If you’ve been following my writing career for any length of time, you know one thing about me: I’m a huge fan of The Golden Girls. It’s the one show that I know I can always turn to and it will give me the comfort that I need when I’m stressed. For a long time, it seemed that this series was doomed to never attain the sort of iconic status as had many other sitcoms, but the last decade has seen a flowering of the fandom, and there are now numerous books out there shedding light on the series, including Matt Browning’s new book, The Definitive "Golden Girls" Cultural Reference Guide.
When I first heard that Browning was going to be releasing this book, I was tremendously excited. Though in many ways The Golden Girls is a timeless show--with a humor that still feels fresh even now, thirty years after it left the air--there are quite a few of the jokes that sometimes go over the head of younger viewers (including, I’m sometimes ashamed to admit, myself). After all, the series wasn’t afraid to tackle many of the issues that were very much in the public consciousness of the time, so it makes sense that it would also draw on contemporary culture in its jokes.
Fortunately for all of us, Browning is there to save the day. From the first page of his book to the last, he leads us through the many cultural references that permeate the show. Browning provides us with an episode-by-episode breakdown, giving us a summary of the episode in question and then a listing of the various allusions, with an explanation as to their meaning and context. Sometimes, the explanation is just a few sentences, while at others it’s more detailed, helping us to appreciate not only why it appears where it does, but why it’s so funny.
This is, I think it’s safe to say, an absolute must-have for both casual and devoted fans of the show. Though you can certainly continue to enjoy the show without necessarily “getting” each and every one of the jokes that it throws your way, I do think that books like Browning’s go a long way toward helping even those of us who consider ourselves Golden Girls experts to grasp some of the humor, which is often far more layered and complex than we realize. Obviously, I’ve always been of the opinion that The Golden Girls is one of the funniest and best-written sitcoms to have ever aired on American television; now I have ample evidence to show why that is the case. I dare you to name one other show with the same deft and textured humor.
As I’ve long argued, The Golden Girls should be appreciated not just as a series that has withstood the test of time in a way that I’m not sure it’s creators or stars ever expected, but also as a series that managed to be topical without beating its viewers over the head with it. Matt Browning’s book allows us to see just how many cultural references the writers were able to work into a given episode, most of which fly right past us, so caught up are we in the battle of words and wits that occupy so much of each and every episode. His book shows us that there is a lot of value to be gained in really sitting with a television show and digging into the nitty-gritty, giving us a new way of appreciating what the series was able to accomplish.
Furthermore, I also think it’s important to situate The Golden Girls in its historical milieu. As a tried-and-true historicist, I’ve long been of the belief that we can only fully grasp what a series meant for its audience if we understand what was going on at the time. Given the tremendous changes that have swept over all aspects of the American cultural landscape in the past forty years (remember that the show debuted in 1985), the 1980s is in some ways a moment that has passed and can never be recaptured (to paraphrase Blanche’s dismissal of Ham Lushbough). Even those of us who were born in the ‘80s would struggle to remember seeing a Fotomat, but not to worry, Browning has us covered (it was, as its name suggests, a photo-development kiosk business that was once very widespread nationwide). Likewise, there are entire store chains that, as a result of the changes in American commerce, have gone the way of the dodo, preserved only in the jokes in The Golden Girls and Browning’s simple and elegant explanations.
Time and again throughout the book Browning gives us this kind of invaluable historical context, explicating events that are referenced in the show that took place within the lifetime of the characters (and, presumably, the audience) and whose currency has faded with the years. Take, for example, Browning’s entry on the Bay of Pigs. Most of us younger fans learned about this important event in our history classes, but most of us didn’t live through it.
In some ways, then, The Golden Girls, and Browning’s reference guide, are a perfect sort of time capsule, immersing us in an age that has begun to recede into the mists of history. To my mind, the mark of a truly great book, whether about my favorite series or anything else, is whether or not I learn something new from it. I have to admit that I did, in fact, learn a great deal from The Definitive “Golden Girls” Cultural Reference Guide.
For some time, I was a bit of a jealous and stubborn fan, unwilling to read a book about the series that I didn’t write. Recently, however, I’ve begun immersing myself in the commentary surrounding The Golden Girls. To my surprise, I’ve found that books like Browning’s--as well as podcasts like Enough Wicker--have enhanced and enriched my appreciation of my beloved Golden Girls, showing me new depths and complexities that I didn’t realize existed.
High praise, indeed.
I wholeheartedly agree -- couldn't believe how much I learned from this guide, even though I *should* know all of the now-ancient references! (P.S. -- thanks for the shoutout to Enough Wicker, too :) )