That's exactly how I interpreted it as well. By her laughing, he got the notion that she was implying that there's nothing her husband has to feel threatened by because he isn't a 'real' man anyways. Granted some might argue his reaction to take the nuclear option on their relationship could be seen as a bit drastic. However, I think the notion of "many a truth is said in jest" is certainly applied here. Since I would be lying by saying were I in Barry's shoes I do things totally different with absolute certainty. Because honestly, the backstab of prejudice from someone you thought was an ally and friend stings a hell of a lot more than the hateful ramblings of an out and out bigot. Least the open bigot is honest about their vile views and makes it easy to not associate with them. But someone who's hiding their actual views can either make you gaslight yourself in self-doubt or when the sucker punch comes in a moment of unguarded choice of words it can be hard not to recoil in self-defense of 'well if that's how you truly feel then screw you and so long.".

​@@ASymbolicSymbol Yes! Which was what Maude was all about. The flip side of Archie Bunker. Archie hated people simply because they were different. Maude professed to LOVE people simply because they were different. She wanted to look like a modern, open minded person so much so that she never dealt with any societal prejudices that had been instilled in her over the years. So, yes, I agree that Barry sees the laughing as a backstab. And, he a flawed person, so he doesn't try to understand the underlying reasons Maude laughed, he just cuts her off. SymbolicSymbol, I was alive (though just a child) when this episode first aired. I really think fully understanding it is a generational thing. I don't at all want to denigrate millennials, there's enough of that out there, but they simply don't have the information to get this, through no fault of their own.

I think that's a great interpretation. It could be that Maude's laughter exposes to Barry that she never really cared about him as a person. In that respect, Walter kicking him out "because I don't like you as a person" indicates that he's given Barry more consideration than Maude has!

@@MattBaume Yes, Matt! Exactly. Maude wanted to appear cosmopolitan, bohemian, and open minded so she never considers Barry as a person. Not even enough to just tell him "lighten up on Walter, he's my husband." Unlike Archie Bunker, Maude has her heart in the right place, or at least directed toward the right place. But on the level that she doesn't see Barry as anything but a gay man, she's as bad as Archie is.

@@MattBaume By the way, Matt, when you pointed out that the "infer/imply" joke had some meaning in the episode beyond it just being a joke, I was pretty blown away. That level of writing is almost never seen it sitcoms. Kudos for catching it. Rod Parker is the credited writer, and he's actually still around and still working. Maybe we should contact him!

And "allegedly" very true.

Yeah that one was my favourite too😂

I had an absolutely lovely aunt who closely resembled Maude/Bea Arthur and her husband (my uncle) really closely resembled Rodney Dangerfield. Luckily, they only looked like them.

She really was...I was stage managing a production that was about to close, and a play starring Bea was following our production. That meant we had to schedule rehearsals etc around both productions. I often would arrive early for my duties, and watch their rehearsals. She was so funny, and down to earth...never played the diva, and she totally could have, our entire cast was in love with her💞

@@howardkerr8174😢

I’m sorry that happened (though not surprised). It must have been painful.

@Watson Everly ok that raises the question of why Maude knew that then. Gay writer(s)?

@@samllyn Probably. Norman Lear was brilliant and progressive, and he walked the walk of liberal/progressive politics.

It also reminds me of the way a lot of queer people talk to other queer people. Sometime affectionately and sometimes just being jerks but yeah we do it too.

@@redbyrd247 Yes! A lot of the gay men I knew from my time as a gamer, er gaymer, called each other "she." I don't recall any of them giving each other names like Mary or Susan or whatever.

It also sounds like every straight woman who watches drag race than starts talking to their gay friends with everything they hear on the show...If I hear one more straight woman say “byeeeeeeeeeee” to me I’ll scream.

Oh, shoot. Which part of the video was that? Oh, heck. Maybe I'll just rewatch it! ;) :P

That's the housekeeper from Mary Poppins! Also 0:11 (:

Oh gosh yes, so strange to see Ellen from Mary Poppins appear here!!!

Similar to an episode of WILL & GRACE when Grace's mother (despite knowing Will is gay) suggests he and Grace should marry. Will laughs. "Please, even if I was straight, I would NEVER marry Grace"

Absolutely!! He humanized both the victims of prejudice and the perpetrators. Norman was teaching us all how to be tolerant of each other. To accept each other. He also wanted the left to not be so accusatory, as that was a mixture of hypocritical and unkind behavior to people who needed only to learn.

I had not stopped to think about it, but you are right. And that subtlety was genius. The 'paragon' of the different shows was held up & examined from both points of view. There were no Saints anywhere. Except Edith. I still miss Edith Bunker like a real person. TgT

@@tomgcooktown5019 My Grammy was an Edith

Unfortunately, it seems like a lot of people missed the fact that the show was always hard on Archie Bunker and his views. We can't have nice things, can we?

@@ROLtheWolf I wish that the political parties of today would take a page out of Norman Lear's book of politics.

I simply took it as meaning that although Barry could be a best friend to her as a straight woman, he couldn’t be a husband. Not less of a man, but “not her type.”

I am a 46 year old woman and love Arthur...I never associated any sexuality with Mr. Ratburn but I have to see that episode. It seems good

It was a tasteful episode for kids I enjoyed watching it.

I truly wish more people were like you in this world. Thank you for being a kind human and just know that you are valued and sincerely appreciated. Sending love and hugs! ❤

There was some solid research, but the glaringly missing information was "Who is Norman Lear?"

@@ROLtheWolf Wikipedia is agood start

@@charlesritt5088 That's right, Chuck! The guy above could have found out tons about Norman Lear on Wiki, and then he would have made a much more informative video, that understood how that wonderful, influential show runner created most of the best shows ever.

@@ROLtheWolf I think Matt did a very good job on this episode

You need to look at pictures of Bea when she started her career. It is always an eye opener to find a star on late night tv in a movie or obscure tv rerun. Irene Ryan was in the Faye Ray version of King Kong and as you can imagine, back then she didn't look like an old lady....but few people saw Ms Ryan in her earliest roles.

I was just thinking the same thing 😂😂😂

She had a very masculine touch.

She was mostly a stage actress before "Maude."

Bea was very pretty in her youth, but it was a very statuesque beauty, which would have been considered "mannish" or "severe" back then. Not to mention even in the Fifties she still had a very deep voice for a woman. That's why most of her early work was either stage or the rare TV appearance where she portrayed someone's mother. She didn't really get big roles until Mame in the Sixties, by which she was in her 40s.

They were interesting times, my friend. And not always good. I was born in 68 and remember how gays/lesbians were at best simply the butt of jokes or mere comedy relief, just like Matt said. I'm glad I got to live to see the day when gay people could legally marry. But there's still a long way to go and the forces arrayed against the good people, both straight and gay, trying to hold the line are many and powerful. I hope that within a hundred years being a homosexual will barely register as something "abnormal" on people's radars. Maybe it will be sometime later, but no later than two hundred years from now. Sadly, a big part is simply going to be waiting for those who will never change their mind to die off. I still wish that people like that would change their mind. But, sometimes it's just so ingrained in them that even if they outwardly started treating gay people as, well, people inside they would likely still hate them. We'll see how things turn out! Well, maybe not really _see_ , but... You get the idea... ;)

Oh I'm a little envious! That means that you get to discover all of those great things for the first time, which is super fun. I've got videos about all of them, so that might be a good place to start! kzfaq.info/sun/PLKw13hcK-XrVSdA4C8UceHyS3WNNOipMv

Matt and Ethan -- Ethan, you can find those old shows, maybe, on rerun channels that do old nostalgia TV. Those are all 70's and 80's shows, mostly sitcoms. -- Matt, you don't need to envy us having gone through that any more than you'd envy your younger self for whatever homophobia you went through. As you often point out, there was (often still is) this odd mix of more positive subtle stuff along with some very negative weird and occasionally loud and overt stuff. I lived through it, and I am not sure how others my age managed to be out. Although it's funny, there were plenty of rumors about a few guys and girls when I went to school, so in retrospect, I'm not sure how "in the closet" we really were -- except that I didn't know if any of those friends or classmates really were gay, or only rumored to be to make their lives rougher. That said, one boy was supposedly the only out gay boy when I went, and another, a friend, was the first male cheerleader, and possibly gay and still trying to come to terms with himself, like I was. Other friends got called gay for doing theater or dance class, or how they wore their shirt collar (in high school, very mature). So rumors were, ah, perhaps less than truthful in all cases. -- Yet it was serious enough that some kids did get bullied / beaten up, etc. The word homosexual or gay did not appear in the student handbook, and in at least two cases, teachers knew full well things were happening (bullying) and did nothing about it. -- A character like Kurt in Glee just would not have happened on TV, and would have had serious trouble in real life...but there were kids like Kurt in Glee when I grew up. -- In hindsight, well, I made it too, and I sometimes wonder what would've happened if I'd ever gotten so fed up that I could've said, yeah, I am, so what? and come out. But I was too scared of whether my parents would accept me. -- It is not so different these days, either, for many gay kids. Being gay, whether you're in the closet or out, is not easy, still. So I don't know if I'd be right to claim it's any easier or more accepted now. I think it depends: sometimes, some places, it is, and other, not much different. -- But I am glad if anyone can be out and proud. My life would've been very different, and possibly better, if I could've come out much sooner.

I’m gen x I saw all those except Maude

Im a millennial and I did not know Esther Williams, Joan Crawford, Judy Garland, Doris Day. As a gay and as you get older, you will learn and appreciate a lot of cultural and historic aspects from the past.

Underused catchphrase TBQH

Twin Fantasy pfp

Maya S, Typical of the South.

And Alabama

Exactly, the South loved slavery and went to war over it, and when they lost that battle, they switched to hating gays! ( Some Southerners at least, not all! )

I love it, too! :) I grew up during these times and remember some of the "controversial" episodes from certain shows. But my memory is getting more fuzzy as time goes on and it's nice to have a kind of refresher, as it were. :)

Aww thanks! Let me know if you have requests for future topics!

Matt Baume All in the Family did an early episode where a gay man and gay woman came to the door, asking for donations or maybe giving out pamphlets. They say they represent the Gay Liberators and the Daughters of Sappho. Edith thinks they are a lovely married couple, but Archie slams the door in their face and proceeds to try to explain to Edith, I remember something about someone’s daughter named Butchie who drove a cab. I haven’t seen it since I was a little gay kid but it stuck in my memory all that time because gays just weren’t on TV ever. It might have been in the episode where Archie thinks one of Mike’s quiet friends is ‘queer’ (an insult back then that would be like saying faggot today) but it turns out his is straight but one of Archie’s friends at the bar, a former football player, is gay. MASH also did an episode about an injured soldier (I think his own solders hurt him, but not sure) who was gay and comes out to Hawkeye. But maybe you’ve already done one or both of those episodes? The movie Making Love might also be worth a look. I was just in love with Michael Ontkean’s character.

@@MattBaume Please do an episode of Marcus Welby perhaps one of the most anti-gay show of it's time or discuss the very homophobic Eddie Murphey era of snl

I just can't get enough of it. She's such a clown.

@@MattBaume Kinda like Pennywise......

You are smart.

Matt, CybershamanX has the right idea. I was a sharp 13 year-old boy when this was made. What Maude's laugh implied was her (and much of American society at the time) belief that not only was it ridiculous for people to believe Barry as a credible to Walter for Maude's affections, the assumption was that, being gay, meant an unmasculine man, a man who was considered as feminine as a woman. Maude's laugh was revealing that myth that defined straight people's views on gays until this day.

@@caraqueno Now I feel so old! We're teaching the younger generations about all the screwed up things that happened in "our day". Wow. It's so weird. But...but...I still feel like a kid! heh, heh ;)

@@caraqueno And thank you for further clarifying that scene! :)

@@CybershamanX You're welcome! I still feel as if I'm 40 :-)! I don't want to be 20 again.. The crux of so much hostility towards male homosexuality and the struggle for GBT men to come out has always hinged upon the myth that homosexual men were, by nature, feminine and that femininity was unseemly, worthy of ridicule by mainstream society, and fear by GBT men that, when they come out, they would be treated contemptuously by mainstream society and regarded as pretend-women. In a society that equates strength, power, and the fulfillment of life goals as intrinsically masculine, which man wanted to be ridiculed, hated, and physically violated for behaving or perceived as less than that idea of American masculinity? This is why the expression "Man up!" was created and why American men, in particular (our emotionally rigid Puritan colonizers did us great harm in expressing emotions), find it still difficult to acknowledge beauty in men, acknowledge affection and love between men, and share feelings among men without the social stigma that they are perceived as gay, meaning they want to be feminine and should be treated as inferior beings for displaying tenderness, emotional vulnerability, and sensuality.

CybershamanX, it's been great to communicate with you. I hope our paths will cross again!

@Tavon Fenwick I know, I was being sarcastic.

Barry was a legend. 😎

OMG, I just laughed so hard!!!

And Mr. Lear's point may have been that being okay with the 'alternative lifestyle' is not enough. We must consider the whole person.

Ooh, and dig into how Joss Whedon knew from the start that either Willow or Xander would eventually be gay, but he hadn't decided which, so he planted clues for both of them, the result of which is that they both read as bi.

Seconded!

That's a great question, and I think the answer (as it so often is, to so many questions) is listening. Listen to the words & actions that other people say are harmful; and listen to your own words to understand if you're accidentally harming someone without meaning to.

@@MattBaume Also in 1982 there was Victor/Victoria. Making love and personal best and then gay people in film almost disappeared for about 10 years. This was during the very homophobic Reagan era and the rise of Jerry Falwell,PAT Robertson etc. And Sunday mornings were just horrible as anti-gay TV evangelests were on about every other channel, I kept thinking why are all these local station allowing all this anti-gay bigotry on the air without any shows to counter this very harmful bullshit

In the 80s, which was a pretty open time in a lot of ways, gay men were associated with AIDS, which probably made movies and television downplay uncoded gay themes and characters.

Also, her being a feminist, and calling him with a female name, as a mockery (even as a slip), like implying that femininity is somehow inferior to masculinity....

Tracie Irene that happens a lot though. Some words get censored while others don’t. 🤷🏾‍♀️ It depended on how bad the writers thought certain language was.

That's a good point. I'm glad that it didn't turn into Barry being the "model homosexual" and having a big exhausting speech, like it's our job to constantly be the ambassadors for our people.

Matt Baume That word is shocking in the modern era, and most have still been a bit shocking back then, but my guess is that it wasn’t as bad back then because they were referring to a type of food rather than a person? The same way a rug can be referred to as Oriental but a person can not.

Entirely possible! I don't know when TV started properly depicting bisexuality (to be honest, it still doesn't do a great job) so I think there are a lot of occasions in the media when someone is called "homosexual" when that's not actually the case.

@@MattBaume Time to write to Norman Leer while he's still alive.

@@MattBaume Also try to include the short lived but influential My So Called Life

Maude is on weekdays on antenna tv which is an over the air channel

@@charlesritt5088 I know I got an antenna like 9 years ago when I first moved out. People really are missing out on how much they can actually watch and save with an antenna.

Aw yay thanks for watching!

I'm prejudiced towards mean spirited jerks gay or straight

I'm a couple of years older. I also loved sci-fi and still do. My parents weren't fundamentalist./ evangelical, but were very religious Christians, and I grew up with that. (I also grew up feeling I could never talk to them about being gay.) One of my best friends was from a far more fundamentalist family. -- I think if my parents ever knew I was gay, they never wanted to see it, so they chose not to. -- So yes, absolutely, being gay or gay-friendly / accepting wasn't easy back then, and was very conflicting for those of us who grew up with family backgrounds like that.

@@benw9949 Wow. Thanks for sharing. :)

CybershamX: I was also a kid in the 70s, grew up to like sci-fi (from the original Star Trek in reruns.). I eventually figured out I liked Fantasy better, but read this series called Darkover by Marion Zimmer Bradly that I ended up loving, which is sort of a cross of fantasy and sci-fi (like The Chronicles of Amber is). The first two books I read in the Darkover series (they take place over many eras in the life of the Darkover planet and can thus be read in any order) both had gay content. The World Wreckers I read first, but she wrote that in the 60s when she was slightly less accomplished as an author, but I found out later it broke some ground in science fiction with a gay character. But by far I HIGHLY recommend The Heritage of Hasture first. I was just in love with Regis Hasture as a gay kid, as he was also coming to grips with certain things about himself. Another sci-fi series I love is John Varley’s books Titan, Wizard and Demon. It’s hard sci-fi but leveled with mythology, pop culture and amazing writing. What are some series you like?

​ RLucas3000 As a straight young man growing up I read several books that had gay characters or situations. Again, it was the only way I learned how really "normal" homosexuality was and how just because you loved someone of the same sex it didn't mean that somehow your love was lessened. Your words reminded me of a two books (there might have been more). I _think_ it was called "Gaea". (I _just_ looked it up! It was the Gaea Trilogy and I read the first two, Titan and Wizard. Looks like I have one more book to check out!) It was about a giant living organism that basically was a world on the inside. (It spun for gravity. It was kind of like a smaller, fleshy ringworld. :P ) I really liked those books. But, yes, they had quite a bit of gay content and the author didn't shy away from it. You know, come to think of it, I think he was gay, too! Other than that, I read all sorts of things, like Dune (until Frank Herbert died :( I read his son's books continuing the franchise, but, while I somewhat enjoyed them, they definitely were _not_ Frank Herbert level of quality. :( ), everything I could get my hands on by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Greg Bear. Isaac Asimov was still writing robot stories (and seemingly putting more sex into his work as time, and social norms, progressed). Arthur C. Clarke. William Gibson. I'm sure there were more. Like, I avidly read all of the Robotech paperbacks. Lately I dove back into Asimov and read every single book in his Empire/Foundation/Robot series. I just finished the entire 10 book Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson. Now, THAT was a slog! tiny tiny print and pretty long. In fact, when I next went to read the latest The Expanse book, I was shocked by the large font size and easy to read text (Donaldson sure does love his esoteric nomenclature! :P ) Oh, and I have The Hobbit and a cute little hardback 7 volume edition of Lord of the Rings by my bed. I would just read a little before falling asleep each night. I think in the last decade I've read them both at least 3 times. Oh, and of course I read a lot of Stephen King and I even have a fondness for Dean Koontz! :) Anyway, it looks like I've got to find the third book in the Gaea series! Going to have to reread the first two, as well! ;)

The Star Trek Next Generation series had an episode in which the crew of the Enterprise were tasked with providing technical assistance (to avert an environmental crisis) to a humanoid race whose ancestors had modified their genome to make them a single gender. Reproduction was done via in vitro medical techniques, and sex for companionship was non-exclusive, at least in their legal theory. The occasional person who somehow showed a gender identity was treated as having a mental illness and forced into “therapy,” just as gay people in some churches are being forced into therapy to “pray the gay away.” Well, as you might expect, the he-mannest man on the ship, Cmdr. Riker, was assigned to work closely with a local scientist who happened to be a “mutant” with strong female gender identity, and the Prime Directive got stretched too far, and “she” was caught. I could see that it was a veiled way of standing up for gay and trans people, a couple of decades before it became publicly acceptable to do so, just as white vs black prejudice was tackled in the Original Series episode “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” (in which a white-and-black hateful cop is chasing a black-and-white fugitive “criminal” around the Galaxy).

Aww thanks! Welcome. :D And let me know if there are topics you want to see me cover!

You got it! I've got a whole playlist full of them: kzfaq.info/sun/PLKw13hcK-XrVSdA4C8UceHyS3WNNOipMv

She's such a strange character! I don't know what it was about that time that it was just NORMAL for middle-class families to have a live-in housekeeper.

That's is very strange. My memory is fuzzy on this but I think there were extenuating circumstances that led to the Finnleys taking Mrs Naugatuck into their home.

@@MattBaume Why did Maude always have the need to have a maid? Did she not know how to clean up after herself?

One of Bea's finest roles.