apparently, Blaire was quite the bitch, even from the 1st episode, and taunts the boyish Cindy all but calling her a dyke. granted, she wasn't wrong, Cindy is a baby dyke, but it was quite shocking to see it addressed on a sitcom from 1979 (almost as shocking as watching Mrs Garrett making out with her ex in episode 3). Mrs. G didn't really help matters when she was consoling the poor dykling by telling her of all the other sporty, yet normal, women of the day: Billie Jean King, Martina Navartilova and Nadia the Romanian gymnast. c'mon Edna, why not just hand the poor kid a toolbelt and give her a mullet. but, naturally, it was all explained away that being a girl who hugs the other girls and doesn't like boys and is good at sports is just a phase that she will grow out of, someday. or, in the last 10 minutes of the episode (when she wins runner up in the Harvest Queen Contest, second to Blaire, and gets a jolt after being winked at by the campus heartthrob).i'm a little miffed that Cindy wound up being just a tomboy. now, don't get me wrong, i'm not trying to Gay-up another piece of American pop-culture history, i just think it woulda been a bit more realistic. i mean, think about it: Eastland was an all girl school in upstate new york. though you only saw a small cross section of the student body (the girls in Mrs. Garrett's house), there were still 10 girls; odds are pretty good that one of them was a playing field hockey for the other team. now, i know...sitcoms of the 80's weren't that progressive, but the topic was addressed (though nobody actually used the L word), the least they coulda done was follow through. y'know?
maybe they're just saving it for when Jo rides into town. now there is a dyke to reckon with.
"Jo was such a lesbian. Didn't you think she was going to fuck Blair?"~Margaret Cho
3 comments:
Mrs. Garrett (aka Charlotte Raye) played Mrs. Peachum in the 1954 Off-Broadway revival of "The Threepenny Opera." At least Bea Arthur, her Threepenny costar, played a character with some more chutzpah (Maude) when she made her way to TV.
I have a love hate relationship with pilot episodes. I mean, it's like a year book from ten years your past. You look at it and you're all "Dang, we were so sad then."
I loved Natalie. Loved!
Yeah I heard when Blair had her first Baby that critics were speculating that Jo was the Dad.
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