Golden girls together again9/1/2023 “For her it was like a comfort watch.” (Speaking of which, in the month of April 2020, at the height of Covid-19 anxiety, Hulu reported that The Golden Girls was one of its most streamed shows, with nearly 11m hours of views.) “We grew up watching The Golden Girls with our mother,” she says. Parker has come to Golden-Con in costume, as Rose, along with her three sisters as Blanche, Dorothy and Sophia. “You know,” she says, “it was the 80s, and I think we’ve learned a lot since then.” ![]() “Like how they made Marguerite a voodoo priestess.” But as a fan she is willing to cut the show some slack. “They had some highs and some lows,” agrees Catrina Parker, the Black host of the Quirky Pop podcast. The Golden Girls wasn’t always as great in its representation of people of colour, however – not least in the 1987 episode The Housekeeper, in which the “girls” believe that a Black housekeeper that they fired has put a curse on them. “Susan Harris, the creator, gets all the credit for that.” ![]() Nevertheless, “we always maintained the mandate of being funny,” says Terry Hughes, who directed 108 of the show’s 180 episodes, on the phone from his home in California. The Golden Girls famously tackled controversial subjects – homophobia, gay marriage, Aids, ageism, sexism, slut-shaming, single motherhood, erectile dysfunction and sexual assault, to name a few – with storylines that showed its characters sometimes being the victims of bias and other times confronting their own bigotry and overcoming it. So it felt like the recognition we needed.” The show “was kind of queer-coded,” agrees David Cerda, 61, the artistic director of Chicago’s Hell in a Handbag theatre company and a member of yet another Golden Girls-inspired drag comedy group. “It’s all about acceptance and being who you are, and as a gay man growing up in the 90s, you didn’t get that message a lot. “The Golden Girls was ahead of its time,” says Peter Ower, 38, a Chicagoan who has come to Golden-Con with friends. It’s all about acceptance and being who you are Hudson, 45, originally envisioned the event as a smallish gathering for superfans like himself and co-founders Brendan and Brad Balof, but after he sent out a press release, he says, “it went viral.” With tickets ranging from $35 to $400, and with the entire convention costing about $200,000 to put on, Hudson said he’ll be surprised if they break even this year, but “it was a labour of love.” The Golden Girls was ahead of its time. Last year, most of the attendees were women in their 40s and 50s, “and then of course gay men”, says the organiser, Zack Hudson, and this year’s demographic seems very similar. The death in 2021 of Betty White, who played the lovably empty-headed Rose, means they have all gone to the great houseshare in the sky: Estelle Getty, who played Dorothy’s mother, Sophia, in 2008, Arthur in 2009 and McClanahan in 2010. Mingling with the fans are many of the show’s writers, producers and cast – though, regrettably, none of its leads. The original Golden Girls, from left: Rue McClanahan, Bea Arthur, Estelle Getty and Betty White. For this, Cynthia Fee, the bluesy original singer, is joined by Aaron Scott, the young man who in 2017 became a social media sensation with his passionate gospel version. On the opening night, they enjoy a performance by another Golden Girls drag troupe – the Golden Gals Live!, starring Ginger Minj of RuPaul’s Drag Race – that is so funny you wish the youth of Tennessee could see it, and cheer a rousing duet of the show’s theme tune, Thank You for Being a Friend. More than 1,000 people have come from as far away as Australia for these three days of celebration and homage. Dressed in a voluminous green velvet skirt suit for his impersonation of Dorothy – the tall, stern teacher played by Bea Arthur – Schmidt barks at a contestant, “Just punch her in the face and she’ll leave!” It is flawless Golden Girls shtick – outrageous and comically offensive. “This is a bloodbath!” exclaims Jason B Schmidt, a member of the drag comedy troupe the Golden Gays, hosting the night’s event.
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