Dorothy Zbornack's The Golden Girls

“Thank you for being a friend. Travel down the road and back again. Your heart is true, you're a pal and a confidant.” The beginning of this theme song belongs to the popular television sitcom The Golden Girls. Picture it, Milwaukee 2017, over three decades after the first episode aired, the show is still one of the most progressive series on air. The show sought to address important issues in society that other shows had neglected to tackle. In doing so, four aging women who quickly became lifelong friends portrayed societal injustices and inequalities among their everyday lives in ways that used humor as a catalyst to make these issues more palatable for the viewers. These four ladies; Dorothy Zbornack a divorced substitute teacher from Brooklyn,

The entire premise of the show is based off of four women who are thriving and surviving after marriage. The show drove home the idea that there is life after 50, with its female empowerment at the forefront of most episodes. During the episodes the women would discuss career goals and ambitions, hobbies, struggles in everyday life and a very important subject to them which they discussed unapologetically, sex. The show portrayed these older women as powerful and sexual beings, which is a rarity in television. The Girls showed how important it is for women to stand up for themselves and be strong individuals who fight for a just society and equality for all. A course document labeled “3 Reasons why not to let Sexist Comments Slide” aims to address that when confronting bias it often leads to improved intergroup perceptions. This is something that the show consistently succeeds at confronting and addressing throughout the seven seasons. Topics from sexual empowerment, success and equality in the workplace, education, motherhood and the strength of women who are strong willed, supportive and loving of themselves and their friends arise in the show where they are confronting stereotypical gender disparities and using humor to break through to the audience. This is done by not only confrontation of the serious

This appears a few times throughout the show but one specific episode is titled Mixed Blessings and is about Dorothy’s son Michael who is engaged to a black woman nearly twice his age and there is a lot of mixed feelings from both families about the marriage. This episode is particularly important in showing that racism and prejudice isn’t just something that bad people are guilty of. What’s important is the recognition of these thoughts and attitudes and doing something to change. It also shows the complexity of racism and that with both families they have mixed feelings about race and what difficulties an interracial marriage could pose to the couple and their future. The couple’s mothers stress the importance of standing by each other when times are tough and that they may face certain challenges or discrimination based on the fact that one of them was white and the other black. This again is tied to an issue that is often stereotypically portrayed in television which usually ends up reinforcing negative stereotypes about races therefore perpetuating racism. When Sophia walks into the living room to find the two families discussing the matter of Michael and Lorraine’s engagement along with Blanche and Rose who are wearing mud masks, she jokes, “ What is this, a revival of Raisin in the Sun.” Not only does this add a little humor and lighten the situation at hand, but could pass as a tribute because the woman who portrayed