Once in the vaguely-late-80s, I saw an episode of Family Ties. I didn't watch the show regularly, but I saw this one episode that made a long term impression on my thinking. In it, the Tina Yothers character, whose name I only learned today, is about to celebrate a birthday. Wikipedia recaps thusly.Jennifer — bored with her nice but unspectacular friend Beth, and desperately seeking popularity — wants to make some new friends, but has trouble at first. Mallory offers some well-meaning advice to act like a valley girl, which Jennifer takes seriously when she approaches a cool cliqué of snobbish girls, all having trendy clothes and hairstyles. All this takes place as the family prepares to celebrate Jennifer's birthday. As usual, Steven plans a series of kiddie-style birthday activities, at which point Jennifer loses her temper and leaves with her new friends.Wikipedia, in typical fashion, leaves out the critical detail. The dad's fatal error in planning the birthday festivities is that he does all of the decorations-- streamers, balloons, cake plates-- in purple. This is the Tina Yothers's character's favorite color. I'm not sure if it is her favorite color for just the episode, or for the whole series. Anyway, she normally loves purple. But her "snobbish" friends think purple is for babies.
In 1987, I was devastated. Purple? For babies? I loved purple. Tina Yothers and I had so much in common-- the middle name Louise, a surprise younger sibling, and a love of the color purple (not that musical by Oprah). And purple was uncool?
Of course, this was a two part episode, and I missed the second part. Who knows if Tina ever embraced the purple and accepted her love thereof?
The scars from the episode may have finally healed. Check out this Barney action I'm sporting today.
Purple, I love you.
2 comments:
This is a very good post. It could have used some more purple prose though.
You are forgetting she also had a friend trying to get into the group with her that turned her back on young yothers in a pivotal plot point.
P.S. Heidi Klum says that in her country they say if all else fails, use purple. Apparently, those girls on Family Ties were a bunch of Germans.
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