Has anyone else noticed that recently many, many gay men seem to be rabidly obsessed with The Golden Girls? Is it just me? Do you notice this phenomenon as well? What’s going on?
Um, when I said, “is it just me?” I was asking if it was just me who noticed this trend. For the record, I am not a gay man obsessed with The Golden Girls. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
There’s a Bea Arthur joke in there somewhere. Hopefully a person more clever than I will come along and make it.
Hmm, never noticed that, but then the guys I hang out with are much more into Monster Garage and American Chopper, partially because they’re into bikes, and partially because Jesse James and the muscle daddy on AC are hot!
The only gay man I personally have ever known who was obsessed with Golden Girls was Bea Arthur.
For the same reasons (some) gay men are “obsessed” with Designing Women, or Joan Crawford, or Bette Davis, or any of the other so-called “gay icons.” Part of it is that gay men, since they are not considered to fit the conventional definition of “masculine,” can’t/don’t look to male icons and so instead look to images of strong women. I think as more and more strong gay male role models emerge gay men will look less to women for modeling/inspiration.
There’s also the camp factor (which discussion is continuing apace in another thread so I won’t get into it here) and the fact that generally speaking GG was a reasonably entertaining program.
FTR I watched the show when it was on and catch the occasional repeat but I wouldn’t call myself obsessed with it by any means.
And the winner for Most Disturbing Visual of the Day goes to…
I’m straight and love the Golden Girls.
Most of my female friends also love it. They call it “The Girls” and always watch it when it’s on.
As a side note, I’ve found it to be extremely entertaining to watch it and pretend that there’s no laugh track. All the actresses have a dead-pan delivery, so you can amuse yourself by thinking they’re serious and it’s some sort of twisted drama.
It’s kind of been covered. The camp factor, Bea Arthur, etc.
But think about it.
Here are four women, only two related by blood who form a “family” like many gay roommates. They don’t have high paying jobs, but dress to the nines, and are constantly talking about the men they go out with.
Sounds like every other house in the Castro.
Oh yeah, I’m a gay man. I thought the first season was amusing, but have never watched it since.
I ain’t gay, but I’ll always give The Golden Girls a shot because Blanche is totally hot.
The gay guy who lived in my dorm Freshman year had the entire series on tape. However, I never got around to asking him why he liked it so much.
I guess I just always assumed that gay people are issued some sort of pamphlet with the correct television shows to watch. Some of these responses have proven me wrong, however.
Odd. I came across an article on this subject in gay magazine three days ago. The writer suggested gay men like the Golden Girls, because that’s how we imagine our old age: with a chosen family, kvetching about men and drowning our sorrows in shared cheesecake.
For the record, I haven’t watched it since I was a kid. The only queer content I remember is some confusion between “Lebanese” and “lesbian,” and that a sculptor all the girls had a thing for turned out to be gay.
Even still, I’m going to file this away with my dollhouse and my dislike of sports, under “early signs” 
I can’t get enough of Rose’s St. Olaf stories. Right up there with the best of Gracie Allen’s monologues.
What’s the difference between Bea Arthur and a shoe?
If I had too, I could eat a shoe.
There was one where two of the ladies (Blanche and someone else, probably Dorothy.) went on a talk show under the topic of “Women who Live Together,” thinking it was a roommate type thing, but realizing once the cameras started, that it was a show on lesbians. Hijinks ensued.
One of my friends has a gay co-worker, who she refers to as her “queer eye guy”, constantly quotes from Golden Girls to other office folks. She has told him that no straight guy is going to have a clue what he is talking about. After an unscientific poll, she determined she was correct.
I had meant to post this very question for a while, but never got around to it.
Weird…
I had thought that this was just this one guy at school, but it must be some sort of phenomenon. (Golden Girls, not being gay.) He’s also way too into Joan Crawford, and generally any cranky older women on TV or in real life. He collects them.
My best friend is gay, and his favorite shows are (historically):
[ul]
[li]Golden Girls[/li][li]Murphy Brown[/li][li]The Nanny[/li][li]Cybil[/li][/ul]
So strong female characters really appeal to him for some reason.
Me and the mrs lived with two gay guys in Dublin and our “morning after” ritual at the weekends was to sit around in our pjs watching Golden Girls episodes that one of them had brought on many video tapes from germany. Occasionally the “switching” feature (?) on the video wouldn’t work and we would have to watch them in german.