Dixie Carter + The Designing Women Loved Their Gays. And We Loved Her
We’ll miss ya, Dixie Carter. [AP]
(Above, the Designing Women reunite at the Paley Center for Media in 2006.)
I was surprised to learn that she was a Republican, but then again, her political activity seems to have dropped off after 2000.
Maybe she realized that the GOP went off-track under Bush-Cheney. I don’t see how you can support the current GOP and gay rights at the same time.
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I remember seeing her as Brandy Henderson on the soap opera Edge of Night. Oh, my. Adam Drake, midnight on New Year’s Eve… Oh, my.
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@Ogre Magi
I had heard she was very conservative. Just how much of a friend was she to the gays?
Well, Designing Women did an episode in the mid-eighties where a family friend was dying of AIDS, and wanted the ladies to handle his funeral wishes. The best part of the eppy was Dixie Carter as Julia giving some homophobe who said AIDS was killing the right people, a round of shit like she never had before!
Plus, her character drove an ’86 Linccoln Town Car Cartier Edition, so props for rocking that stinkin’ Lincoln.
A run down of the episode:
God, I really am dating myself with this post
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I heard that she made a deal with the producers of Designing Women: for each classic Julia rant that was in the script that she did, in return she would do a musical number.
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I am surprised by the number of blogs using this clip as some kind of proof that Carter was supportive of gay marriage. Annie Potts makes the pro-gay marriage statement and Carter just sits there while the others applaud it. Then some one inserted a b-roll edit of Dixie Carter mildly clapping and smiling at something else. It looks like she may be supportive of gay marriage but knowing her politics and that of the Republican party she campaigned for and vigorously supported I doubt it.
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@Mr. Enemabag Jones: That was Dixie’s character, that doesn’t mean she championed those same viewpoints in real life. I’m not saying she was or wasn’t for the mo’s, I’m just saying don’t confuse the character the actor portrays and the actor.
While personally, I would think it hard to take a role of a character who espouses beliefs I might be against, actors can and have done so.
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“I have never met a happy atheist. I believe in separation of church and state, but I think we have gone so far over in the other direction of separating church and state. “
– Dixie Carter
Conservative Baptist. Republican. A few episodes of DW may have been gay-friendly, but Ms. Carter was not.
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@scott ny’er
That was Dixie’s character, that doesn’t mean she championed those same viewpoints in real life. I’m not saying she was or wasn’t for the mo’s, I’m just saying don’t confuse the character the actor portrays and the actor.
Scott, here’s an interview she did with MetroWeekly where she saw her support for equal marriage grow to where she may have questions, but she saw gay marriage as being the sam has her marriage to Hal Holbrooke. She says many positive things about the queer community, and what makes that amazing is that this interview happened in 1998!
@AndrewW
“I have never met a happy atheist. I believe in separation of church and state, but I think we have gone so far over in the other direction of separating church and state. ”
–Dixie Carter
Conservative Baptist. Republican. A few episodes of DW may have been gay-friendly, but Ms. Carter was not.
I appreciate the quote about religion, Andrew, but that said nothing about her feelings toward the queer community. This quote, however, does:
“I feel like I have enjoyed a friendship and a lasting loyalty from the gay community. And when I can, I try to reciprocate that friendship.”
–Dixie Carter
I’m not defending conservatives, and Republicans especially. Nor am I defending evangelical Christians. However, for everything Ms. Carter was, she was supportive of us.
And here’s an interview she did with MetroWeekly where she saw her support for equal marriage growing. She says many positive things about the queer community and what makes that amzing is that this interview happened in 1998!
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You will be missed Ms. Carter. You were a class act. Thanks for the laughs.