ON THE COVER Goodbye, Dixie. This is the Hello, Dancing with the Stars. South, and we're proud of our crazy people. We don't hide them in the attic — we bring them right down into the living room and show them off. - Julia Sugarbaker, Designing Women by Holly Goddard Jones I've been wanting to write a little that I mean that my family life pretty tribute to Dixie Carter ever since hear- much revolved around it: we ate many, ing about her death, but the semester if not most, of our meals in the living got in the way, as semesters tend to. room where we could watch it, it went So this comes late, but it's still heart- on when we got out of bed, and it went felt. I grew up on TV, and when I say off when we got ready to turn in. 6 ACE May 13, 2010 ON THE COVER had backstories. If you look at the cur- rent Nielsen ratings to- day, most of the network programs in the top 25 are either reality shows about dancing or singing, one-hour dramas such as House, CSI, and The Mentalist, which are an- chored by a male lead, or sitcoms with male-heavy ensemble casts such as The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men. The very popular Glee, which I've watched intermittently, depicts its male lical and intellectual, a combination pulled characters as charmingly bumbling and off between the writers of the show and this well-intentioned and its female characters actress with the mind and heart to really feel as narcissistic, deceptive, and bordering on sociopathic. I won't say, of course, that there's nothing on television that depicts women as strong and layered protagonists, Southern Voices but I think that I'm safe in suggesting that it's not the norm. what she was saying. I adored it. I still do. As a girl, I pretty much knew from the Dixie Carter's Julia Sugarbaker, then, start that I could do whatever I wanted to along with Murphy Brown and Roseanne do with my life. That is due in large part to my wonderful par- e sub- A lot of the people in my life now don't watch W ents, who, though scribed to TV cautionary real- Guide. My family much TV or even have one, and so owning up to ists, always en- didn't go to movies couraged me; but or football games or I also—can I say to play miniature such a past — or 'fessing up to my current guilty this?—was lucky golf. My parents to have good didn't, for most of models on televi- the time I lived at pleasures, because I do have them — can be hard. sion, characters home, have friends Brown ('88-'98) was a favorite, but the best of who cared about that they socialized with in the evenings or the best was Roseanne ('88-'97), a show that Connor, was one of my idols. Fans of Design- more than clubbing and texting and finding on weekends. They were wrapped up in I felt an unsurprising kinship with because, ing Women will recall that, at least once ev- a new guy to pursue. each other; as a couple they focused on their as my mom liked to say, it was "about peo- ery few episodes, Julia would have A MO- I'm sorry for the young women raised on children, and as a family we focused on the ple like us." MENT, which Carter portrayed with a fiery, a diet of The Hills; even 90210 had more to tube. There were a few other things in our These shows were all helmed by wom- "I'll never go hungry again" Southern over- redeem it. I'm glad for shows like Designing lives — trips to the library and to Wal-Mart, en—a remarkable fact all on its own. But the-topness that was saved from ridiculous- Women, and I'm sorry to have lost a woman a weekly excursion to Bowling Green for a even better, the women on these programs ness by Carter's clear intellect and sense of like Dixie Carter, who brought to life Julia's meal out and a walk through the mall — but were dynamic and interesting, and their ironic fun. I loved when Julia Sugarbaker fire, smarts, and independence. ■ TV was the primary source of entertainment concerns weren't merely or even primar- got on her soapbox, because she was always and instruction. It tended to be on even if no ily romantic. Golden Girls was of course saying with an unearthly eloquence some- one was watching it. about retirees living in Florida, and Design- thing that mattered, usually to a person A lot of the people in my life now don't ing Women centered on a business and the who really, really needed schooling. watch much TV or even have one, and so female staff that owned and operated it. owning up to such a past — or 'fessing up Murphy Brown was about a journalist, and I went to YouTube and watched some Holly Goddard to my current guilty pleasures, because I do Roseanne was about the home, work, mon- old clips of Dixie Carter in Designing Wom- Jones is a Kentucky have them — can be hard. People who love ey, and relationship problems of a working en, and I still get goosebumps seeing her native, a Univer- to read tend to take for granted that TV truly class woman and her family. None of the do her thing. To analyze it would be to kill sity of Kentucky is an idiot box. In lots of ways I agree, but I women on these shows was in her 20s; none it, but there's some combo here—timbre of alum, and an author. also think back to some of the long-running was conventionally beautiful, and Roseanne, voice, the slow build, an oscillation between Her first book, Girl sitcoms of my childhood and I realize that I even after the actress portraying her had fast and slow that one associates with a Trouble,a collection might owe a thing or two to television. work done, was overweight and completely Baptist preacher — that is surprising and, of short stories, was In fact, I'm amazed when I do a quick average—the woman you might see folding in the person of an elegant, mature woman, released last Fall by mental tally of popular shows from my clothes at the table down from yours at the breathtaking. She reminds me a bit of anoth- Harper Perennial. childhood. Who put them on the air? How Laundromat or at the grocery, checking the er southern favorite of mine, Jerry Clower, The title story, "Girl on Earth were they successful? Golden Girls, expiration date on a red-tagged package of whose comedy bits usually crescendoed in Trouble" is up for which ran from '85 to '92, shouldn't have chicken thighs. None of the shows was set similar fashion. But Carter, as Julia, was all the Frank O'Connor had a thing to offer a little girl, but I loved it in New York or Los Angeles. And best yet, her own, and decidedly feminine. Her rhe- short story award. — and I also loved Dixie Carter's Designing the characters were flawed, not saintly; they torical power wasn't merely a knock-off of Women, which ran from '86 to '93. Murphy masculine models: it was womanly and Bib- 7 ACE May 13, 2010.