Primetime TV Show 'The Golden Girls'
At the end of 1985-1986 primetime television season, The Golden Girls was one of the biggest
TV shows on the air, and that was after the conclusion of its inaugural season.
From there, the series would continue to stay at the forefront of audiences viewing habits. People were deeply invested in the lives of these four women: Dorothy,
Blanche, Rose, and Sophia. The show, behind these four female leads, presented a unique and previously ignored concept to the world of primetime television.
It tackled the perception, created by dominant ideology that women of a certain age are not sexual beings. The show juxtaposed this idea and centered on four women over the age of 50 living together as they figured out the next phase in their lives. Sex played
a vital role on the show, and these women were constantly portrayed as having sexual relations for their pleasure. These women did not stand as the signifier for their male other, as Mulvey (2012, p. 267) discusses, they are not “bound by the symbolic order in which the man can live out his phantasies and obsession through linguistic command.” Instead, they confronted those norms and were not the silent image in a patriarchal culture, but rather the signifier of a matriarchal culture where the men are the bearer for them. This paper looks to examine how female viewers view the characters as feminist sex symbols through their actions. The series provided a connection for female viewers, whether younger or older and this paper looks to gain insight from both of those groups.
TV shows on the air, and that was after the conclusion of its inaugural season.
From there, the series would continue to stay at the forefront of audiences viewing habits. People were deeply invested in the lives of these four women: Dorothy,
Blanche, Rose, and Sophia. The show, behind these four female leads, presented a unique and previously ignored concept to the world of primetime television.
It tackled the perception, created by dominant ideology that women of a certain age are not sexual beings. The show juxtaposed this idea and centered on four women over the age of 50 living together as they figured out the next phase in their lives. Sex played
a vital role on the show, and these women were constantly portrayed as having sexual relations for their pleasure. These women did not stand as the signifier for their male other, as Mulvey (2012, p. 267) discusses, they are not “bound by the symbolic order in which the man can live out his phantasies and obsession through linguistic command.” Instead, they confronted those norms and were not the silent image in a patriarchal culture, but rather the signifier of a matriarchal culture where the men are the bearer for them. This paper looks to examine how female viewers view the characters as feminist sex symbols through their actions. The series provided a connection for female viewers, whether younger or older and this paper looks to gain insight from both of those groups.