Following Betty White’s death, sitcom nostalgia is all the rage, with fans noticing similarities between the iconic “The Golden Girls” and the “Sex And The City” reboot “And Just Like That...”
Both shows follow four “older” women navigating single life, but the most surprising similarity between the two is the ages of the leading ladies playing these characters.
Carrie’s age range in “And Just Like That...” puts her in the same age range as the characters in “The Golden Girls” season one, according to TODAY with Hoda & Jenna. In “The Golden Girls”, Rose is 55, Dorothy is 53, Blanche is 47 and Sophia is 79. In “And Just Like That...”, Miranda and Charlotte are 54, while Carrie is 55.
The representation of age on TV has changed dramatically over the years, and fans on social media have begun to debate why the two generations of sitcom stars seem entirely different in age.
“Golden girls also came from a generation where once women hit 40, they were ‘old’, meanwhile we’re slowly allowing women to age how they would like,” one fan commented.
Another added, “We are just better at makeup, fillers and styling now.”
One fan’s theory is that the actors in “The Golden Girls” were playing characters younger than their actual age, noting, “Rue McClanahan was actually 52 in 1985 but Betty White and Bea Arthur were both 63 in 1985.”
Although the women in “The Golden Girls” will forever be linked to their famous characters, McClanahan admitted that they were nothing like their personas, Parade reported.
“None of us was like any of our characters,” she said. “People ask me if I am like Blanche and my standard answer is: ‘Get serious! Look at the facts, Blanche is a man-crazy, glamorous, extremely sexy, successful with men Southern belle from Atlanta, Georgia, and I’m not from Atlanta!’
Getty died at age 84 in 2008, Arthur died in 2009 at age 86 from cancer, McClanahan passed away in 2010 at age 76 from a stroke and White died on New Year’s Eve 2021; she would have turned 100 on Jan. 17.
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