Friday

What 'Sex and the City'
owes 'Golden Girls'

A lot. This endearing oldie set the stage.

By Ed Robertson

   At first blush, “Sex and the City” and “The Golden Girls” may seem like two completely different shows.
   “Sex” is about vivacious younger women, while the gals on “Girls” are post-menopausal. “Sex” airs on edgy, ultra-hip HBO. “Girls” is in reruns on safe, comparatively bland Lifetime. Any comparison would seem ridiculous. right?
    But in fact, not only are both shows surprisingly similar, the success of “Sex” would not have been possible were it not for “The Golden Girls.”
   Take out the foul language, nudity, and the glamorous New York setting, and “Sex” is basically a show about the enduring friendship between four women.
   Men come and go, but Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha will always have each other. They love men, but their strength as women comes from their relationships with each other — and that bond is what keeps them together.
   That sort of strong rapport between women was rarely seen on television until “Golden Girls” premiered on NBC in 1985.
    Sure, there were a few “female buddy” shows throughout the ‘70s and early ‘80s, but the friendship angle on these programs usually fell second to convention. The relationship between Laverne and Shirley, Kate and Allie, or Cagney and Lacey was almost always subverted by slapstick, schmaltz, solving the crime, or some other plot device.
Even the friendship between Mary Richards and Rhoda Morgenstern, while clearly a benchmark among depictions of women on television, usually took a back seat to stories about Mary’s job or Mary’s relationships with men.
   “Golden Girls” changed all of that. Though a product of the ‘80s, “Girls” was a show with ‘70s sensibilities. It was TV’s first portrayal of women living together, growing together, and interacting with each other, day in and day out, in a truly liberated sense.
   Like their younger contemporaries on “Sex and the City,” Dorothy (Bea Arthur), Rose (Betty White), Blanche (Rue McClanahan) and Sophia (Estelle Getty) enjoy men, and actively date them, but they don’t necessarily need them in order to validate their lives. What mattered most, indeed what drove the series, was the relationship these women had with each other.
   That, of course, was the essential message behind the women’s movement of the ‘70s. Strangely enough, the closest television came to truly capturing this ideal prior to “Golden Girls” was the original concept for “Charlie’s Angels.”
   Before you laugh, remember that “Angels” was also originally conceived as a show about strong, intelligent, self-sufficient women. Unlike most TV heroines, the Angels didn’t need a man to bail them out of trouble. They were beautiful, yes, but they were also smart, and they used their wits to trump the bad guys.
   That idea was executed very effectively in the 1976 pilot — long before “Angels” succumbed to big hair, teeny bikinis and other glossy elements that eventually characterized the series (not to mention, the “girly-girl” movies starring Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu).
   “Golden Girls” won 10 Emmys and three Golden Globes in its day (1985-1992), while also finishing regularly in the household top 10. Yet it was often overshadowed by “Cosby,” “Hill Street Blues,” “Cheers” and some of the other more widely remembered NBC shows from the 1980s.
   That has to make the stunning popularity of “Girls” today particularly sweet.
   Like “Sex and the City,” “Girls” is a major hit on cable — the third most-watched sitcom in reruns today, following “Seinfeld” and “Friends.” Lifetime says more than 13 million viewers tune in every week, while last month’s reunion featuring Arthur, White and McClanahan was the highest-rated special in Lifetime’s 19-year history.
   And it’s not just older viewers who are watching. According to Lifetime, “Girls” is particularly strong among women in the 18-to-34 demographic, while more than 25 percent of the show’s fan mail comes from college students. Dorothy, Rose, Blanche, and Sophia may be up in years, but young viewers know that their outlook on life, as well as their antics, is every bit as outrageous as their counterparts on “Sex and the City.”
   Historically speaking, “Golden Girls” is a groundbreaking show that celebrates women as few series have. As a timeless classic, it will likely continue to do so for years to come.

Ed Robertson is a writer from the San Francisco Bay Area who covers television.

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