R.I.P. Mrs. G

What's to say - Charlotte Rae passed away.

The poems just write themselves for her.

The woman made it to 92 after beating the shit out of pancreatic cancer, so it's not like her life was tragically cut short or anything. That clearly doesn't mean that it isn't sad.

I regularly talk about my major childhood influences (Jo, Miss Piggy, David Bowie), and to the extent that Mrs. G helped raise Jo, I guess she helped to raise me too.

That's to say nothing of the way in which Charlotte Rae (as opposed to Mrs. G) helped to raise each of the Facts girls (as actual young girls as opposed to just characters). Each girl made a statement about Charlotte Rae's passing. She'd been their friend for forty years, through their formative stages.

We know and adore her as Mrs. G, a role that she played in three different series (Diff'rent Strokes, Facts, and Hello, Larry, a sitcom about 70s/80s sitcoms). But Mrs. G was a role that came late in her career. She came of age as a comedic actress before television was king. Check this out:

The woman was nominated for two Tony Awards in the '60s, and two Emmy Awards, in '75 and '82. She went to theater school at Northwestern with Paul Lynde and Cloris Leachman. She did some hilarious commercial appearances.

Here's one from just before she became the Mrs. Garrett we all adore.

I spent some time with You Tube's search results for "Charlotte Rae," and I don't discourage you from doing so. It's interesting to think that some of her most remarkable work was in theater before having everything on You Tube was a thing, I'm sure her full portfolio includes dozens if not hundreds of performances that are lost to time. There are few reasons I'd want to go back in time, but to catch Charlotte Rae live on Broadway is one of them.

In typical Mrs. Garrett fashion, even though we think she's pretty damn cool, Charlotte Rae is even cooler than we know she is.

May this kickass woman rest in peace.

The First Amendment doesn't protect a douchebag teacher from pissing off the wrong student (recap episode 3-5 "Front Page")

Folks, this is among my favorite episodes of Facts. It’s one that I remembered but didn’t catch on TV in syndication for a long time. Either I kept missing it or the stations that were showing it at the time didn’t show it because it mentions cocaine. They kept “Dope” off the air for a long time, after all.

But I remembered this episode because, like Jo, I had some teachers who graded me more harshly than my peers because I had shown I was better. I get it, but it also kind of sucks. In my case, I didn’t deserve the C my senior year English teacher gave me on a paper, and when I challenged him about it, he said that he just wanted to keep me on my toes since I got in early to all the colleges I’d applied to. That was bullshit and I went to the head of the department and got the paper upgraded to the A that it deserved. I told the teacher to let me know when my work started sucking, and not to penalize me until then.

In Jo’s case here, I can see now, from an educator’s perspective, how Mr. Gideon thought he was just challenging a good student. But you know what? He was a total dick about it. If he’d been a better educator, he wouldn’t be in this mess.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, let me introduce you to our key players in this episode. We have:

Jo Polniaczek, Junior at Eastland School for girls. Angry, competitive, has to finish the story she’s writing before journalism class even though all that’s due today is the topic. Wants to impress journalism teacher, who she believes is out to get her.

Facts takes on the issue of incarcerated parents (Recap episode 2-12: The Secret)

Recently, I got a comment suggesting that we accept Jo's reformation and stop pigeonholing her as a criminal. I so, so appreciate the place where this person's comment comes from. The law enforcement and criminal court system in this country (which have very little to do with justice) is, frankly, offensive. One really small thing we can all do is stop letting letting the word "convicted" ruin someone's life. People say, "Don't be a criminal! It's that simple!" as if the entire world continues to be open to you when you have to check that goddamn box. Defining someone by their history despite substantial evidence of change is bullshit and is the sort of thing that keeps people who have been convicted of certain offenses from being able to participate in society in the way required to avoid a life of crime.

I give Jo shit because her reformation was an essential part of her character, yet she continues to fake IDs for the girls and commit other petty crimes throughout the series, all the way through Season Nine when she commits a crime on purpose so she can spend the night in lockup because she doesn't have another plan.

But none of this is real, and the flippant way I talk about Jo being a criminal is not a thing I'd do about a real person. It's extraordinarily important to remember that people who go to jail or prison are still people, and they can't improve their lives if you don't give them a chance to do so. If this issue moves you, please consider getting involved with or donating to an organization that helps ex-offenders reintegrate; or one that works toward removing some of those barriers to reentry. If you need some pointers, please feel free to contact me.

The thing is, this episode is particularly prime for a recall to Jo's history of criminality and bad judgment through a "like father, like daughter" joke. Jo has received this year's Best New Student award despite having gotten herself and three of her classmates arrested and put on probation at school; had to work off a shoplifting beef at a department store; and tried to run away to get married to her (extremely hot) boyfriend in the middle of the night in the dead of winter. I'm not saying it's impossible; indeed maybe those things helped her to win the award, if it was decided by popular vote. 

Folks, Meet Natalie Green (Recap episode 2-11 "Sex Symbol")

"Men who are with lots of women are considered studs, while women who are with lots of men are considered sluts!" It's such an old trope, yet we're still mired in it today.

Like most of society's problems, that double standard has its origins in the gender binary. The discussion has become more open and toxic masculinity is starting to get the recognition and derision it deserves, and, as always, our beloved Facts addressed it early on, imperfectly, but ahead of its time. When I first revisited this episode to write this recap, I was annoyed for a while at it, but it came together OK at the end. I will grumble about the slut-shaming and a missed opportunity to really promote sex positivity, but this episode is ultimately a win.

If for no other reason, this episode is special because it is the first with the reduced cast to center on Natalie. Recall that Mindy Cohn wasn't an actress when she was cast in Facts. Charlotte Rae met her while visiting Westlake School in LA to do research for her part as Mrs. G. Charlotte Rae thought Mindy Cohn was so funny and adorable that she was a natural and would fit right in. In the first couple of seasons you can tell she's not a pro, especially when she has to purse her lips to keep from laughing at her own jokes. It's adorable. 

VSE: Teenage Suicide (Recap Epsiode 2-10 "Breaking Point")

Queen's "Don't Try Suicide" came out in 1980, and eight years later Heathers gave us Big Fun's "Teenage Suicide (Don't Do It)"

It's nearly 30 years later and teenage suicide is still a tragic societal problem. Our beloved Facts had a go at commenting on it in 1981 with a Very Special Episode that had potential but ultimately, sadly, falls flat.

We open with Natalie trying to put together her Visible Woman model. I had one of those! I never built it.

After Jo enters with laundry, Tootie, with great fanfare, announces the entrance of the new student council president, Blair Warner! Blair chooses an interesting political identity.

Ahead of its time: addressing asexualization of women with disabilities (Recap episode 3-10: "Cousin Geri Returns aka Geri's Romance")

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you already know that I pretty much worship this show for its quiet progressiveness. It is certainly sometimes a product of its time, and I give it lots of shit for the part of it that is typical 80s sitcom easy jokes and bullshit. It is indeed important to point out the places where even this gem missed, and I do plenty of that around here.

But sometimes it's great to just talk about how the show hits the ball out of the goddamned park, and that's what I want to do today.

There's a reason this blog is called Cousin Geri, and if you don't know off the top of your head who she is, she's Blair's cousin, introduced in Season 2. If you don't know who Blair is, then you should start here. In short: Cousin Geri is a groundbreaking character whose presence on the show just made Facts that much more awesome.

Now, in the middle of Season Three, Geri makes her second appearance on the show, and it's such a heralded event that the her name is in not one title for the episode, but two.  One is more spoilery than the other.

Lisa Whelchel's Book and Thoughts on Religion and Friendship

I decided that I couldn't be a proper Facts groupie without reading some of Lisa Whelchel's books. I'm not sure that her series for moms has much for me, so I'm reading Friendship for Grown-ups: What I Missed & Learned Along the Way. It's good. She and Nancy McKeon are still the closest of friends, although particular matters to do with Facts are not the book's focus. It is a memoir and discussion of something common to us all: friendship.

Friendship was on my mind this morning, so it was fitting that Lisa's book was in the backpack I picked up as I left the house. I've enjoyed it much more than I expected. The way in which she frames her journey and the lessons she learned have their foundation in her Christian faith, but the lessons and comments on friendship are sound and thought-provoking regardless of faith or lack thereof.

I have a rocky relationship with religion. I was born Catholic, but I left the Catholic Church at the age of six because I was uncomfortable with the part of the Missal in which we said, "We believe in one holy Catholic and Apostolic church." I asked my mom if I had to say that when I didn't really believe it - I believed that everyone who loved God and Jesus were OK even if they did things a slightly different way.