Sam & Diane

I can't stop thinking about this scene from "Cheers".




There was a period in my life during which I watched "Cheers" with some regularity. As a period, it was ten days long. My dad was out of town and my grandparents were sleeping in my great bed (shout out to my great bed) and so I was sleeping in my parent's room and my mom and I watched Camp Nick at Nite. Using context clues (such as the involvement of my great bed) I would date this event some time between my tenth and twelfth year. If pressed, I would say I was eleven. But I'm babbling because I'm nervous to start the actual post. The memory of this clip (you should watch it now) burst into my brain and has haunted me since!

It's not to hard to identify the problematic elements of this video. It's blatantly, brutally, triumphantly sexist. Most eleven year-olds would recognize this; I probably did. But as evidenced by its steadfast existence in the vaults of my brain, it still left quite an impression. I recognized in the sexual aesthetics of Sam and Diane's exchange some representation of my own desire, but which part? The overtaking of her lightness and whiteness and blondness? The punishment of feminine wit by masculine force? Or maybe the assurance that grown-up women could still be turned back into little girls: that my burgeoning adolescence would not commit me to make hard choices and learn hard things during the construction of my adult sexuality. That I would only have to wait to be desired, and then sex and love -but especially sex- would happen, in a way that had very little to do with my own desires at all.

I'm not trying to say that kids shouldn't watch "Cheers". That show is great. And even this memory is ultimately a fond one, because it reminds me of one of the hardest things I've learned During The Construction Of My Adult Sexuality (yeah, ya'll all right, that phrasing was clunky): the fact that every part of my identity has always been a negotiation between my brain, my body, and the rest of the world. I don't have total control and I don't have no control. The choices I make about sex aren't untouched by sexism and oppression, but they're still mine.

In summary, you can't rewrite "Cheers". But you can blog about it.