The greatest two minutes twenty-seven seconds of television history, courtesy of Ms Julia Sugarbaker, played by the glorious Dixie Virginia Carter who died last Saturday.
A guy pal of mine knows he’s had Too Much when he can’t recite “A Boy Named Sue” in its entirety in under two minutes. Another friend does the salient parts of The Wife of Bath in Middle English. Me? It’s this scene, which is always good for applause and at least one free drink at pretty much any self-respecting gay bar in the developed world.
They just don’t write parts like that for women anymore. Sigh. We’ll miss you, Dixie.
When I heard that Dixie Carter passed away, I immediately thought “Plumcake has GOT to do a Frieday Fierceness of Julia Sugarbaker.
Comment by klee — April 16, 2010 @ 12:59 pm
What did Miss Marjorie Leigh Winnick do to deserve that epic tongue-lashing?
Comment by Jacquilynne — April 16, 2010 @ 1:01 pm
Jacquilynne: she was cruel about Suzanne Sugarbaker (Delta Burke) and how she’d gotten fat, etc.
Klee: You know me too well! Although I’m obviously way more Suzanne (shocking I know), I’ve always wanted to be a Julia.
Comment by Plumcake — April 16, 2010 @ 1:30 pm
They were at Suzanne’s class reunion, I think, and Suzanne was so happy to go and see her old friends, but Julia overheard some women being bitchy in the bathroom about Suzanne’s weight gain.
Comment by The gold digger — April 16, 2010 @ 2:20 pm
This has ALWAYS been my most favorite scene of television. Thank you for posting it!
Comment by MarilynT — April 16, 2010 @ 2:25 pm
I gotta say, though, that the women you knew in school probably aren’t going to be nasty about how you’ve changed if they liked you in school. Suzanne always struck me as a character who had no use for other women and let it show. (Until the time she tried to be friends with another former beauty queen who turned out to be gay and then Suzanne was mad that the friend didn’t hit on her: “Doesn’t she think I’m pretty?”)
Still, the moral of the story is don’t be bitchy and nasty unless you are absolutely positive you won’t be overheard.
Comment by The gold digger — April 16, 2010 @ 2:50 pm
My favorite Julia Sugarbaker moment was when the office got a new answering machine. Everyone took a turn at trying to record an outgoing message – too long, too cute, too much. Julia picked it up and said “This is an answering machine. You KNOW what to do.”
Used that for several years on my own machine. Never quite got the accent or attitude right, though. There’s only one Dixie.
Comment by Carol — April 16, 2010 @ 4:58 pm
@Gold Digger: Or unless you get paid.
Comment by Plumcake — April 16, 2010 @ 5:40 pm
With losing Bea Arthur, Dixie Carter, and Nancy Marchand, I have lost many of the women on TV that I looked up to tremendously: beautiful, economically independent, sarcastic, unwilling to suffer fools glady (let alone pick up after one), and willing to give and take elbows to the face, they helped me learn an important lesson: fck being a good girl.
Comment by Lisa — April 16, 2010 @ 6:50 pm
Julia Sugarbaker always made me wish I’d been born a Southern woman.
I’m gonna miss Dixie Carter.
Comment by ChristianeF — April 16, 2010 @ 7:21 pm
LOVE.IT.
Comment by theDiva — April 16, 2010 @ 8:08 pm
Or unless you get paid.
OMG. The perfect job. Being paid to be bitchy. Throw some poppyseed kolaches and chocolate (and maybe Season 2 of Mad Men, which I’ve been waiting for for two months) in there and that is the definition of heaven.
Comment by The gold digger — April 17, 2010 @ 11:00 am
My sister and I actually appropriated the crazy people in the South speech to explain to a Yankee the presence of certain members of our family at Christmas. She will be missed.
Comment by megaera — April 20, 2010 @ 3:24 am