The Golden Girls x Sex Positivity with Marshall Watson

Over the course of its seven seasons, The Golden Girls had 25 million viewers and earned 68 Emmy nominations. Each of the girls, Rue McClanahan (Blanche Devereaux), Bea Arthur (Dorothy Zbornak), Estelle Getty (Sophia Petrillo) and Betty White (Rose Nylund) won Emmy's for their performances and more than three decades later, the show is still in syndication. All to say, the show was popular! Beloved friend of the pod and The Golden Girls super fan, Marshall Watson (he/him), joins Hannah and Marcelle on this episode to talk about the progressive politics of show, the social issues that were at the center of its stories, and the reason(s) many queer kids, Marshall included, found comedy, representation, and hope from "four old queens" in the late 80s and 90s.

A note about content: This episode focuses on the HIV/AIDs crisis and the decades-long failure of the American government to provide funding, resources, and care to marginalized communities most impacted by the virus. If you need to skip this episode, we understand and encourage you to take care of yourself!

Quick Links:

https://www.actuporalhistory.org/

https://www.dukeupress.edu/we-are-having-this-conversation-now

You can learn more about Material Girls at instagram.com/ohwitchplease! Want more from us? Check out our website ohwitchplease.ca. We'll be back next episode with a Material Concerns episode, but until then, go check out all the other content we have on our Patreon at Patreon.com/ohwitchplease! Patreon is how we produce the show and pay our team! Thanks again to all of you who have already made the leap to join us on Patreon.

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Material Girls is a show that aims to make sense of the zeitgeist through materialist critique* and critical theory! Each episode looks at a unique object of study (something popular now or from back in the day) and over the course of three distinct segments, Hannah and Marcelle apply their academic expertise to the topic at hand.

*Materialist Critique is, at its simplest possible level, a form of cultural critique – that is, scholarly engagement with a cultural text of some kind – that is interested in modes of production, moments of reception, and the historical and ideological contexts for both. Materialist critique is really interested in the question of why a particular cultural work or practice emerged at a particular moment.

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