Golden Girls Family Roles

The family roles exhibited in this show are fairly diverse. The typical mother daughter roles, as personified with Dorothy Zbornak (Beatrice Arthur) and her mother in the show, Sophia Petrillo’s (Estelle Getty) relationship. Other characters take on this type of motherly role throughout the show, but none more than these two characters. As far as functions go, the characters of the show take on all manners of different functions. Most notably, the function of kinship and personality stabilizers. The show focuses on life in the “golden years”, as well as the topic of divorce and what it means to be afamily. Each character has their own forms of emotional baggage. This is why each character becomes a personal anchor in the lives of the other …show more content…
As illustrated in the book on page 382, figure 15.2, about, 55.% of households in the 1980s were married with or without kids. Only 13% of households were made of freinds. Golden Girls was a very progressive show, with the idea of a family unit being more than just a married couple. Even more impressive was how the show was formed around a female led. Unlike other shows, there was no predominant male leading figure in the household, instead it was only woman. In terms of the feminines theory, this showed that women could be more than just homemakers, they could be workers as Beatrice Arthur’s character was. The show put forth an idea that a family is more than just mom, dad, and some kids, as so many shows had perpetuated. By having female leads and a family dynamic of more than just biologically related people, Golden Girls shows that a family could be more than the normal and is ultimately up to how you make it. Arthur’s character grew into her new family out of a divorce, the support she was given is what made her family, not the genders or biological ties of those who gave