“I’ve been up for 72 hours. I had a breakthrough. I discovered a new form of writing. I will go down in history. First I wrote all day, then I tore it all up and then that night it came to me, and the words poured forth like liquid from a stream. It’s all gold. Just open it anywhere and the magic will touch you. But I’m so tired. I must sleep. I am too tired to sleep.”
Ya’ll don’t have any idea how fucking brave and needed these plot lines were.
This was before Ellen came out.
This was before civil unions.
This was before Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
This was when your ass could be fired, blacklisted, and shunned with no legal protections for even being hinted at being gay.
And the Golden Girls said “Fuck you, Fuck this, we’re doing it anyway.”
I think it should be noted that Blanche’s quote about AIDS is also “It is not god punishing people for their sins” and that the episode also deals with slutshaming.
I don’t know if people realize how much activism these women did for gay right and during the aids crisis. If you think about it they were all long established in Hollywood and Broadway. They had tons of friends personally affected and dealing with the aids crisis. Estelle Getty lost a nephew. I think they helped plant seeds in people who watched Golden Girls that helped make things a little more normalized and mainstream.
Sometimes I remember that Scarface and The Golden Girls are both set in 1980s Miami, and the idea of what an interaction between Tony Montana and Dorothy, Sophia, Rose and Blanche might look like makes me happy
Note the lucite bar stools, track lighting, recessed can lights, brass vertical strips below the bar, brass mirroring above the bar, and golden/honey wood. All popular in the 80s.
1981 house for sale - 13455 Crosspointe Drive, West Palm Beach, Fla.
What a peaceful place to eat breakfast! I love the rural view out the window in that last photo. You don’t see a lot of those wide-open, rural countryside views in southeast Florida these days. Not since the early/mid 80s, when the developers started buying the orange and strawberry farms west of Interstate-95 and paving them over for gated communities and strip-malls.
rewatching golden girls “sick and tired 1&2” (1989)
dorothy’s never vulnerable, uncertain, inarticulate or plagued with self-doubt. but in this episode the ensemble’s pillar of strength and wisdom begins to crumble, and no one with the power to help her can (or will) offer answers and relief. she’s sick. doctors tell her she’s fine, that her symptoms are just how everyone feels, when they age or when they’re unhappy. they send her away. dorothy realizes she has to advocate for herself, set her job aside, travel far from home, get second, third, fourth opinions while meanwhile she is too tired to wash her hair in the shower.
finally a doctor diagnosed her with chronic fatigue syndrome. the news she isn’t ok becomes vindication. validation of the struggles no one else thought were worth their time. dorothy even has the chance to confront one of the providers who failed her and says her piece.
that last bit is a great piece of revenge fantasy for the chronically ill. i revisited this episode after my own bout with diagnostic limbo, and over 30 years later, the frustrations live on. months of “i don’t know what’s wrong” or “nothing is wrong” or “you’re downplaying the role of stress in this” or “you need vitamins” or “you need to see a psychiatrist” or “conversion occurs when…” until a full cns mri and lumbar puncture showed i had inflammation in my spine and lesions all over my brain.
i don’t have chronic fatigue syndrome (though some floated the possibility), i have multiple sclerosis. which, for better or for worse, causes damage to the brain we can see. never was i so relieved to learn i had permanent brain damage and an incurable disease. cuz i knew i could get relief and stop feeling crazy.
almost every woman* i know with ms tells the same story: doctors were dismissive and told them they were on some spectrum of tired to stressed to hypochondriac. they got sent to a therapist before getting an mri. if depression were the primary presentation of ms, id understand, but there’s infinitely more. many of us go blind and/or lose the ability to walk. and they will still say to see a psych before even examining us.
early detection of progressive diseases like this matters because you cannot reverse brain and spinal damage from ms. you can only slow progression, calm flares, and treat symptoms. early detection is so important, so why don’t doctors take their patients more seriously?
little detail of this episode—the input from friends as to how dorothy should look for her doctors appointments eg how much makeup, to make her look the part of a sick patient, while the top neurologist writes her off and suggests she dyes her hair and revitalizes herself inside out. how many of us contemplate how “together” we will look in the hospital! will makeup make them like us more? does this outfit say im trustworthy? should i brush my hair when doing so makes my arm too tired i have to rest a couple hours? games u know are absurd as you play them
take away—feeling crazy and helpless is normal but it doesn’t mean you are crazy and helpless. if something is off, please don’t delay getting help, cuz the rest the world will definitely find ways to keep you from getting the treatment you need. your pain is real, and you deserve answers.
*around 75% of people with ms and cfs/me are women
How most people with invisible illnesses are treated by health care “professionals”
The Golden Girls didn’t fuck around
pls watch
honestly i really appreciated this scene when I first saw it bc it took me like two years to get a diagnosis for what’s wrong with me
Dorothy: Dr. Budd?
Dr. Budd: Yes?
Dorothy: You probably don’t remember me, but you told me I wasn’t sick. Do you remember? You told me I was just getting old.
Dr. Budd: I’m sorry, I really don’t–
Dorothy: Remember. Maybe you’re getting old. That’s a little joke. Well, I tell you, Dr. Budd, I really am sick. I have chronic fatigue syndrome. That is a real illness. You can check with the Center for Disease Control.
Dr. Budd: Huh. Well, I’m sorry about that.
Dorothy: Well, I’m glad! At least I know I have something.
Dr. Budd: I’m sure. Well, nice seeing you.
Dorothy: Not so fast. There are some things I have to say. There are a lot of things that I have to say. Words can’t express what I have to say. [tearing up] What I went through, what you put me through—I can’t do this in a restaurant.
Dr. Budd: Good!
Dorothy: But I will!
Dr. Budd’s date: Louis, who is this person?
Dr. Budd: Look, Miss–
Dorothy: Sit. I sat for you long enough. Dr. Budd, I came to you sick—sick and scared—and you dismissed me. You didn’t have the answer, and instead of saying “I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with you,” you made me feel crazy, like I had made it all up. You dismissed me! You made me feel like a child, a fool, a neurotic who was wasting your precious time. Is that your caring profession? Is that healing? No one deserves that kind of treatment, Dr. Budd, no one. I suspect had I been a man, I might have been taken a bit more seriously, and not told to go to a hairdresser.
Dr. Budd: Look, I am not going to sit here anymore–
Dr. Budd’s date: Shut up, Louis.
Dorothy: I don’t know where you doctors lose your humanity, but you lose it. You know, if all of you, at the beginning of your careers, could get very sick and very scared for a while, you’d probably learn more from that than anything else. You’d better start listening to your patients. They need to be heard. They need caring. They need compassion. They need attending to. You know, someday, Dr. Budd, you’re gonna be on the other side of the table, and as angry as I am, and as angry as I always will be, I still wish you a better doctor than you were to me.
Reblogging for any of my mutuals who’ve ever dealt with Dr. Budd.
It is a glorious celebration of all that is camp set to the fabulous Scissor Sisters’ song “Let Have a Kiki” This is what we were able to identify, see if you can add to the list:
-Last season of Rupaul’s Drag Race -Grease -Cher’s workout video -Jaime Lee Curtis’ movie Perfect -Ana Matronic on the Graham Norton show -Stayin’ Alive -Showgirls -Paris is Burning -Rupaul’s video for Supermodel -Smokey and the Bandit -Breakin’ and/or Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo -Queen’s Crazy Little Thing Called Love -Golden Girls -Andy Kaufman -KISS -Boy George -Mick Jagger -Terence Stamp -Michael Keaton -Bill Cosby -Donna Summer -Richard Simmons -Grace Jones -The Who’s Tommy -Tea and Sympathy -Miami Vice -Ronald McDonald -Cher
