S01.E06: Girls Just Want to Have Fun

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Quote

The popular girls at school ask Rainbow to join their group Halloween costume as Tootie from "The Facts of Life." She thinks this is finally her opportunity to fit in, but Denise views the situation differently. Meanwhile, Alicia doesn't want the kids to go trick-or-treating after Harrison and his colleagues tell her about all the dangerous things that can happen.

Original air date: 10/29/19

[Brian Cronin]

The general message of the episode was fine (as yes, it was uncool of the girls to try to befriend her only because they needed a black girl to win the costume party), but man, they totally missed the boat with Tootie. Did they even watch The Facts of Life? That was a very unfair description of that series and the use of Tootie on the show. If I was Kim Fields, I would be pissed to see her portrayal as Tootie devalued as "just the token." Or, even weirder, "The token who was there just to be comic relief." They were ALL comic relief - it was a sitcom!

But anyhow, beyond what I found to be an unfair characterization of Tootie, I think the show was a good one. 

Other notes...

- People didn't say "whipped" in 1985, did they? Certainly not little girls. 

- The grandfather's choices for "safe" black guys was absurd. No old white guy in 1985 was saying, "Mike Tyson - safe." I mean, come on. That was just silly. 

- The kids' costumes were ay-dorable. And just home made enough to be realistic as home made costumes. Well done by the props department of the show. 

Edited October 30, 2019 by Brian Cronin
My mistake on the Bill Cosby bit!

[MadyGirl1987]

1 hour ago, Brian Cronin said:

- The grandfather's choices for "safe" black guys was absurd. No old white guy in 1985 was saying, "Mike Tyson - safe." I mean, come on. That was just silly. The most absurd part of that to me is that the #1 black guy on "safe" lists back then was Bill Cosby, who would have fit the joke perfectly and they didn't even use him!

Um... they did use him. Second to last, before OJ.

Good episode. I like that they are taking advantage of these firsts (like first Halloween) off the commune since it lends itself to different stories then most shows can do. First encounters with holidays like Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas can be fun told in interesting ways.

[Brian Cronin]

3 minutes ago, MadyGirl1987 said:

Um... they did use him. Second to last, before OJ.

Good episode. I like that they are taking advantage of these firsts (like first Halloween) off the commune since it lends itself to different stories then most shows can do. First encounters with holidays like Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas can be fun told in interesting ways.

That's hilarious, my recording cut off right before the last two, so I thought the gag had ended when she got on to the phone to pretend to be getting a phone call. My apologies, Mixed-Ish!

[kazza]

I only had the show on in the background last night while taking care of something else, but it struck me how much the adult Bow sounded like her mom on this show. Something about their cadence or phrasing was similar, just like a mother and daughter in real life. I wonder if they did this on purpose.

The little snippets I caught still cracked me up - Johan's favorite movie being Cocoon. 

I'm going to have to watch the episode in its entirety to be sure, but I felt they handled the conflicts between the girls well. They could easily go down an angry and confrontational route with these storylines but again they go with educating. The feeling was that even though their behavior was hurtful, the popular girls were more clueless and ignorant than hate-spewing. 

Edited October 30, 2019 by kazza

[Brian Cronin]

Yeah, the show has done a really good job keeping the "villains" in the school from becoming outright bad people and instead, they're mostly just ignorant instead of being inherently bad. 

[vmcd88]

As a lifelong Facts of Life fan, they portrayed Tootie all wrong.  There were several episodes about Tootie's struggle at the all-white boarding school.   She was not a token.  That said....Rainbow's Tootie outfit was to die for.    

[rhys]

What were those costumes J & S wore? I blame my cataracts & ancient tv. TIA

[Joimiaroxeu]

Eh, I don't know if I'd call Nichelle Nichol's role on Star Trek a token just because she was the only Black character. She was considered a groundbreaker.

I loved the Miami Vice costumes. Tika actually looked like Philip Michael Thomas in that short curly wig.

[joanne3482]

1 hour ago, rhys said:

What were those costumes J & S wore? I blame my cataracts & ancient tv. TIA

Santamonica was an ewok and Johan was a rebel on a speeder. Both from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. 

[AnimeMania]

I was surprised that they didn't try to give Santa Monica a little fur for her Ewok costume.

[tennisgurl]

I do think its a little unfair to call Tootie a token, because while I have only seen a few episodes of Facts of Life, she was a pretty well developed character, at least as much as everyone else was. I've always thought that a token was a person/character who had no real personality traits, arcs, or stories and were basically just there to fill a diversity quota, so I dont think she (or a lot of the characters they showed) would exactly count. Yeah its problematic that so many shows just said "yeah we have one black person so we`re golden!" but its a bit unfair to write so many characters, some of whom were actually pretty groundbreaking in their times, as just tokens. 

That all being said, I mostly liked how they dealt with the issue, that Bow said her piece, and the lesson that they had about getting to know people on a real level, and not just reducing them to race. The white girls didnt really seem like they were trying to be mean or hateful, they were just ignorant, which I think was a good way to handle it. 

The rumors about razer blades in candy were so ridiculous, I can imagine there were a lot of parents out there panicking like Alicia. In reality, those were urban legends and I dont think a real case of a person poisoning random kids on Halloween has ever been proven, they are usually twisted parents trying to cover up their kids real cause of death or some kind of allergic reaction. Its just the kind of panic that the media loved to run with at the time so that freaked out parents would tune in. 

The family being fresh off the commune can lead to a lot of fun unique holiday episodes, where the kids are first being exposed to these different customs. They all looked so cute in their costumes! 

[LucyEth]

I am really enjoying this show.  Agree about Tootie not being a token.  She was a main character.  I couldn't figure out amongst the other girls who was supposed to be who, maybe the girl doing all the speaking was Blair?  I did like that Bow spoke up and it didn't turn into a mean girls situation with Bow ending up getting hurt.  

One problem I have, I just cannot connect young Alicia to the current Alicia who on appears Black-ish.  

Edited October 31, 2019 by LucyEth

[Brian Cronin]

9 hours ago, LucyEth said:

One problem I have, I just cannot connect young Alicia to the current Alicia who appears Black-ish.  

I imagine that she went back to her hippie ways once her kids were all grown up. 

[Annabella]

On 10/30/2019 at 10:14 AM, vmcd88 said:

As a lifelong Facts of Life fan, they portrayed Tootie all wrong.  There were several episodes about Tootie's struggle at the all-white boarding school.   She was not a token.  That said....Rainbow's Tootie outfit was to die for.    

Agreed!  I was wondering if they were really going to explore this.  I lived the 80's.  I was the Tootie back in the day and kept waiting for them to mention some of what the show explored and it never happened.  Mrs. Garret would be disappointed in this episode.

[qtpye]

Small voice 

I thought Bow looked awesome as Tootie and I love Tootie.

That is all.

[MadyGirl1987]

On 10/30/2019 at 12:43 PM, tennisgurl said:

The rumors about razer blades in candy were so ridiculous, I can imagine there were a lot of parents out there panicking like Alicia. In reality, those were urban legends and I dont think a real case of a person poisoning random kids on Halloween has ever been proven, they are usually twisted parents trying to cover up their kids real cause of death or some kind of allergic reaction. Its just the kind of panic that the media loved to run with at the time so that freaked out parents would tune in.

I was just telling someone my last year of trick-or-treating was in 2001, right after the 9/11 attacks, and I remember a whole bunch of rumors about terrorists and candy. I actually knew someone whose mom wouldn't let her trick-or-treat since they had a lot of Muslim neighbors.

[hula-la]

My sister and I were the only black kids in our elementary school, so Tootie’s character always resonated with me. I agree with the poster size above who stated that Tootie was not a token character on the show, even though she wasn’t the only black kid. But, I like the general theme of this episode, and this show continues to grow on me. 

As an aside, adult me once went as Tootie for my Halloween costume. I even made it up and down my school stairs in my roller skates. Tootie would have been so proud. 

[Brian Cronin]

It's funny, because I'm really not even much of a fan of The Facts of Life. It was a decent enough show, but it rarely rose to the level of greatness and yet "Tootie is a token" just sticks in my craw so much. I think it's mainly the fact that Black-ish and Grown-ish and the first few episodes of Mixed-ish have typically shown such a sharp sense of their arguments. Agree or disagree, you at least get where they're coming from. They're typically not speaking from ignorance and that's what it sounds like to complain about Tootie on Facts of Life. It just seems ignorant. 

It also devalues historical context entirely, which is foolish as fuck. For instance, Uhura as a character is basically a lot closer to what you would typically consider a "token" character and yet, she was a major step forward for race on television. You have astronauts like Mae Jemison who specifically cite Uhura as being a major inspiration for them. Martin freakin' Luther King Jr. even specifically cited the importance of Nichelle Nichols being on a show like Star Trek. So it seems so wrong to be like, "Yeah, but she was a token and tokens are bad." The way the show acts like this is some clear cut thing is so disappointing. The general message of the episode was fine, but the specifics were insulting and ill-considered. 

I still really dig the show, but man, it irks me more than I thought it would. 

[qtpye]

11 hours ago, Brian Cronin said:

It's funny, because I'm really not even much of a fan of The Facts of Life. It was a decent enough show, but it rarely rose to the level of greatness and yet "Tootie is a token" just sticks in my craw so much. I think it's mainly the fact that Black-ish and Grown-ish and the first few episodes of Mixed-ish have typically shown such a sharp sense of their arguments. Agree or disagree, you at least get where they're coming from. They're typically not speaking from ignorance and that's what it sounds like to complain about Tootie on Facts of Life. It just seems ignorant. 

It also devalues historical context entirely, which is foolish as fuck. For instance, Uhura as a character is basically a lot closer to what you would typically consider a "token" character and yet, she was a major step forward for race on television. You have astronauts like Mae Jemison who specifically cite Uhura as being a major inspiration for them. Martin freakin' Luther King Jr. even specifically cited the importance of Nichelle Nichols being on a show like Star Trek. So it seems so wrong to be like, "Yeah, but she was a token and tokens are bad." The way the show acts like this is some clear cut thing is so disappointing. The general message of the episode was fine, but the specifics were insulting and ill-considered. 

I still really dig the show, but man, it irks me more than I thought it would. 

I really did not know what was so bad about going as Tootie. I also  do not love the darker skin girl being shown as spouting off ignorant bullshit and mixed race Bow shown as being so    much more reasonable.

They said Bow was a token but them making the other girl so nasty was really annoying to me.

[Red Fields]

Quote

I only had the show on in the background last night while taking care of something else, but it struck me how much the adult Bow sounded like her mom on this show. Something about their cadence or phrasing was similar, just like a mother and daughter in real life. I wonder if they did this on purpose.

I thought the same exact thing! Their voices sound very alike.

[xander874]

On 10/30/2019 at 12:11 AM, Brian Cronin said:

The general message of the episode was fine (as yes, it was uncool of the girls to try to befriend her only because they needed a black girl to win the costume party), but man, they totally missed the boat with Tootie. Did they even watch The Facts of Life? That was a very unfair description of that series and the use of Tootie on the show. If I was Kim Fields, I would be pissed to see her portrayal as Tootie devalued as "just the token." Or, even weirder, "The token who was there just to be comic relief." They were ALL comic relief - it was a sitcom!

Agreed and what really got me was when they were doing the opening narration and showing "token" characters, they used Silver Spoons and acted like Alfonso Ribiero was the only POC.  Franklin Seales, who was mixed race, was a regular in the cast too.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

I still love this song and this iconic video!

[txhorns79]

On 10/30/2019 at 7:14 PM, LucyEth said:

I couldn't figure out amongst the other girls who was supposed to be who, maybe the girl doing all the speaking was Blair?

The blonde was Blair, and they had one girl with her hair in a ponytail, who I think was Jo.  The other girl was Natalie, though she did not look like her.  I agree that the writers must never have actually watched any episodes of The Facts of Life.  Tootie was not a token.