by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator
Nearly three years ago in this space I wrote a quick review of a new Netflix show called "Grace and Frankie," a situation comedy featuring four big Hollywood stars: Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Martin Sheen, and Sam Waterston. The premise is that the two ladies are shocked when their husbands, who are law partners, announce that they are divorcing the wives so that they can marry each other. The devastated wives, Fonda and Tomlin, decide independently of each other to move into a beach house in La Jolla that the couples owned together - where they became reluctant roommates and eventually good friends.
I titled that piece "Lucy and Ethel Move to the Beach" because the resulting series quickly began feeling more like a standard sitcom than a serious delving into issues like the effects that an emerging gay relationship might have on established family routines and functioning - as well as an honest look at the impact of aging on individuals and families. The show seemed more concerned with mining laughs than it was in giving an honest look at aging or gay relationships.
There were a couple of good moments in the first season, and I had hopes that it would eventually clarify its focus and deliver a quality program. The next two seasons did little to move the needle beyond the standard sitcom range. The girls (and it did feel as though they were focused on being "girls") showed their modernity by smoking pot and dating, but beyond that they seemed to be limited to paths forged by Lucy and Ethel.
Then came season four, and now it begins to get real.
In the series Jane Fonda (Grace) and Lily Tomlin (Frankie) play a pair of women who are just entering their seventies. Tomlin's Frankie is an aging hippie who is basically comfortable with her age and life. Fonda's Grace, on the other hand, struggles to appear younger, say a couple of decades or so. In "real" life Tomlin is 78, and Fonda is eighty The men are each seventy-seven.
Season four takes a strong look at aging, particularly as it impacts the two women. Frankie, who is often only semi-coherent, even when she isn't stoned, gets lost while taking her infant granddaughter for a drive, and Grace, who is dating a much younger man and struggling to hide signs of aging from him, has a bad knee and is taking a raft of different medications. At one point, while obviously impaired by her prescription meds, Grace rams her motorized shopping cart into a police car - and the responding officer smells alcohol and spots a flask in Grace's purse. The social outings in season four are generally for the funerals of friends.
Suddenly these old people, particularly the women, are beginning to look like people we all know. Suddenly they are relevant. Suddenly they are acting their age.
Thank you Jane, Lily, Sam, and Martin for struggling to make it real.
The following is dedicated to those of us who realize we are growing older.
On Aging
by Maya Angelou
When you see me sitting quietly,
Like a sack left on the shelf,
Don’t think I need your chattering.
I’m listening to myself.
Hold! Stop! Don’t pity me!
Hold! Stop your sympathy!
Understanding if you got it,
Otherwise I’ll do without it!
When my bones are stiff and aching,
And my feet won’t climb the stair,
I will only ask one favor:
Don’t bring me no rocking chair.
When you see me walking, stumbling,
Don’t study and get it wrong.
‘Cause tired don’t mean lazy
And every goodbye ain’t gone.
I’m the same person I was back then,
A little less hair, a little less chin,
A lot less lungs and much less wind.
But ain’t I lucky I can still breathe in.
Poetry Appreciator
Nearly three years ago in this space I wrote a quick review of a new Netflix show called "Grace and Frankie," a situation comedy featuring four big Hollywood stars: Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Martin Sheen, and Sam Waterston. The premise is that the two ladies are shocked when their husbands, who are law partners, announce that they are divorcing the wives so that they can marry each other. The devastated wives, Fonda and Tomlin, decide independently of each other to move into a beach house in La Jolla that the couples owned together - where they became reluctant roommates and eventually good friends.
I titled that piece "Lucy and Ethel Move to the Beach" because the resulting series quickly began feeling more like a standard sitcom than a serious delving into issues like the effects that an emerging gay relationship might have on established family routines and functioning - as well as an honest look at the impact of aging on individuals and families. The show seemed more concerned with mining laughs than it was in giving an honest look at aging or gay relationships.
There were a couple of good moments in the first season, and I had hopes that it would eventually clarify its focus and deliver a quality program. The next two seasons did little to move the needle beyond the standard sitcom range. The girls (and it did feel as though they were focused on being "girls") showed their modernity by smoking pot and dating, but beyond that they seemed to be limited to paths forged by Lucy and Ethel.
Then came season four, and now it begins to get real.
In the series Jane Fonda (Grace) and Lily Tomlin (Frankie) play a pair of women who are just entering their seventies. Tomlin's Frankie is an aging hippie who is basically comfortable with her age and life. Fonda's Grace, on the other hand, struggles to appear younger, say a couple of decades or so. In "real" life Tomlin is 78, and Fonda is eighty The men are each seventy-seven.
Season four takes a strong look at aging, particularly as it impacts the two women. Frankie, who is often only semi-coherent, even when she isn't stoned, gets lost while taking her infant granddaughter for a drive, and Grace, who is dating a much younger man and struggling to hide signs of aging from him, has a bad knee and is taking a raft of different medications. At one point, while obviously impaired by her prescription meds, Grace rams her motorized shopping cart into a police car - and the responding officer smells alcohol and spots a flask in Grace's purse. The social outings in season four are generally for the funerals of friends.
Suddenly these old people, particularly the women, are beginning to look like people we all know. Suddenly they are relevant. Suddenly they are acting their age.
Thank you Jane, Lily, Sam, and Martin for struggling to make it real.
The following is dedicated to those of us who realize we are growing older.
On Aging
by Maya Angelou
When you see me sitting quietly,
Like a sack left on the shelf,
Don’t think I need your chattering.
I’m listening to myself.
Hold! Stop! Don’t pity me!
Hold! Stop your sympathy!
Understanding if you got it,
Otherwise I’ll do without it!
When my bones are stiff and aching,
And my feet won’t climb the stair,
I will only ask one favor:
Don’t bring me no rocking chair.
When you see me walking, stumbling,
Don’t study and get it wrong.
‘Cause tired don’t mean lazy
And every goodbye ain’t gone.
I’m the same person I was back then,
A little less hair, a little less chin,
A lot less lungs and much less wind.
But ain’t I lucky I can still breathe in.
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