Advanced TV Herstory w/ Cynthia Bemis Abrams, Part Two

In Part Two of our conversation with Cynthia Bemis Abrams, host of the “Advanced TV Herstory” podcast, we continue our discussion of feminism in American culture and its effect on television as we delve into sports, politics, female stereotypes – and the unsung feminist heroes of Hollywood’s mysterious “Secret Sisterhood”.

THE CONVERSATION

• WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE: What stereotypes were women assigned when they made their way into the offices of America in the 1970s? (“The Seductress” and “The Iron Maiden” are just two…) and how to avoid the pitfalls of the workplace.
• And then – what 4 archetypes do female sitcom characters often portray?
• The Unknown Dinah Shore – everything you never knew, and then some…
• How did the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and Title IX in 1973 change everything for women – and how the failure to pass the Equal Rights Amendment after 50 years is still holding us back…
• The “Secret Sisterhood” in Hollywood: Does it exist? And if so -- how does it work?
• What is known and unknown about abusers in the industry…
• What happened when Susan convinced her science teacher to coach the girl’s soccer team – even though her teacher knew nothing about soccer!
• Why can’t you find the actual film of the 1973 Billy Jean King/Bobby Riggs “Battle of the Sexes” anywhere? Sharon has a theory…

So join Susan and Sharon and Cynthia as they talk Lena Horne, “Grace & Frankie” – and Cynthia’s upcoming projects, including a non-fiction graphic novel!

IN MEMORIUM
We salute some 80s ladies we've recently lost:
Tina Turner
Jacklyn Zeman
Eileen Saki
Barbara Bryne
Garn Stevens
Carol Locatell
Elizabeth Hubbard
N'Neka Garland
Rita Latkin
Emily Marshall
Sharon Acker

AUDIOGRAPHY
“Men and Women of the Corporation” by Rosabeth Moss Kanter on Amazon.
“TV Female Foursomes and Their Fans: Featuring The Golden Girls, Designing Women, Living Single, Sex and the City, Girlfriends, Cashmere Mafia and Hot in Cleveland” by Wendy Burns Ardelino - on Bookshop.
Cynthia Bemis Abrams podcast “Advanced TV Herstory”

STOP THE HATE: PROTECT TRANS & QUEER RIGHTS
Take action at Aclu.org and ACLU map.
Teen Vogue info and support for the Trans community.

Help kids and families in Texas.
https://www.northtexasgivingday.org/organization/transkidsandfamiliesoftexas
Help LGBTQ+ in the South.

For transcripts and more, visit 80sTVLadies.com.
Don’t miss out. Sign up for the 80s TV Ladies mailing list!
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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to eighties TV Ladies, partof the weirding Way Media Network by So
Pretty the City. I'm your producer, Melissa Roth, and here are your

(00:27):
hosts, Sharon Johnson and Susan LambertAdam. Hello, folks, I'm Susan
and I'm Sharon, and we areso happy you are listening. Thank you,
and we are thrilled to continue theconversation with our guest today. Welcome
to the second half of our interviewwith Cynthia be Miss Abrams. She is
from the podcast Advanced TV Hurstory.Cynthia is a leadership advisor, writer and

(00:52):
podcaster who loves TV and the womenwho made it fabulous. Feel free to
start here with part two of ourinterview because we all live fancy and free,
and then you can go back andtake in part one, or back
it up and start from the beginning. All Right, we were talking about
everything because this is fantastic and I'mso excited. I want to talk because

(01:14):
we were talking about women in theworkplace and I had a question because you
had this really cool episode about thefour female sitcom construct and we are looking
at sitcoms this season and I thinkit's going to come up so I'm curious
about what the four female construct isto you. And then I looked up
a book called Men and Women ofthe Corporation. So a shout out to

(01:38):
my guest for that episode, orthose two episodes, doctor Wendy Burns Artelino,
who is now at the University ofHouston Downtown. She wrote a book
and actually pitched me just you know, from her office there in academia,
I'd like to be on your podcastand talk about my book. So she,

(02:00):
from a very academic perspective, hadtaken the construct of literature, which
is that four women for people,but for women in particular, there is
the nafe, you know, sortof the dizzy one, and then there
is the the Jezebel, the provocativeand the alluring character, and then there's
the sort of smart leader, andthen there's sort of the stabilizer who holds

(02:25):
people together and sort of keeps peoplefrom going too far out on the extreme.
And she had done that research andhad kind of dug into fan sites
at the time, fan billboards orwhatever it was back and you know,
ten years ago, and had donethat analysis across designing women and girl friends.

(02:46):
And I kept asking her about factsof Life and she said no because
they were too young. Sex inthe City, and I think one or
two others, and for the mostpart, I think it's you know,
it's it's sort of wrote, it'skind of predictable, but it works.
Oh, Golden Girls, and youknow you watch Golden Girls, and so

(03:07):
each each one of those series didit with a little bit of a different
take, a little different context andcircumstance, and only gets more sophisticated is
as the next writer tries it.Yeah, it's very interesting, and it's
something I think will come up becauseyou know, it's all these women in
the workplace or women in the home. Right, that's what Golden Girls is.

(03:28):
They're sharing a home. Designing womenis they share a workplace. You
know, it's a living they shareworkplace. Sex in the City is a
friendship, which is interesting, right, But it's all these women in this
place working together. And so theyou're defining those women characters in a particular
way, and as a writer,you know, in particular, I think

(03:49):
for comedies, you are looking alittle bit for those tropes. You know,
this is the silly one, thisis the you know, the mom
or dad, I mean, andthen it can cross gender, right,
This is you know, the responsibleone, This is the irresponsible one.
This is the you know, theone who's always you know, trying something
new, like whatever it is thatyou're trying to give characterizations to to create
very broad and very you know,we're going to be in conflict and we're

(04:12):
going to be you know, incooperation characters. But I thought it was
interesting in light of that conversation,I found this Bookmen and Women of the
Corporation by Rosabeth Moss Canter. It'sa nineteen seventy seven study of female employees
in the corporate settings, and basicallywhat she came up with was these stereotypes

(04:34):
that women were sort of allowed ina male dominated workplace, and it was
really more like, be careful thatyou're going to kind of get set in
one of these and it it alignsvery much with that. It was basically
the sex object, the seductress,the pet or cheerleader, sort of what

(04:55):
is that, the mascot, youknow, the mother so you're going to
be you know, mothering or theiron maiden, otherwise known known as the
Hillary Clinton. Okay, I wasgoing to say it the Julia sugar Baker,
but Julia Sugar Baker or the modyou know, like it was just
sort of an interesting book that Icame across because I was trying to find

(05:17):
sort of the four female construct andread more about that, and I thought
that was interesting that I found thatweird little And I think so much of
this and so much of the changingroles of women happened because of two laws,
right, the Civil Rights Act ofnineteen sixty four, which also benefited

(05:39):
women as well as people of colorand black people, and then Title nine,
which was seventy two. I thinksounds right that was like discrimination in
the workplace and at schools or Iwas at eighth grade, maybe it was.
The regulation was in seventy two andthen implemented in seventy three. Seventy

(05:59):
two stick in my mind, butwe'll look it up and correct the record
later. And actually Title line isjust I think it was just regulation.
It was like it didn't have toactually go through Congress. I claim that
that's one of the only good thingsthat came out of the next an administration
that in the era changed. Yeah. Yeah, And the RA not passing
is one of the mistakes of nineteennineteen eighty, right, which by the

(06:24):
way, just for listeners out there, just so you know, the era
the Equal Rights Amendment, which maybe the simplest amendment ever written, has
not been passed. Equal rights regardlessof sex does not exist in the United
States of America, and should it'sall been ratified, it's all been it
could be. Title Line is infact fifty years old this year. I

(06:47):
don't know what I haven't been payingattention to, but yeah, the big
celebration with kind of Billy Jean Kingbeing this very symbol, the symbol of
Title Line and the understanding that asI was mentioning women's tennis earlier, we
saw women's sports come on TV becausefinally, an understanding of Title Line is

(07:11):
that there needed to be equity ineducation. That's really where it was started.
That was its greatest impact, wasthat if there was going to be
a boys basketball team and a boysfootball team and a swim team, that
there needed to be three teams available, three team opportunities available for girls as
well. And so the very endof the baby boom was the one that

(07:33):
while in school, their school experiencestarted to change. I mean, that's
part of women's health. Even tounderstand that women who are older than you
know, who were born in thefifties, have a very different experience with
exercise and competition. And that affectedme directly because I played soccer at Ayso

(07:54):
female soccer, and you hit acertain cap and then it was gone.
And when I got to high school, which was well after nineteen seventy two,
I was lucky enough to live ina district where the wife of our
coach of our Ayso team basically maybesingle handedly fought to enact the Title nine

(08:16):
enforcement in our Decalb County school district, so that in my ninth grade year
they allowed us to have a femalesoccer team. And so when we had
run out of Ayso age wise,which I was about to go Oa because
whatever our high school got permission tohave a female soccer team, we had

(08:41):
to find a coach. And Iwent to our football coach, Coach Hill
had asked him to coach us,and he could not because he was coaching
wrestling or gymnastics, I can't remember, and he said, well, you
should ask a miss Cult because shewas the other science teacher. Went and
she's just started. She was veryyoung, very new, and I went

(09:03):
over and said, hi, Iwould like you to be our coach of
soccer, and she said, Idon't know anything about soccer, and I
said that's okay, and she saidokay. And she didn't know anything about
soccer, but we did because wehad played soccer for five years, my
friends and I and so we startedour team because we convinced our science teacher

(09:28):
to be our coach. And thankfullythe male soccer coach was very nice and
very helpful and basically taught her alot too. Ultimately they ended up getting
married because it was so sweet.They had a romance and they got married
and we were all so excited andyou made it happen and we made it
happen. But yeah, that's howI got to play high school soccer.

(09:48):
A lot of women made it happen. Listeners. When we these two podcasts
look at TV. Sometimes we focusan awful lot on the drama and the
comedies and things, but there isso much more to TV, particularly the
experiences in the sixties and seventies andeighties that were so significant that caught everyone's

(10:11):
attention, that change society, andso it's easy to focus on the TV
series. Some of the most funto research is some of this other stuff
about how it factored into how theOlympics, the Olympic coverage of Olympic women,
and who those athletes were who neverwould have been anything if we hadn't

(10:31):
been able to see them and tosee them young women with medals around their
necks. And it didn't matter ifthey were American nor Russian or while.
It didn't matter if they were Russian, but American or Canadian or Japanese you
know, yeah, yeah, orfrom Brazil. It just it didn't matter.
They were women. It was impactful. I think some of that wouldn't

(10:52):
have occurred to me if I hadn'tseen Billy Jin King, you know.
I mean, I remember women's soccerwas in the Olympics for the first time
in the Olympics. That was inAtlanta ninety two, ninety two. Yes,
and that was the first time therewas women's soccer in the Olympics ninety
six, ninety six. I wasthere. You were there. I was

(11:13):
not here. Was there for thegold medal game. I was there.
My mom was there because I'm like, you have to go. I so
wanted to get back for those Olympics. My hometown. I didn't make the
Olympics in the LA in nineteen eightyfour, and I didn't make the nineteen
ninety six Atlanta Olympics, where thefirst time that women's soccer was in the

(11:35):
Olympics. But it was meaningful tome because I had loved soccer and there
wasn't any There was no soccer whenI got to USC There was no women's
soccer at USC, which filled insane. I started that team too, but
I didn't get to play on it. It was a long story, took
a long time. I went tofilm school, I couldn't play by the

(11:56):
time I got to go as thingsto do. One thing so I've been
thinking about but since we started doingthis podcast is what seems to me that
what was going on in the world, the attempts to pass the RAA title
nine, other things bringing women moreand what women were accomplishing in sports and
other endeavors. Television started to pickup on that a little bit and more

(12:20):
and more as they kind of wentforward with it, and so there was
kind of the swelling of putting womenforward in television during the eighties. And
I'm not sure exactly when it kindof started to turn a little bit,
because I think it in some waysit did and has, But that to

(12:41):
me really felt that was at thetime when I was in college, graduating
from college, getting my first job, etc. And there seemed to be
this sense of things are happening,Things are really happening for women by women
in the early eighties, and itwas exciting. There just seemed to be

(13:01):
something in the air about it,and I think some of that was reflected
in what we were seeing on televisionwith Scarecrow and Missus King and eventually Cagney
and Lacy and Remington Steel, whichfor me was as a woman who even
at that age, knew that theidea of marriage and kids was not in
the cards. For me just wasn'tsomething I wanted. I didn't mean that

(13:24):
other people who did it there wasanything wrong with that. I just knew
that for me, I was notnecessarily something that was going to happen that
I wanted to happen. So seeingLaura Holt on television being a single woman
who may or may not have wantedkids, but right now she had this
career she was trying to build,and this company she was trying to build,
and that was her focus and shehad no problem being in charge except

(13:46):
for the people who didn't want herto be in charge because she wasn't a
man. So there seemed to bea lot going on in television for women
in the eighties and about women inthe eighties, and it seemed to be
kind of the beginning of that Forme during that time, it seemed a
lot of possibility. And I realizednow so much of that was sitting on
the shoulders of the sixties and seventiesin a way that I didn't recognize as

(14:09):
a kid, right, Like Ididn't know that, Like there was all
these you know, other breakthrough showsand breakthrough moments in history. Billy Jing
King, I mean, I definitelyBilly Jing King broke through for me.
I did not follow tennis, butBilly Jing King. You know what's amazing
about the Billy Jing King Battle ofthe Sexes nineteen seventy three for and Bobby

(14:31):
Riggs is you can't find that videoanywhere really, but there's a bit a
movie like two movies about it,right, movies about it. Yes,
So either they are using using videothat was just that maybe somebody has access
to something but it has never reallybeen made available as a replay or you
know, bits on YouTube or anything, and it was considered bigger than the

(14:54):
Super Bowl in nineteen seventy three.That was huge. I remember that,
and I was not very old atthat point, but I remember that huge.
That is so interesting. I wonderwhy it's not available. Why wouldn't
it be available, Cynthia, Ithink it comes back to money. Yeah,
whoever owns the rights to it seemsto have sold clips to various people

(15:18):
who've used it for documentaries or storiesor whatever, but they have not for
whatever reason. Maybe somebody just hasn'tponied up the right amount of money to
buy the whole thing. So that'sjust my personal opinion. I know nothing,
but because it had to have beenbankrolled, the production had to be
bankrolled by some company, and maybethat company doesn't even exist anymore. So

(15:39):
the idea of doing the legal gymnasticsto get to it is just not worth
it to anybody. But that's kindof crazy. But to Sharon's point about
why did it seem to peak andthen things changed? And money is the
next thing the Sharon talks about prettyfrequently, and it's true when we think
about them graphic that we champion andthat is the fact that the baby boom

(16:03):
was moving more toward the workforce,that we were approaching a point where there
were more women in college than menin college, and that they were then
going off to try to have itall and juggle the marriage and the family
and the job. I think itwas very easy for the networks that were
already feeling the challenge from cable TVto say, there's no way, you

(16:26):
know, they're not watching TV.We can just go ahead and continue to
eke out you know, more magnump I or you know whatever. We
don't need to expect that much fromsome of these vehicles. Some of these
old forces and women kind of letit be. And then when there were
powerful showrunners like lend of Bloodworth Thomasonor Terry Louise Fisher, they got to
be a little too powerful and itwas just as easy to buy them out

(16:47):
and send them away, and wedidn't know it. Yeah, and then
you look at Shanda Rhimes and aDiverney and those are I think David Diaverney's
they single handedly created, you know, thirty career for black women, like
by just giving them a job todirect a TV show and maybe do their
second TV show. And that's amazing. It takes that. It takes someone

(17:11):
going, I'm going to make surethere's a room a seat for you.
But is that person or is thatgroup, this tightly knit bonding of Oprah
and Felicia Rashan and Debbie Allen anda few more who stay with them,
who sort of run interference when necessary, who make the calls when necessary,

(17:33):
so that finally they get their chanceand they are able to put their very
best foot forward and know exactly whothey're pitching their stuff too. I just
I think there's a very solid sisterhoodthere that we do not know a fraction
of the story about. Fair enough, I think so. And when Oprah
gave her what was it a lifetimerecognition speech or whatever at the Golden Globes

(17:56):
four or five years ago, Imean I just got I got chills everything
she said me to all the senseof war, so love, love,
love, And really every time Isort of start thinking about it, I
get very optimistic actually that if weas women just continue to support each other
and agree to hear somebody out tryto help in some way, we are

(18:18):
making the opportunities for this next generation. And there are many decades left where
we can continue to do this.We just need to really be open to
the fact that the youngest generation that'sin the workforce needs a lot of help,
and we know so much. Yeah, I agree. And speaking of
oprah speeches, that any speech intwenty twenty two, Yeah, they're very,

(18:38):
very very nice, and you're like, oh my god, where have
you been? Come back? Comeback, Oprah, come back all the
time, just come on all theday. I'm optimistic. I think,
yes, we're seeing, you know, some of the things that Oprah is
doing, and Avid to Verney inparticular, and I think Shanda Land has

(18:59):
also been working very hard to givewomen lots of opportunities. And I just
think there are a lot of otherplaces, and I think there's a generation
of women coming along who understand andare getting to a place or in a
place where they're able to open thosedoors and keep that door open behind them
and bring those women along with themso that they too can have the opportunity

(19:22):
to shine and then bring somebody elsealong behind them. I don't know anything
specific, but there seemed to bea time when some women were allowed through
that door. They maybe were discouragedto bring other women along or didn't understand
how important it was to bring thosewomen along, and I'm not sure that
as much of that was happening thenas there is now, and it just

(19:45):
feels different from that standpoint, Ithink that's true. I think that you
didn't know you could invite anyone elseinto that room if you got in the
door, or even if you did, was there a price that you would
have to pay, Because again,any of the people making decisions were men,
and if you're they were like,what do you mean women? Other
women? What about this guy Iknow that could do this? Who?

(20:08):
And sometimes they didn't have the powerthe ability to say no. Perhaps,
And I think now that I thinkthings in that regard have really begun to
shift, much more so than theywere in the past. It's not perfect,
it's not quite there anymore. Iwas talking to a friend at dinner
last night who, in her jobher department, hired somebody to be her

(20:32):
boss, who knows nothing about whatshe does. Her former direct report said
how this guy that they hired askind of messed things up? And she's
sitting there thinking, then, whydidn't you promote me? Because I know
what I'm doing, and yet youhire this man so there's still that sort
of thing that will continue to happenfor a variety of reasons. But I
think that there is more of anawareness on the women's part and on the

(20:55):
men's part that they need to beoperating perhaps a little differently. That's my
hope. Yes, I think wewill get there someday, not as fast
as we would like. However,tell us about your book. You're writing
a book, there's actually sort oftwo books. There's two books. Good,
it's too much for one book,and there's like nothing to show.

(21:15):
The first book was Actually it hassat on the shelf and in my head
longer, and it would be muchsimpler to produce if and when I just
sit down and start working on it. And that is taking from all of
the many of the DVDs that areon my shelf and watching a lot of
TV. That there are lots ofstories in TV of hashtag me too and

(21:41):
consent. So if you if youexpand a hashtag me too to be the
workplace as well as the school andelsewhere, that it isn't just limited to
the workplace, but it's women inlife and being put in a power situation
where you have no and you haveno consent, and there are at least

(22:03):
really kind of ten good episodes orstory arcs that make it all a little
bit more understandable, because sometimes it'shard to teach this in a way to
teach consent, because that starts toget oh well, sex education in everything.
But sometimes teaching through storytelling is affective. And so it's it's that it's
identifying how to get those episodes ortrack them down or if nothing else,

(22:29):
just sent upsize them as stories.And that one I had sort of pitched,
you know, and didn't think anythingof it, and then I got
a call or an email a couplemonths ago and it's like, so,
or are you really going to everdo something with this, because we're interested,
And I'm like, oh my god. And that was we were.
We were just like making the decisionto move. So I had to put
that one on the shelf. Theone that is a little bit more further

(22:51):
along in my heart, however,is it's intended to be graph more of
a graphic novel, but it's nota novel in terms of non fiction.
It's nonfiction and it is nine stories, real life stories of women who we
know. It's the working title isunscripted courage women who we know that these

(23:12):
stories of them overcoming their fears orovercoming challenges or witnessing the ugliest face of
history firsthand, and how that madethem stronger, It made them more graceful
and more of the legend that weknow them to be very powerful. So

(23:32):
a few are pulled from the podcast, and some are women more of the
entertainment industry in film. And thenin the case of Diana Ross, you
know, I've done multiple episodes nowon the Diana Ross nineteen eighty three concert
in Central Park. I won't gointo it, but that is a story
that needs to be told. Sheowns the rights to or she did at
one point own the rights to thatvideo of her concert, but the concert

(23:56):
story itself needs to be told.It's as important as the Doug Flutie touchdown,
or you know, any any greatmoment in sports history. And then
another one from the podcast, whichis amazing because it does make you realize
that people are paying attention to whatyou're doing, is that Dinah Shore wrote
and sat on a number of occasionsthat she came from one of the very

(24:18):
few Jewish families in Tennessee. Shewas born in Tennessee. She was not
a natural one, and she's alsothe first to say that she were a
lay on. Was told lose thedark hair and get your nose straightened and
teeth fixed and all that. Butwhile she was living in a couple different
smaller cities in Tennessee, her fatherwas the only department store. He ran

(24:40):
the only department store in town.And when the ku Klux Klan was having
evening parades going by, her fatherwas able to identify, You're going to
get chills up up your neck.I get it just saying it. Her
father was able to identify who thesemen were by the shoes that he had
sold them. And her career,her career provide opportunity and exposure for people,

(25:03):
not just in radio and TV,but then ultimately doing what she did
with the LPGA makes her this woefullyun celebrated feminist in so many different ways.
And it's really hard to track downthe information about her because even though
she was so big in all ofthose fields, nobody really paused to collect
that information. There are a coupleof biographies out there, but they were

(25:26):
from the seventies, you know,when it was a third of it was
dedicated to her relationship with Burt Reynolds. Wow. So yeah, I had
no idea of most of what youjust described about Dinah Shore. Yeah,
that's amazing. She's so cool.She's so cool. It like sometimes I
just think if I was sitting,like when I need that moment of strength,

(25:47):
I'm sitting in Dinah's you know,little Veranda on the backside of the
TV set, you know, theset where she had her talk show,
and I'm asking her, you know, what do you think she's wearing like
a sharp's letter and she's got thebig hair and she's got the iced tea
next? Or is she's telling mewhat to do and I get strength from
that? Diana Shore is you're whatis it called your familiar? Yeah,

(26:11):
she's she's a source. She sheis a source for what is there to
lose. And obviously I'm sure shehad to play some games and that that
is documented. But Lena Horn hadto play games and she did not come
out nearly as as well with thekind of reputation of being, you know,
such a such a strong, powerfulpositive woman. Lena Horne was a

(26:33):
strong, powerful hell raiser and shewas unfiltered and she upset many people,
and we do not give her thecredence the credit. All right, Well,
we've got a lot of podcasts todo and a lot of books to
write, and uh we do,we do, and and to support others

(26:53):
who are thinking about doing a podcast. This is the equivalent to bank.
I own all of the ink thatI when I pull up the microphone.
I own this show. I ownwhat I stand for, I own what
I research. I'll tell you howI got that information I usually do at
the end of you my notes andeverything. I'm just here to witness what
I think I understand happen, tryto connect it to what we've seen on

(27:17):
TV or what we understand today.Nobody is paying for No. I do
not do advertising. I don't acceptsponsorships. It's all just me, and
that in and of itself is powerfulbecause it means I will never buckle.
Nobody can ever say you can't saythat. Wow, that's awesome. That's
awesome as it should be. Well, it's been such a pleasure. We

(27:38):
have three questions now we wrap withthree questions. So what is and we've
named several of them. What isthe eighties TV show that resonated with you
at the time or resonates today,especially if it was ladies driven. I
will say Cagney and Lacy is farand away comfort food. It is so

(28:02):
well done. There are so many, so many great episodes that you just
feel their grown breaking nature and sharing. Glass and Tinne daily continue to this
day to just be inspiring and willingto talk about just not only the experience
but life in general. They aresuch role modes. Absolutely same here and

(28:22):
what are some favorite twenty first centuryfemale driven TV shows modern day TV that
you are enjoying or have liked.I have to say Grayson Frankie is pretty
significant to me. The poor femaletrope of women characters in a sitcom Hot
in Cleveland. I love Hot inCleveland as much as I love designing women.

(28:47):
And I'm kind of corny, butI like Bones. You know,
there's nothing like a good formula,and I thought that Emily de Chanelle was
just woefully again. You know,it's well, where does the show end
up getting distributed to? And Boneswas never on ABC, NBC or CBS,
nor was Hot in Cleveland. Someof the very best TV we will

(29:08):
have seen in the last two decadescame through either you know, quirky quirky
standard cable or streaming streaming, yeah, or or PBS because you know,
there was the Downton Nabby years werebut again you know he that was not
generated by a woman, but thosewere very strong women characters. Yes,

(29:29):
yeah, yeah, all right.And then, um, what is one
of the moments in your life whereyou felt you might be in a movie
or a TV show where it feltscripted or it was so particularly beautiful or
heroic or just absurd. Oh,these aren't munies, are like really deep,
deep memories. Um. I workedfor a United States senator here in

(29:51):
Minnesota, and there were a numberof moments which were kind of high profile
and invariably like something needed to getdone, and there were reporters and you
know, every the world was watching, and all of a sudden, everyone
just looked at me and it waslike, oh, you go do it.
You know. So I have anumber of very slow motion memories that

(30:12):
sort of feel like, well,you know, that could have been out
of It really wasn't out a WestWing necessarily, but yeah it could have
been. Yeah. A number ofdifferent professional experiences come because you also you
work in leadership and you work inwe didn't even cover this. I taught
leadership as an adjunct professor at astate university. It was kind of curriculum

(30:33):
that I developed for honors kids,honors students at the undergraduate level and have
a master's degree in organizational leadership.And then my career itself was in public
relations, usually small shops, whichinvariably went to crisis crisis communication and stuff
like that, executive handholding and thatI mean I was. I wrote a

(30:56):
lot, certainly in my career,but then really when I started doing the
podcast, I found myself writing somuch and then cleaning it up, and
then really learning how to not onlywrite for script because many of my episodes
are truly scripted, and that's partlyso that I can stay focused and crisp,
but then writing for the Internet andunderstanding how to tweet tweet something out

(31:19):
and to write it for Facebook orto even just write about it on my
website TV herstory, Dad, comebecause you've really get about two sentences and
you and show notes and things likethat. Clean it up, use a
strong verb, you know, beas tight as you possibly can. That's
fantastic. It has been such apleasure to have you on today and to

(31:40):
dive deep and dark with you andhave some fun and also have a lot
of fun. And I'm I'm soexcited to know you and to know Advanced
TV Herstory. I highly recommend itto all our listeners. I think you
will enjoy it. If you're enjoyingus, you will definitely enjoy Advanced TV
Herstory absolutely all right. And Iwish you too or your team actually the

(32:01):
best with regard to this upcoming season, which sounds fascinating and that you are
not just going off of what onemight expect to be. The shows or
the series that you guys are workingat and leaven the guests that you're bringing
forward to represent some of those seriesaren't what you would expect, so you
are definitely paving ground that nobody elsehas brought to the podcast world. That's

(32:24):
super important. There's plenty of workout there for all of us to do,
and I'm grateful that you ladies peopleare holding down the eighties because there's
just so much and you can't sayit enough times and you can't celebrate it
enough. All of this great workneeds to be brought forward articulated for those

(32:49):
who have never seen it. Fingerspointed toward how to be able to see
it. Yeah, because the workwas so great then, or so important
to help everybody understand where we aretwenty twenty two. So thank you for
the work you're going. Thank you. Oh my gosh ah oh love fast.
Okay, all right, thank youso much. Good night, everybody,
take care yay. Hey, it'sDavid here and this is Rob.

(33:15):
We are the hosts of a brandnew podcast called Totally Eighties and Nineties Recall.
If you love all things eighties andnineties, from music and movies to
television and pop culture, then thisis the podcast for you. Join two
gen X dudes every week as werevisit and discuss all of our favorite things
from when we grew up in theeighties and nineties for a fun and nostalgic
look back at two of the bestdecades. So come and listen for yourself.

(33:36):
We promise you'll have a great time, and then go subscribe to Totally
Eighties and Nineties Recall on Apple,Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
For our audioography today, the booksare Men and Women of the Corporation
by Rosabeth Moss Cantor and the oneCynthia talks about on her podcast TV Female

(33:59):
four and their Fans by Windy BurnsArdolino. You can find Cynthia on Twitter
at tv Hearstry. You can alsogo to her website, Cynthia Bemis Abrahams
dot com. We're heading into PrideMonth and it's important to acknowledge the LGBTQ
plus community, especially the trans community. There's an unprecedented number of attacks and

(34:22):
anti trans bills and laws being passedin so many states across the country,
trying to outlaw people's rights to beand exist. We are outraged at these
attacks on the queer community and transcommunity. We stand in solidarity with transfolks
and their families. Here are afew resources that can help. At ACLU

(34:42):
dot org, you can find amap tracking the anti LGBTQ plus legislation in
different states and across the country.We urge you to find out what's happening
in your state and to take actionto protect people, privacy and healthcare for
all. Teen Vogue has a listof you can be in support with your
trans community. In Texas, youcan go to TX trans Kids dot org.

(35:06):
To help. In the South,you can go to Southern Equality dot
org. Seventy five percent of transgenderyouth in the South. Right now live
in a state where a ban ongender affirming care has been passed. So
for June, we are celebrating PrideMonth with some very special podcast episodes about
the history of LGBTQ plus representation andtelevision. I'm so excited for our next

(35:30):
episode, our next two episodes.That's right, the next two are going
to be with Matt Baum and RainbowRemix. Matt Baum is an expert on
queer activism and representation in pop culture, especially television. He has a book
that just came out that you're goingto want to get. It's called Hi
Honey, I'm Homo. It's aboutthe history of queer representation and sitcoms,

(35:52):
and it's available now. Links willbe on our website and in our description.
In this episode's in memorium section,we'd like to acknowledge the following.
Tina Turner, the icon, thelegend, the musician and actress, the
most successful female rock artist ever,seven time Grammy winner, so many songs,

(36:15):
music videos from the eighties from PrivateDancer. We don't need another hero.
I just I was very sad.I was stunned. I was not
aware that she was ill, soit came out of the blue anyway,
and I want to shout her outas an actress in Tommy and of course
in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. She'sfantastic and she should have done more acting

(36:37):
in all her spare time. We'dalso like to remember Jacqueline Zeeman, who
appeared in nine hundred and forty episodesof General Hospital as Bobby Spencer and before
that on One Life to Live.As a longtime viewer of General Hospital,
I'll never forget her bad girl personaback in the day when she first joined

(37:00):
hospital to some classic and truly memorablestorylines that she appeared in and was integral
too. She definitely will be missed, and I will say in the eighties,
General Hospital broke through the soap operasort of category a little bit.
It became bigger than the soap operafor me, Like I think it's sort

(37:22):
of like there, so there wasthe soap opera world and then suddenly it
was the General Hospital sort of brokethrough anyway. Eileen Saki was the third
and longest actress to play the roleof local bar owner Rosie in Mash.
She was also in Chips Greatest AmericanHero, Give Me a Break, and
in the movie Splash and History ofthe World Part One, amongst many others.

(37:43):
Not too long ago, she dida podcast interview with mash Matters podcast
Check it out. Garn Stevens wasan actress and writer on many eighties TV
shows and movies. During the seventies, she appeared on shows like Phyllis All
in the Family Barney Miller. Shewas also on Family Ties, Charlie's Angels,
and was a writer on shows likeTrapper, John m d and Saint

(38:06):
Elsewhere. I thought that was sointeresting that she was both a writer and
an actress. Yeah, for thoseshows. Barbara Byrne, who was probably
most famous for being in Amadeus theMovie, but she also did a number
of TV movies in guest performances onTV series in the eighties. Carol Locatel,
actress from Atlanta, Georgia, starredin the sixties on TV and movies
from The Flying Nun all the wayup to Shameless in two nineteen. Her

(38:31):
last credit was in twenty twenty one. Elizabeth Hubbard was an actress in two
thousand, seven hundred and forty oneepisodes of the Doctors and over seventeen hundred
episodes of As the World Turns.I know her primarily from As a World
Turns. She was awesome. She'sawesome. Judy Farrell a seventies and eighties

(38:52):
actress who became a TV writer inthe eighties and beyond. She was married
to Mike Farrell of mash Fame fortwenty years. Nika Garland was Emmy Award
winning producer who worked for twenty twoyears on General Hospital. Writer Rita Latkin.
She was a creator of The Rookiesand Flamingo Road and was a writer
on The Mod Squad, The Doctors, and Dynasty. I didn't know she

(39:15):
had created the Rookies for some reason. That's amazing. Then there's a great
story about that, but we'll haveto talk about that some other time.
Emily Marshall who was a writer andproducer on Designing Women, New Heart,
Rhoda, and w Kerp in Cincinnati, among others. Sharon Acker was an
actress on so many shows in theseventies and eighties like Executive Suite, Simon

(39:37):
and Simon Murder. She wrote andTexas, we will miss you and we
remember you. Thank you Eighties TVladies, Thank you for listening to Eighties
TV Ladies. We are so excitedto have you back for season two.
We love hearing from you. Sendus your thoughts questions at our website Eighties

(39:59):
tv ladies dot com that's eight zeros t v ladies dot com. We
read every email. You can helpus make more episodes and help support the
show at Patreon dot com slash Eightiestv Ladies. There's your seven day free
trial going on, so try usout for free. Be sure to tune
into our next episode with Matt Bound. We hope Eighties TV Ladies brings you

(40:22):
joy and laughter and lots of fabulousnew and old shows to watch, all
of which leads us forward toward beingamazing ladies of the twenty first century.
Thanks for listening so pretty to thecity