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The Golden Girls delivers on a number of levels. The characters are iconic, the jokes are sharp, and the performances are focused. But the show did more than deliver consistent laughs during its seven-year run. It stealthily provided primetime audiences with the most progressive look at gay issues on network television. For a show focusing on life after 50, Golden Girls went where few younger sitcoms dared.
That inclusivity was part of the show from the start, as the producers tried to include a gay houseboy on the show. Coco didn’t make the cut and disappeared after the pilot episode, but showrunner Susan Harris and the Golden Girls writers didn’t let that deter them from progressive storylines. Including the pilot, Golden Girls aired as many LGBT-themed episodes as it had seasons. The show introduced a trans man as a Miami politician (season three’s “Strange Bedfellows”), showed Sophia come to terms with her son Phil’s cross-dressing in a heartbreaking funeral episode (season six’s “Ebbtide’s Revenge”), and had fun with Miami mistaking Blanche and Dorothy as a lesbian couple (season seven’s “Goodbye, Mr. Gordon”). The show even tackled issues that faced the LGBT community, like AIDS and hospital visitation rights, in episodes without gay characters. Even though gay issues were taboo in the ’80s and early ’90s, Golden Girls’ didn’t shy away from them.
Golden Girls also did right by its gay characters. The two most memorable were Lois Nettelton’s Jean (season two’s “Isn’t It Romantic?”) and Monte Markham’s Clayton Hollingsworth (season four’s “Scared Straight” and season six’s “Sister of the Bride”). Jean, one of Dorothy’s college friends, is intelligent and warm, but quiet compared to the lead quartet. Clayton, Blanche’s younger brother, is just as “great looking, charming and irresistible to men” as his sister.
While neither Clayton nor Jean get many sidesplitting zingers, they don’t come across as caricatures. It’s essential to recognize that these characters were introduced in the ’80s (Jean in 1986 and Clayton in 1988), a decade defined by the AIDS crisis that led to the gay community being disregarded and condemned. In a time when people viewed homosexuality as a death sentence, both gay characters were played with dignity. With Jean, we see a woman in mourning for her partner — an emotional state that the girls relate to, having lost their husbands. The point, subtly made, is that Jean’s same-sex love and loss is the same as everyone else’s love and loss. Then we watch Jean come alive as she falls in love with Rose.
Golden Girls told a different storyline with Clayton, as the divorcee came into his own as a gay — and proudly so — man. He came out to his sister Blanche in 1988’s “Scared Straight” and, two years later, returned to announce his engagement to his partner Doug (Michael Ayr) in the episode “Sisters of the Bride.” Since most sitcoms up until this point only had one very special gay episode, Clayton is one of the few gay guest stars to get a return appearance. Clayton’s also important because he doesn’t back down. We see a gay man come out, define himself on his terms and then remain firm in the face of opposition from his sister.
“I spent a long time lying to myself,” says Clayton in “Scared Straight.” “It felt a lot better when I stopped. It feels a lot better being honest with you, too.” Two years later, Clayton pointedly tells Blanche that Doug loves him for who he is and not who he wishes he was. Blanche, smarting from the direct remark, replies that she “guesses” she deserved that. “I guess you did,” Clayton states. The Golden Girls wasn’t afraid to show Clayton stand up for himself and show that Blanche needed to move to his side of history instead of meeting somewhere in the we-just-won’t-talk-about-it middle.
Each of the four leads had different responses to Jean and Clayton. Dorothy, a born-and-bred liberal New Yorker, is the most comfortable with Jean and Clayton. She’s also the most sensitive to gay issues; She asks for Jean’s permission instead of just outing her to Blanche and Rose.
The always-blunt octogenarian Sophia is, surprisingly considering her staunch Catholicism, equally open-minded. She also possesses a focused gaydar (she knew Jean was gay decades ago and figures out Clayton’s secret after hearing him sing in the shower and asking him a trio of puzzling questions). The show gives Sophia the most succinct quotes gay/straight alliances. “Jean is a nice person,” Sophia says in the opening act of “Isn’t It Romantic?” “She happens to like girls instead of guys. Some people like cats instead of dogs. Frankly I’d rather live with a lesbian than a cat.” Later, in “Sisters of the Bride,” it’s Sophia that finally gets through to Blanche. She tells Sophia that she married George because they loved each other and wanted to make a lifetime commitment. “That’s what Doug and Clayton want too,” says Sophia. “Everyone wants someone to grow old with and shouldn’t everyone have that chance?”
Sweet and absent-minded, Rose admittedly didn’t know what the word lesbian meant (“I could have looked it up!”) when she learned Dorothy purposefully didn’t tell her about Jean. Jean reveals her feelings to Rose while she’s half-asleep in bed; after hearing Jean say “I’m quite fond of you,” a startled Rose starts to fake snore. The next morning, Rose doesn’t have time to talk over what this means with Dorothy before Jean starts to leave. What Rose then says is off the top of her head — a head that’s mostly filled with St. Olaf stories. Rose tells Jean, “I have to admit, I don’t understand these kinds of feelings, but if I did understand and I were you know, like you, I think I’d be very flattered and proud that you thought of me that way.”
It’s not a perfect statement. If she’d had time to talk with Dorothy, Rose may have realized that “these kinds of feelings” are just love — the same love she felt for her late husband Charlie. But still, what Rose says instinctively is important. Rose isn’t disgusted by Jean’s feelings, nor is she afraid of them. In fact, she wants Jean to stay, because she likes having a friend to go see matinees and talk about growing up on a dairy farm with.
Blanche is the most complicated of the four; She’s also confused about what a lesbian is (“Isn’t Danny Thomas one?” “Not Lebanese, Blanche — !”). When she learns Jean is one, she’s fine on the surface (“If that’s what makes her happy, fine by me.”). She’s not so fine when her brother, someone that isn’t just passing through for a weekend like Jean, comes out. She’s almost cruel to him when she narrows her eyes and tells him to “look me in the face and tell me you really are what you say you are.”
Like the relationship between many gay people and their families, Blanche and Clayton don’t make amends easily. Gay staff writers Marc Cherry and Jamie Wooten addressed Blanche’s complex attitude towards homosexuality in “Sisters of the Bride.” The other girls are downright puzzled by Blanche’s sudden homophobia relapse, but Blanche says, “I don’t really mind Clayton being a homosexual, I just don’t like him dating men.” Clayton points out how regressive this is: “Did you mean it was okay as long as I was celibate? As long as I didn’t fall in love?” Golden Girls showed two men in love and ready to get married decades before marriage equality. When last we see Clayton and Blanche in “Sisters of the Bride,” they’ve reconciled; Blanche, after making sure that Doug loves her baby brother, tells Clayton that she’s ready to have a new brother-in-law and the three of them hug it out.
While Golden Girls didn’t feature any gay characters in lead roles, it made strides with supporting characters like Jean and Clayton. By including smartly acted and written gay characters, ones that were treated with respect or fought for respect, the show helped celebrate gay relationships at a time when they were seen as deadly. These characters lived, mourned and loved just like everyone else. Perhaps more importantly, millions of gay kids over the last 30 years also got to hear a cranky Sicilian mother say the words they hoped to hear from their own loved ones:
“I’ll tell you the truth Dorothy. If one of my kids was gay, I wouldn’t love him one bit less. I would wish him all the happiness in the world.”
Brett White is a comedy writer living in New York City. His work can be heard at Left Handed Radio and seen at UCB1. He watches old sitcoms and tweets about them at @brettwhite.
