Sex and death and St. Olaf: deconstructing the magic of The Golden Girls

Abstract

The Golden Girls (NBC 1985–1992) is one of the most successful sitcoms of all time. Its enduring, global appeal defies rational explanation, and is frequently attributed to the show’s ‘magic’. This article seeks to somewhat disenchant The Golden Girls’ unfathomable success by conducting a critical discourse analysis, as formulated by Fairclough. The show’s content will be situated in relation to contemporaneous political ideologies and cultural developments, and its uses of humour will be dissected with particular reference to humour theory and to contemporaneous feminist thought. It emerges that the characters’ living arrangements are commonly associated with much younger people, that their age makes possible an unprecedented bawdiness, and that their humour is simultaneously masculine and teasing, and feminine and egalitarian. The show furthermore incorporates both the dominant conservative ideological currents of the 1980s, and then-emerging feminist ideologies. The show can thus be argued to appeal to young and old, male and female, conservative and liberal viewers. In addition, it will be pointed out that there exists a significant overlap between The Golden Girls’ dominant discourses and the philosophical tenets underpinning the United States and, to varying extents, many other countries. This ideological resonance, along with careful scripting, is likely to account for the show’s timeless success.