2-5: “Cousin Geri”

Cousin Geri is Blair’s cousin. She’s a comedian, and she has cerebral palsy. She was introduced in season 2, in 1980, at a time when people with disabilities were not particularly visible on television (they still aren’t, but it has gotten somewhat better and at least awareness has improved). I can verify that the Facts of Life impacted at least one person with respect to at one disability because the entire reason that I know what cerebral palsy is is this show.

This past Sunday, a friend of mine in the New York area was ambushed by police officers who yelled “Give me your keys or you’re going to jail” as she was getting into her car. Apparently they had received an anonymous call about a woman who looked drunk heading toward a vehicle. She wasn’t drunk. She has cerebral palsy (and a Ph.D. and an extremely prestigious NIH research grant). She has been meeting with higher-ups in the PD who acknowledge the need to be a little less shitheaded about such things, even as they take every such call seriously. She’s fine, and working with some good supervisors about better training for officers.

Anyway, because absolutely everything relates back to the Facts of Life for me, when I saw her Facebook post about the incident, my head immediately went to this episode. And so I’ll do my part by recapping it.

We open by learning that Blair has won the fine arts festival for the third year in a row. She’s a sophomore in high school, so she started winning in eighth grade. This school is weird. But, when Mrs. Garrett mentions that Blair is a talented artist, I swell with joy at the consistency in the show. Blair’s artistic talent comes up several times again in the series, even though it’s totally jettisoned when she begins pursuing a career. Blair enters the cafeteria, all smiles and false humility as Mrs. Garrett congratulates her.

Mrs. Garrett comments that they’ll have a celebration dinner that night in her honor, and after Blair cracks a joke about Jo thinking Picasso is an ice cream flavor…

…Mrs. Garrett tells Blair that her mother called to say that a cousin of Blair’s is coming to visit. Blair wonders whether it’s one of “the Southampton Warners, the Palm Beach Warners, or the Boston Warners.” Just when I’m about to hurl, Natalie reminds her that she has family in Hollywood too: the Warner Brothers. How dare Natalie forget the Warner Sister.

Mrs. Garrett can’t remember the cousin’s name, but she does remember that it’s a girl cousin but a boy’s name, and that she’s a “comedienne.”

OK, I’m pretty sure no one uses the feminine of “comedian” anymore, and don’t get me started on the ridiculousness of having gendered titles for occupations in the first place. They’re quite passé at the very least, except in the law, which itself is pretty backward with its dumb formalities. It actually makes me cringe a little every time they say “comedienne,” but in this episode and most others in which Geri appears, they make it quite clear that they’re using the feminine. I have no choice but to tolerate, but that doesn’t mean I have to use it. And I won’t.

Anyway, Blair figures out that she must be talking about Cousin Geri, and she looks none too pleased.

Tootie, on the other hand, is absolutely thrilled that Blair has a cousin in show business, and all the girls are pretty excited at having a professional comedian coming to visit. Blair tries to downplay Geri’s success and pooh-poohs the fact that she never told them about her before. But she’s not a very good liar, and her facade completely crumbles when Mrs. Garrett says that she invited Geri to come to the dinner that night and to spend the night. Blair is obviously pissed and trying to hide something, but WHAT?

Blair goes to call her mother, and we hear her complaining that Geri is coming when she has her victory dinner. She asks her mother if she told Mrs. Garrett “about Geri,” and panics when she learns that her mother didn’t explain. We are left to wonder what Geri’s terrible secret is. Tootie also takes notes.

Tootie reports back to the others that Blair is indeed having a fit on the phone, and they all bicker about Tootie’s eavesdropping as SOMEONE, someone we’ve not yet met, comes into the room behind them. Could it be cousin Geri?

It is! But she’s walking a little crooked, and her speech is a little slurred, and everyone looks at her a little strangely until she says,

“Don’t worry, I’m not drunk. I have cerebral palsy. When I’m drunk I walk perfectly straight!”

Tootie cracks up, and Natalie gives her the “stop it” swat that one gives to a friend who has just done something inappropriate. Tootie protests that it was funny, and Natalie clarifies with Geri whether it was supposed to be funny. “I hope so,” Geri says. “It’s in my nightclub act.” With permission to be amused, the mood lightens, and Geri shows us the shirt she had made.

She also notes that at twenty cents a letter, she might have preferred to have polio. My friend who got ambushed by the cops put up a morning-after post that read “Ouch, hangovers suck.” Humor. It’s how decent people deal.

Blair returns from her phone call and her initial interaction with Geri is Awkward. As. Hell. She spits out half-formed sentences and is generally a disaster, until Mrs. Garrett has to affirmatively tell her to introduce Geri to her friends.

One of very few Facts of Life inconsistencies happens here as Blair introduces Geri as “Geri Warner.” In subsequent episodes in which she appears, she’s “Geri Tyler.” It’s probably more likely than not that Geri’s last name is not “Warner,” since the phone call to her mother (not her father) suggests that Blair is related to Geri on her mother’s side. Unless Monica was already named Warner when she married Blair’s father. I don’t assume that women automatically change their names if they get married, but the show sure does. It’s one of the weaknesses coming from it being a product of its time.

Blair introduces Geri to her friends, and Tootie asks if cerebral palsy hurts. Jo treats Tootie to her second “you’re being inappropriate” smack of the episode and calls her a bonehead.

Geri: “Tootie, cerebral palsy only hurts when I spill hot coffee on myself. But it’s OK. It never keeps me awake; I use decaffeinated!”
Natalie: “You can make coffee?”
Geri: “Sure! It tastes lousy but that’s not because of the cerebral palsy.”
Blair: “Well, how was the bus ride?”
Geri: “I don’t know. I drove.”
Jo: “A car?”
Geri: “No, a lemon.”
Tootie: “You can drive even though you’re…”
Geri: “Handicapped. Hey, you can say the word. It’s all right. It’s on all the parking spaces. Yeah, I can drive.”
Tootie: “How did you get cerebral palsy? I mean, did you catch it?”
Blair: “Tootie, please.
Geri: “Tootie, you can’t catch cerebral palsy. It’s not a disease. It’s an injury to the motor part of the brain.”
Tootie: “Were you born with it?”
Blair: “Yes, she was! Now will you please stop bothering Geri with all these questions? She’s exhausted from the trip.”
Geri: “No I’m not! And questions don’t hurt. Ignorance does.”

The live studio audience applauds. Obviously we’ve come a long way, and “handicapped” is outdated as the go-to term for people with disabilities. But that exchange has stayed with me for more than thirty years. I’ve noticed that a lot of people who aren’t used to interacting with people with disabilities, including me, tend to try to pretend as though the disability doesn’t exist. Look everywhere but at the characteristic that’s different and for the love of Pete, don’t ask any questions. But I’ve tried to remember, especially lately, that questions don’t hurt, ignorance does, and I free myself up to ask sensitive, appropriate questions if I have them. I mean, it’s not like people with disabilities don’t know they have disabilities.

So while 7th-grade Tootie, got to ask the innocent, ignorant questions, Mrs. Garrett gets the honor of delivering the “I think I know stuff but really I’m as dumb as everyone in this room” line when she says, “I learn so much from watching Jerry Lewis on your telethon every year.” Geri points out that that telethon is for muscular dystrophy, not cerebral palsy.

Google tells me that the Jerry Lewis telethon still happens every year on Labor Day weekend, though now it’s the Muscular Dystrophy Association Show of Strength televised benefit concert. This will be its 49th year. I’ll be damned. I thought Jerry’s Kids was an old timey thing. Good job to them.

Anyway, Blair is clearly irked and announces that she has to leave to do some “creating,” specifically to write her acceptance speech for her award. Mrs. Garrett pleads with her to stay and not abandon her cousin, but Blair is a brat. Geri is no dummy. She can read a room and she can tell from a mile away that Blair doesn’t want her there. But the others, delighted to spend time with Geri, throw Blair under the bus and give Geri their support, so Geri stays.

Howard, the chef, comes in to call the girls to start working on the dinner. Mrs. Garrett introduces him to Geri and he says he’s already got a ticket for her show the following night, which is a nice nod to Geri’s ability to draw a crowd. He also tries to offer her some material: “One worm says to the other worm, ‘I love you.’ The other worm says, ‘Don’t be silly. I’m your other end.”

Geri excuses herself to get more coffee (and flee Howard), leaving Mrs. Garrett to ruminate about Blair’s behavior. She tells Howard that she thinks Blair is embarrassed of Geri, when suddenly Natalie pops into the room to announce that they’ve talked Geri into doing part of her act at the awards dinner, which she expects to really make Blair’s night special. That’s fairly unsupported speculation, given that they’ve just watched Blair do everything she can to limit Geri’s presence. Indeed, upstairs in their bedroom, Blair is dramatically lamenting Geri’s arrival as we fade to commercial.

When we return, Jo is attempting to be Blair’s voice of reason. She reminds Blair that she and Geri were super-close growing up, that they did little skits together and it doesn’t make sense that Blair is blowing Geri off now. Blair tells Jo that she wouldn’t understand, and Jo tells her that it’s the crappiest thing she’s ever done. I’m not sure how compelling that assessment is to Blair from a girl she’s known for a couple of months at most. Also Jo doesn’t know about Blair’s crappy treatment of Cindy or that Blair plagiarized an Emily Dickinson poem for an English assignment in the first season. But walking out on Geri is still probably worse.

Jo points out that Geri totally knows what’s going on, and Mrs. Garrett comes in the room to pile on too. Blair wants to be left alone, Mrs. Garrett tells her she’s being rude, but that she understands that it’s difficult for some people to be around “handicapped people.” Jo accuses Blair of just being embarrassed that there’s an imperfect Warner and is asked to take the sniping elsewhere.

Blair protests that she isn’t embarrassed, while Mrs. Garrett just is bewildered by Blair’s uncharacteristic behavior. Not by the rudeness (Mrs. Garrett has seen Blair be rude lots of times), but by the running away from a problem. Blair says there is no problem, but Mrs. Garrett astutely points out that refusing to even be in the same room as a family member who has come to visit isn’t exactly indicia of hunky-doriness and asks her to just admit that she’s embarrassed of Geri.

Blair quite seriously and earnestly insists that she is not embarrassed. When she says she’s been around Geri all her life, Mrs. Garrett asks if she’s always ignored her like this. Blair responds that Geri gets all the attention she needs and that she’s always the center of attention back home.

OH. So that’s the problem!

Mrs. Garrett points out that Blair is not ashamed, but jealous. Blair protests, saying that she thinks it’s appropriate that Geri gets more attention, because she’s amazing and courageous. Still, Blair snits that for Geri, daily existence takes effort, while Blair’s accomplishments are taken for granted. Blair resents that while Geri is winning battles, she is just winning “stupid awards.” And with Geri at school on “Blair’s night,” everything just looks silly.

Mrs. Garrett points out that there’s room for everyone’s accomplishments; that one person’s bigger deal doesn’t diminish someone else’s feelings. That reminds me of when I didn’t want to tell my good friend that my boyfriend had dumped me, because she had just lost a baby. When she found out, she explained to me that her loss didn’t mean that mine didn’t hurt too, and we should be there for each other. She was right. I remember that often.

Blair finally admits – to herself as well as Mrs. Garrett – that she is jealous of Geri, earning a Mrs. Garrett Comfort Pat.

We fade to the dinner, at which our heroines are at the front-and-center table while the rest of the room is filled by randos. Natalie is trying to encourage Geri to start her show. Geri would rather not, seeing as how it’s a party for Blair, who’s not even there. The girls beg, and Geri continues to protest, until Jo says she understands how a big shot celebrity wouldn’t want to play a freebie for a bunch of teenage girls when she could save it for a paying audience, even when said teenage girls fed her and gave her a roof for the night. That gets Geri onstage. Nice job Jo.

We get a “girls, girls!” from Mrs. Garrett, which is always a pleasure. She introduces Geri, who comes onstage and makes a series of self-deprecating jokes which are very funny! The girls are in stitches as Blair sneaks into the room. Geri announces that she’s going to do a bit that she used to do with Blair. She always wanted to do it alone, she says, because “performing with Blair is like double-dating with Loni Anderson.”

Whatever you do, do not Google “Loni Anderson today.” When you do it, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Blair interrupts Geri, and takes several awkward minutes to join her onstage. Geri, consummate professional, says, “Hit it, partner.” Blair, nothing if not a commander of a stage, doesn’t miss a beat.