (I was a teenager during the aids crisis...)
John Schuck as a trans man. Interesting. He also co-starred with Sharon Gless (formerly of _Switch_ and later of _Cagney & Lacey)_ in _Turnabout,_ a comedy series about a couple who switched bodies via a magical object and then were unable to switch back.
I watched an analysis of an episode of The Love Boat from 1982 (S5 E15) that was really fascinating. It was super positive, lots to love in it. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it, if you ever get to watching it.
A very old comedy trope is to have things look like they're going to go one way and then veer in an unexpected direction. With Golden Girls that direction was often them being more progressive than one might assume given their ages.
All in the Family. The Jeffersons. Sanford and Son. Chico and the Man. Soap. Golden Girls. All of these shows were absolutely marvelous at taking contemporary social issues and thrusting them into the faces of the audience with a little insult and a little compassion; humanizing the social outcast for the audience to witness the response. The pilot episode of Golden Girls had a gay character. Women's rights, abortion, unwed motherhood, poverty, homelessness, domestic violence, mental illness, drug abuse, elderly abuse and so many other social dilemmas were all brought to the surface by this fantastic series. It would never be replaced.
I watched a PBS show (before moving from Florida into the post-bellum South, so the early 1970s) about a trans couple who met and married under their assigned genders and then confessed to each other that they wanted to transition; so they travelled to Sweden and transitioned together. I mean, what are the odds? They made an interesting _--looking_ couple, but the story was gratifyingly happily-ever-after, considering how coming out as trans most often works. I know transitioned people who remain friends with their former partners, but none who are still married to them.
I need to revisit this show now that I'm the age of the characters and have a different perspective than when I watched it as a teen in the 80s. 😅😩 My ex husband is also dead so we have that in common too.
You are absolutely invaluable on here. I appreciate everything you do for our community. I often get flustered trying to explain things to others but people like you who are so articulate and calm inspire the hell out of me. Thank you 💙💜💙💜
You should really review the Manga Welcome back Alice by Shuzo Oshimi, a mangaka who struggles with gender himself. It’s a manga that explores gender and sexuality in many ways, you can read the whole thing in an hour or so. The mangaka wrote an afterword explaining what he experienced himself as someone who felt like he was a girl but needed to be more masculine and it’s all really raw and interesting
Every time I see a video about this show it reminds me I need to sit down and actually watch it, I feel like I can see why everyone, even my age, seems to love it so much. (also please do an episode on Mr. Robot, please please please, it's such a mess and a mixed bag, and no one seems to want to really break it down through this lens)
i have nothing to add--you've covered this episode really well. i just wanna say that i love golden girls a lot. for all its flaws, episodes like this warm my heart 💕
Aw, not only was this so sweet, but it was really delightful that it was about a trans man, which seems far less common. What a nice change from so many of the shows you feature! Little question about the video itself: was the music playing at the end over the melancholy visual of dismantling your recording space by George Winston? I love his piano pieces and often listen to his albums (especially Winter into Spring and December) when I’m feeling wistful. It definitely sounded like him. Anyway, good luck with the move, I know well how stressful that is.
Thank you for revisiting this. I'd been looking forward to your take on it, and realized while watching that I'd remembered it wrong (haven't seen it since it aired way back). I remembered it as being much more cruel & dismissive somehow, like the trans man was the sole butt of the joke. But as usual, the Girls read the situation differently. So again, thank you ❤️
I watched this show a lot with my grandma so it’s very nostalgic for me and I don’t remember this episode so I’m intrigued to see how they handle this topic ❤
I've also suggested that! I've only ever seen clips of it as I don't think The Jeffersons ever aired in the UK and I can't find the full episode online anywhere. From what I've seen and heard, aside from George's initial reaction (which is to be expected, especially from a show of that era, plus his character was meant to be a jerk), it was really sympathetic. It was written by Norman Lear who is now 101 and still working! He's producing a comedy called Clean Slate starring Laverne Cox. It's about a trans woman who reunites with her estranged dad (who doesn't know she's trans). I'd usually be apprehensive about a sitcom with that premise, but knowing that Laverne Cox is starring gives me hope. Plus Norman Lear has been commended for his allyship, and he did a great job with One Day at a Time.
@@CarysCreatesThings oh that’s so cool that you knew about it too and thanks for that additional info! I actually saw the episode literally 3 months ago and was like “lily would need to see this” but I forgot to suggest it. I resaw the episode on RU-vid but I just looked it up and I think maybe it was taken down. I didn’t want to give my thoughts up to not spoil the ending, but I thought it concluded very well.
@@IsraelLlerena There's an official RU-vid channel called The Norman Lear Effect that regularly uploads episodes of his sitcoms for a limited amount of time. I wonder if that's where you saw it? I hope they upload it again!
I've actually been rewatching this series recently. I'm a 38 year old fan of the show and it's been my go to TV comfort food for a looooong time. Here in the US it went into syndication in the 90s and stayed throughout the 2010s. It was often uploaded to youtube before they got AI that automatically banned the uploading of entire episodes and then it was finally added to streaming services. It's always been available to me when I needed it. I agree the show is one of the better aged series from this time period. But I find that a lot of the humor is downright cruel. One of Bea Arthur's relatives said in an interview some time after her passing that the reason she left the series is because the humor aimed at her character (Dorothy) was very personal, constantly attacking her height, her deeper voice, her shoe size, and her sex appeal. The chronic butt of jokes about how she disgusts men just by existing, so on and so forth, it's not hard to see how abusive it is and in many ways it's amazing she lasted 7 seasons. If you pay close attention there is a shift in Bea starting around season 4. The spark and joy and enthusiasm of playing her character suddenly seems absent and there's almost a touch of misery in nearly every line. The humor aimed at her co-stars Betty White (Rose) for being an air head, Rue McClanahan (Blanche) for being a floozy and fat, and Estelle Getty (Sophia) for being old was all untrue. Estelle was the youngest member of the main cast for example and Betty White is not an airhead. Knowing how much it ate away at Bea Arthur being on the show and how she got personally insulted in some of the most cruel ways almost every episode makes it harder to watch. But then you have the show's treatment of fat people, particularly the episode where Blanche's obese daughter Rebecca comes to visit. Ironically, the storyline of the episode is about how abusive Rebecca's fiance is and how she deserves better. And while it is true that her fiance is quite cruel to her, Blanche and friends are hardly any more kind and I was left being upset with them almost as much as Rebecca's fiance. And then later when Rebecca appears in the series again she's recast as stick thin. The cruelty towards heavy people is pretty consistent throughout. There's also the show's problematic messaging around sexual harassment, which is that it's okay and even funny when a woman does it to a man like in the episode where Blanche mistakenly gropes a cop multiple times because she thinks he's a stripper, even after he tells her repeatedly to stop. Another issue with that scene is that apparently because she thought he was a stripper his consent didn't matter. All these examples just reinforce the general social consensus of that time period on all of these things so their inclusion isn't all that surprising in the end. It was nice to see you point out the bit where Rose uses a slur on Blanche that is associated with the indigenous peoples of North America. It really saddened me to see just how much Betty White's character is linked to stuff like that. I don't remember all the instances but there's one where she's with her girl scout troop (Sunshine cadets) and puts on a feathered headdress and starts doing a war cry. There is a surprising amount of content that is awful towards First Nations people and culture in throw away lines or scenes. As for the trans episode, yeah it was a bit sketchy at times, especially the dirty finger bit towards the start, but it was nice that the episode managed to be mostly respectful of Gil's being trans once it was made public. Honestly, seeing all these things (and more) has made this show a bit harder for me to enjoy and the odds are good it will stop being on my list of TV "comfort food" shows. I laugh a lot less while watching it and instead find that I am constantly surprised or disappointed at the cruelty of much of the humor. I've also come to realize the deeply negative subconscious impact that cruel, judgmental humor in the show had on me as a tall, heavy trans woman. There are still some genuinely funny scenes and touching moments in the series. But they get fewer and farther between for me the older and more aware I get. And while it's a bit sad, that's also a good thing. I wish I'd seen it all sooner but I'm glad I see it now. Anyway, great video on the trans episode for the Golden Girls. I'm definitely going to have to check out more of your work. 😁
I'm honestly amazed my parents let me watch this show when I was young. Fortunately, they did, and both my parents and I are still fans 35+ years later. (Mom still has issues with intolerance, but she's slowly getting better. Dad really doesn't care. He's always been good about judging by the content of character.) ETA: also, since you mentioned her, Christine Jorgenson was gorgeous. Love her, love her, love her so much.
Wow, I didn't expect a trans episode from 1988. Thanks so much for talking about this. I didn't know much about the Golden Girls, but I've heard great things.
The Golden Girls had a lot of queer writers, and the show creator already dealt with Trans topics in the “SOAP” sit con, so she knew how to write queer stuff. TGG also was something impressive to have during the 80s, a show about older women, a show that brought many LGBT+ topics during one of the most conservatives times of the USA.
