#2 queer characters who barely had any interaction with each other throughout the series run

[mayabishopgold]

Can you just stand next to me? This helps. I think this is what I need right now. Maya & Vic | Station 19 - 1x07

[strangegirlsontv]

All In The Family (Part 2) - Cousin Liz

[Part 1]

Six years after “Judging Books By Covers,” All in the Family decided to tackle the subject of homosexuality again with an episode called “Cousin Liz.”  At this point, the series had tackled a wide variety of controversial subjects for 70′s television, such as menopause and hate crimes, and shortly after this episode the show would have far heavier episodes, such as one where Edith narrowly avoids being assaulted by a serial rapist and one where Archie unintentionally attends a KKK meeting.  But, as with “Judging Books By Covers”, most of the weight of “Cousin Liz” comes not from the severity of the topic itself, but from Archie’s reaction to it.

The episode’s setup is simple enough.  Archie and Edith have checked into a run down motel.  While Archie grumbles about the low quality of the room, Edith innocently says she wonders why the clerk asked if they’d be using the room for more than an hour, then reads off a placard saying “Call Front Desk If You Wish To See Today’s Adult Film Presentation”.  She then fails to figure out the double entendre of the film’s title (“’Goldilocks and the Three Bares’--oh look at the way they spelled bears!”).  This has been a running theme in Edith’s character throughout the series, but the show takes special care to establish that when it comes to subtlety towards sexual matters, Edith is absolutely clueless (despite being a sexually active grown woman).  She often approaches any sexual conversation with a heavy naivety.

As it turns out, Edith and Archie are not in this motel for romance--they’re in town for a funeral.  More specifically, Edith’s cousin Liz has passed away.  Archie reminisces about how he always thought Liz was one of the only decent people in Edith’s family.  Edith laments that Liz never married, despite how beautiful she was.  In response, Archie admits that he used to have a crush on Liz, and kissed her once, but claims “she wouldn’t do nothing else.”  Ah, interesting.  Edith begins fantasizing about cousin Liz and Archie’s deceased friend Stretch Cunningham meeting in heaven and falling in love.  Archie dismisses this fantasy on the basis that angels don’t have genitalia so there’d be nothing for them to do together.  He’s seen paintings of angels, he knows what he’s talking about.

Archie begins inquiring about if Liz may have left some kind of inheritance or money from her job as a school teacher, as Edith is Liz’s closest living relative.  Edith isn’t interested in talking about it, and dismisses the idea of there being any kind of inheritance because she has shared an apartment with another teacher, Veronica, for many years, which Edith takes to mean she couldn’t afford to live elsewhere.  Ah, interesting.

After the funeral, Archie and Edith are with other mourners at Liz and Veronica’s apartment.  Archie almost immediately starts asking about the funeral costs, fishing to see if there may be any money left over to go to Edith.  Archie starts speculating over what things in the apartment may have belonged to Liz, but Edith points out a silver tea set that is the only thing she knows for sure belonged to Liz.  She tells Archie that it is a family heirloom that has been in the family for 100 years.  But then she tells Archie something he’s far more interested in, which is that the tea set is worth at least $2,000.  In 1977 dollars.  Of course, she’s not interested in selling it.

Overhearing their conversation about the tea set, Veronica asks Edith to speak privately with her in the bedroom.  Edith asks if it was Liz’s room, to which Veronica replies “well, it was our room, Edith.”  Edith nods to this with a sort of sympathetic look on her face, but in her case it’s more due to her thinking that they were so poor on their teacher salaries that they were forced to share a single room.  “We shared everything,” Veronica tells her.  

Ah, interesting.

Veronica begins telling Edith about how she and Liz had a lot of memories around that tea set, sharing tea every day.  She pleads with Edith for her to be able to keep the tea set, promising that on her own death it’d go back to Edith’s family.  Edith starts explaining the family history behind the tea set, but stops when she sees Veronica crying.  Veronica pauses a moment, then says, with a very uncomfortable look on her face, “Edith, your cousin Liz and I were...very fond of each other.  Extremely fond of each other.”

Edith replies, “Oh, I know, we was too!”

Of course, as nearly any modern viewer and probably a lot of viewers at the time have already figured out, this isn’t what Veronica meant.  She explains again, “We...loved each other.”

Edith replies, “I know, we loved each other too!”

The audience laughs after each of Edith’s replies here, because they figured it out already.  Regardless as to how the audience feels about homosexuality, they are able to laugh at Edith’s naivety, because they’ve already figured out the punchline well in advance.

Edith reminisces about how when she and Liz were young, they were “like sisters.”  But Veronica makes it clear, “no, it wasn’t like that.  We loved each other in a different way.”

Veronica uses all the indirect language that a lot of television of the time used to describe gay people without outright saying it.  They were fond of each other.  They were different.  However, this kind of language is a little jarring compared to “Judging Books By Covers”, where every other word was fag or fairy.  Liz is trying to tell Edith without actually telling Edith, because Edith is a hard one to judge the reaction of, especially for someone like Veronica who doesn’t really know her.  And what she finally says that gets through to Edith is, “this was more like a marriage.”

“A marriage?  Oh, but it couldn’t be!  You and cousin Liz was both gi--”

Edith has figured it out, mid-sentence, and her initial reaction is shock.  But not shock and disgust, just...pure shock.  The audience laughs quite a bit at her baffled face, but she pretty quickly recovers to ask, “you mean, you and cousin Liz...????”  When she gets a “yes” from Veronica, she returns to her baffled face.  She’s figured it out, but it doesn’t appear to be something she’s ever encountered before.  We know from last time that it’s not like she’s never heard of gay people.  But it’s very possible she’s never knowingly interacted with one before.  Now she’s face to face with her cousin’s partner, and has to figure out what all this means, fast.

Veronica immediately starts trying to comfort Edith, telling her that she and Liz had a wonderful life together for 25 years.  She wants to let Edith know that this isn’t some horrible deep dark secret, it’s what was likely the best part of her cousin’s life and now she can share it with her.  Edith is still confused, unsurprising given her general confusion at all matters sexuality.  But she’s already warming up to the idea, replying to Veronica with “that’s good...I wonder why she never mentioned it?”

Well, aside from the general concerns about coming out that still persist to this day, Veronica has one very key reason why she and Liz were never public about their relationship--the two of them work as school teachers.  This would have been a career death sentence for both of them.  This is more or less what happened in The Children’s Hour, where a rumor about two school teachers being lesbians led to them losing everything.  And in the case of Liz and Veronica, it’s no rumor.

Edith doesn’t understand why a lesbian wouldn’t be allowed to be a school teacher, which of course Veronica appreciates, but she knows the reality of her situation far better than Edith ever could.  Then, in what appears to be a change of heart, Edith tells Veronica that she wishes Veronica hadn’t told her.  However, she quickly explains that it’s because of how much sadder it makes Liz’s death for her.  “It must have been terrible, loving somebody and not being able to talk about it.”

Edith may not understand homosexuality, but Edith understands love, and to Edith, love is the most important thing in the world.  She’s a classic romantic, and without her Archie would probably have been far less willing to allow someone like Michael to date his daughter.  But Edith wouldn’t hear of it, because they love each other.  And now she understands that Veronica and Liz loved each other too.  So, she does what she sees right, and tells Veronica that she can keep the tea set.  “It belongs to you.  You’re really her next of kin.”

Unfortunately, this is where Archie comes in.  Archie, the man who is drooling over the thought of that $2,000 tea set.  His attitude is a bit baffling, because had Edith received the tea set she would not have sold it anyway.  Edith submits to Archie very often, but she does stand up to him when she feels it’s important, and this tea set is important to her.  He was never getting that $2,000 anyway, but he likely thought he could push Edith into selling it.  Now, however, Edith doesn’t have it--Veronica does.  And Edith struggles to explain to Archie why. The best she can do is say, “Veronica and cousin Liz was...like...married.”  After a series of wildly different facial expressions, Archie catches on, saying, “are you telling me Liz and Veronica was...[bizarre hand gesture].”  Strange how any sort of weird hand movement can sub in for the word “gay”.  But Archie comes close to saying the actual word when he asks, “That beautiful girl that I kissed...Liz...was a les.....”  He trails off there, but then starts denying it to Edith, much like he did previously with Steve.  No matter how many times he says “no”, Edith gives him back a “yes”.  His attempt to just say “no” louder than her fails, but he continues to deny it, saying that Edith must have misunderstood, then shouting, “did you once hear the word ‘queer’???”

Edith is terrified that someone will hear and Liz will be outed to the other mourners in the apartment.  Archie is piecing together that this is why Liz wasn’t interested in him when they were younger (even though he’s such a catch!) and yelling about Edith’s previous heavenly matchmaking attempt with his friend Stretch, yelling “she ain’t even gonna go to heaven!”

Edith tries to appeal to him the way Veronica did to her, stressing that they loved each other, but Archie is furious when she compares their love to hers and Archie’s.  He tries to argue that there’s a difference in sex between two women and between a man and a woman, while whispering the word “sex” and leaving out any words referring to genitalia.  As usual, he and Edith both are very uncomfortable with the topic of sex, but Archie believes that a relationship between two women must be based entirely on sex, with love having nothing to do with it.

Archie has had enough, and orders Edith to get her tea set so they can leave.  But Edith refuses to do it, and Archie says, “you mean you’re gonna disobey your husband?”  After a very short pause, Edith matter of factly says, “yeah!”  Despite getting intense applause from the audience, Archie pushes past her to confront Veronica herself, leading up to what may be one of Archie Bunker’s cruelest moments in the show.

Archie tells Veronica that the tea set belongs to Edith, to which Veronica replies that Edith gave it to her.  Archie dismisses that and says that they can just settle the whole thing in court.   Veronica tells Archie that she doesn’t have to do that, but Archie responds that if he brings it to the court she’ll have to.  Why not let a judge decide it?

“I can’t do that.”

Archie doesn’t understand why she can’t, and Veronica tells him, “I might lose my job.”  Suddenly, it dawns on Archie.  It’s not about trying to figure out some sort of inheritance law--nobody disputes that the tea set went to Edith and whether Archie approves or not Edith decided to give it to Veronica, simple enough.  But that’s not what this is about.  Veronica cannot go to court over this.  Doing so would mean her being outed as a lesbian in a court room.  It would mean being known as gay to her community.  It would mean losing her job as a school teacher.  And Archie could not be more hungry over this realization.

Archie begins eagerly cooing at her, “ohhh, you could get into a lot of trouble there!  I could get her in a lot of trouble!”  Edith immediately rushes to him, insisting that he’d never do such a thing.  But Archie would.  Archie could care less if she loses her job, in fact he yells, “well who the hell wants people like that teaching our kids?!  I’m sure God don’t!  God’s sittin’ in judgement!”  To which Edith replies, in the way only Edith could, “well sure he is, he’s God!  You ain’t!”

Edith is a god fearing Christian like any other.  I’m sure she’s been raised her whole life hearing that homosexuality is a sin according to the Bible.  But she has adopted one rule of Christianity that many Christians still fail to--judgement is God’s job, not man’s.  Edith isn’t concerned about whether or not Veronica will go to hell.  What she is concerned about is that Veronica is not mistreated in life for loving someone, and she isn’t going to sit by while her own husband mistreats this woman.

Edith begins every appeal she can to Archie.  Surely he wouldn’t want to be the cause of someone losing their job, and Veronica is all alone now, and she doesn’t have anyone to care for her like Edith has Archie, and she can’t help her feelings, and she’s done nothing to hurt Archie.  But above all, Edith ends with, “Archie, I can’t believe you’d do anything that mean.”

And Edith is right.  Archie is known for being bigoted, he’s known for yelling, being hot headed, all sorts of negative things.  I mean, we haven’t forgotten about him yelling about fags last time.  But when he found out his friend Steve is gay, he just sort of put it out of his mind.  He didn’t try to ruin the guy’s life.  Archie’s behavior in this episode may not be surprising in terms of its content (after all, we already knew he was homophobic), but it is surprising in terms of his actual behavior.  Archie is the man who didn’t want a black family to move into his neighborhood, but he’s also the man who abhors the KKK.  He may not like people different to himself, but he doesn’t generally go out of his way to terrorize them.  He’d generally just prefer to never have to remember they exist.

Edith has worn Archie down.  Archie tells the worried Veronica that he isn’t going to sue her, to which Edith chimes in that they aren’t taking the tea set.  Archie begrudgingly agrees to that point.  But, he doesn’t just walk away.  He has to make one last statement.

“I’ll tell you one thing.  I don’t understand youse people at all.  I mean why don’t youse all just...STOP THAT?  You’re a good looking woman, why don’t you go out and get yourself a good lookin’ guy there and TURN YOURSELF AROUND?  Now that is my advice to you, if you don’t mind.”

Veronica smiles and hugs Archie, presumably because she’s just relieved that he decided not to destroy her life.  Archie bemoans that he made a “dumb” decision in letting Edith talk him out of the whole thing, to which Edith tells him, “it wasn’t dumb Archie, you did the right thing.”  He isn’t very comforted by this.  The episode ends on a gag about Archie trying to pocket the sugar tongs from the tea set and running out the door.

In the end, Archie decided he didn’t hate gay people enough to ruin a woman’s life, but he almost did, and he’s still very set in his homophobic ways.  He still thinks gay people shouldn’t be gay, he still thinks they shouldn’t teach children, he still thinks that their relationships do not matter.  Much like with Steve, nothing has really changed in Archie’s worldview, and generally it never does.  Archie’s behavior in the moment may change, but his underlying views are very rarely shaken.  

The one difference is that for the audience, they may have changed.  Throughout this episode, we are always on Veronica’s side.  Even before then, we are on Edith’s side, and if Edith believes in Veronica and accepts her relationship with Liz, then we certainly should too, even in 1977.  Despite everything Archie did, the episode portrays a lesbian relationship as founded in love, as being long term (25 years!), as being absolutely acceptable in Edith’s eyes.  After all, who could say no to love?  The only people who would watch this episode and side with Archie after his miserable outbursts and attempts to drag Veronica through the mud are bigots so set in their ways that they were lost causes anyway.  Though it’s not necessarily known for sure, it also may have played a small role in preventing the passing of the Briggs Initiative, an initiative in California that would have banned gay people from working in public schools, as the episode was reaired the night before the vote.  For the time, this is a fairly stellar lesbian portrayal on American TV.  Despite it being one of Archie’s worst moments, it may very well be one of the show’s best.

You can watch “Cousin Liz” online here.