Dixie Carter

Sad news in the entertainment world (at least for me)… Dixie Carter died :( If you didn’t know me in middle school, you likely don’t know how much she meant to me. If you don’t know who she is, she was an actress, most famous for her role as Julia Sugarbaker in the tv show Designing Women. She was basically a badass, loud-mouthed, but classy as hell feminist. Aka my role model haha. Seriously. I started watching Designing Women when it was on Lifetime when I was like, in sixth grade. How ridiculous haha. How many sixth graders watch Lifetime? Actually, my earliest memory of Designing Women/Dixie Carter is actually one of my first memories EVER... I was about 3 or 4 years old and I was watching Designing Women with my mom (when it was actually airing for the first time!) and I went into the kitchen to get something to drink during a commercial break, and I had my mom's HUGE late 80's glasses for some reason. I was dangling them in my fingers like Julia Sugarbaker so often did, and I said, 'I'm Julia Sugarbaker, S-U-G-A-R-B-A-K-E-R," and I must have been repeating a line from that episode, which, now that I've seen all the episodes, I actually know well. See, I was a fan from a very, very young age :)

Anyway, for some reason, the show just SPOKE to me; I don’t know. I’m not Southern and I’m not an interior designer, but the themes the show addressed just like… made sense to me. I would record (on a VHS… ha) the shows because they would be on right after I got home from school, and I always had to do my homework right when I got home. Then I’d spend the night just watching the episodes. I was OBSESSED. Julia Sugarbaker was by far my favorite character, and I just wanted to be everything about her. I wanted to be classy and educated enough that I could just RIP someone apart that insulted me or made me mad haha. Her speeches on the show and the things she fought for truly shaped me. As an impressionable young 10 year old, I learned about issues relating to women’s rights, because the show’s main writer was a huge feminist. Social issues were really featured on the show and really influenced me. Julia was kind of the liberal feminist of the show and her tirades were famous on the show… here’s a few samplings:

Allison: Oh, Julia, just so you know, the next time you see your lawyer on company time, it's going on your record.
Julia: Just so YOU know... The next time you speak to me in that tone of voice, you're going to the moon.

[Background: a guy wanted to come take pictures of their design firm to feature them in an article called ‘Women of Atlanta’ but then when he got there he was trying to take all these super sexy pictures of them…]
Julia: I'm saying I want you and your equipment out of here now. If you are looking for somebody to suck pearls, then I suggest you try finding yourself an oyster. Because I am not a woman who does that, as a matter of fact, I don't know any woman who does that, because it's stupid. And it doesn't have any more to do with decorating than having cleavage and looking sexy has to do with working in a bank. These are not pictures about the women of Atlanta. These are about just the same thing they're always about. And it doesn't matter whether the clothes are on or off... it's just the same ol' message. And I don't care how many pictures you've taken of movie stars - when you start snapping photos of serious, successful businessmen like Donald Trump and Lee Iacocca in unzipped jumpsuits with wet lips, straddling chairs, then we'll talk.

So anyway. I’m incredibly bummed. Dixie Carter was just as classy and awesome as her character and she will be greatly missed.

Now they just need to hurry up and release every episode ever of Designing Women. I mean, I have the first few seasons on DVD, but seriously… all of them, please. Kthx.