Nostalgia Ultra: Is Girlfriends As Good As We Remember?
We’re rounding out month eight of quarantine and it’s safe to say we’ve adjusted to the new normal. Our core circles, hobbies, and habits have been revealed. Some of us have gotten into the best shape of our youth, others have gotten quarantine thick, but we’ve all tapped into our selves on a deeper level. This includes rediscovering things we knew and loved like our favorite tv shows. What a year it has been for streaming. It’s a good time to be Black and sexy with all the old and new material resurfacing on the market. One show that got me incredibly hype was… myyy Girlfrieennnddssss. As of daughter of Los Angeles, I absolutely loved this show growing up! I was in awe of how beautiful and stylish these women were and I could not wait to be grown and doing grown things like them. But now that I am grown, this show is hitting a little different. Here are my thoughts through my 2020 Black Woman Vision.
01. Were they even really friends though?
The nucleus of this show is friendship. A cinematic depiction of what it’s like life-ing with your soul sisters. The highs, the lows, the twists and the turns of adulting as a Black woman…woo Chile! But what seemed to be evident a few episodes into the season is that these women were terrible and toxic to each other. Maya was a caricatured abuser of her friend’s kindness and often took the opportunity to hit them where it hurt when they were down. Lynn was a co-dependent outlandish user whose personality was much like her character…underdeveloped. And Toni, Toni was the type of person who would run off family let alone friends. Her narcissist, sporadic, and spiteful behavior was exhausting at best and catastrophic at worst. She was the obvious villain and there was many an occasion when we would have had to throw hands, but truthfully none of them could’ve been my friend. They treated the protagonist Joan Clayton like a punching bag; taking every chance to jab at her singleness, past mistakes, and quirky nature. To me, she had the most redeemable qualities, though Joan was definitely not without reproach, which brings me to my second point…
02. Why was Joan’s character so annoying?
Joan Clayton played by the gorgeous Tracy Ellis Ross was a beautiful successful lawyer. She had a great job and later a successful business, a beautiful home in LA, and a strong core group of friends. That’s a full life If i’ve ever heard of one, but she was hyper-focused on her singleness. Obsessing about every guy that gave her any type of attention. She tried it all in her search for love dating a sex addict, professional athlete, and her best friend William and it was all mostly cringey to watch. It was embarrassing how much this woman obsessed over marriage, playing dress up, proposing to men, changing her whole personality to mend with potential suitors. While I get the point they were trying to drive home, I wonder if it was necessary to make her so insufferable . Her character surely highlighted just how crucial a woman’s ability to partner is to her worth in society, because a woman bringing as much to the table as Joan should not have been that damn insecure. P.S. Why didn’t she get with the restaurant owner with the bomb crab cakes?…Ugh cursed missed opportunity!
03. Can Black women have happiness?
One thing that bothered me, is it seemed like they could never be truly happy. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another. Joan got a man, oh turns out he’s a sex addict, or has a kid on the way, or doesn’t want kids, or gets called to Iraq right after he proposes. Maya and Darnell get their dream home, but it’s in the boonies. Darnell get his new job, but he hates it. Lynn finally finds her calling in music but her label doesn’t know what to do with her. And Joan and Tony, well they fell out in more ways than one, in more season than one. I know that’s how life goes sometimes, but I would’ve like to see good news stick to the wall for longer than a few episodes.
04. This show walked so others could run.
Looking back, this show was not as magical as I remember it. The humor was a little white-washed, the characters were often problematic, and they leaned in hard to some harmful tropes. Nevertheless, it was still an impactful show that defined a generation and showcased four very different types of Black women who are familiar to us all. It talked about our issues in life, love, stress, setbacks…and friendship! It offered something to relate and aspire to and was the blueprint to many of the great shows we know and love today. Most importantly, it gave us one of the best theme songs in television history.
Despite all this, the biggest disappointment of this series is how it ended, or should I say how it didn’t? The fact that the longest running live action sitcom on network television, simply ended with no series finale, no resolution, and no closure for it’s fans is SAD. Though it was probably time for the girls to hang it up, putting the show to rest properly was the right thing to do. Even though there was a writer’s strike and a myriad of other issues boiling behind the scenes, I know justice and a proper ending would have been served for a non-Black show of this caliber.
Flaws and all, this was a great time in television! Girlfriends was funny, aspirational, and at times very real. It’s me, my cousins, my mom, and my own girlfriends and though I am sad about the way it ended, I am glad it exists.
Until next time Girlfrans,
XoXo
DotCom