2-4 “Who am I?”

Regular readers of this blog know that I constantly give props to the show for its progressive addressing of a number of controversial topics, while still recognizing when it is a product of its time and duly criticizing the damaging institutions it entrenched. There is also a third category of Facts of Life episodes: where the show’s heart is in the right place and the message is a good one, but the execution is so ham-fisted that it’s hard to watch it without chuckling a little bit, even as you feel guilty for chuckling about a really good effort in a time when not a lot of popular culture was making this effort. I’ve written about the show’s only sort of OK treatment of race before. This episode is the epitome of that phenomenon.

At least that’s how I feel. Perhaps I should get on with the recap and let you decide what you think.

This is the episode in which Tootie deals with an identity crisis, which is a product of being one of very few black girls at Eastland and the only black girl in her circle of friends.

Natalie and Tootie enter the dining room as Tootie tries to heckle Natalie into calling the boy she likes and inviting him to be her partner in Eastland’s dance contest. They’re interrupted by the entry of a delivery boy we’ve never seen before.

OK, my age is showing, as I find myself horrified at the idea of 7th-grade Tootie having a libido, and then openly hitting on this boy who is probably 14 or so. But I guess Tootie is 12ish, so it really is completely appropriate. I had great big crushes in seventh grade (and even younger). When I was 15 I had a driver’s license and I used to go to the mall during lunch to flirt with a 19-year-old boy who worked at the sports shop. The thought of my nieces doing such things at that age makes me twitch. Getting old is a real thing.

The boy’s name is Fred, and he’s working for Mr. Davis after school stocking the candy machines. I guess that means he must have a driver’s license, so he’s even older than I thought. He makes some dumb cocky jokes, and Tootie is turned on, and that little exchange is insulting.

Enter Blair along with Jo, who gives Tootie her sketchbook, which she found in the library. Obligatory Jo and Blair mutual insults are exchanged before we see Mrs. Garrett looking at Tootie’s sketchbook.

Tootie is designing dresses for her art project, and she’d like to make one for real but she doesn’t have any material. Blair has another one of her brilliant ideas: her father just sent her some new material from Hong Kong, so Tootie can make her a new, one-of-a-kind dress for the dance! What a lucky coincidence.

Mrs. Garrett asks Blair who her partner is for the dance contest, and I start to think the contest is going to be relevant to this episode. Blair says she’s not entering, because no one can beat Tootie and Carl.

They won last year and they’re the favorites to win this year. Really? A sixth grader won the entire school dance? That school should be ashamed of itself and maybe also a little creeped out.

My mother has won a bunch of dance contests. The best one was in 1960 or so, when she was at a school dance. The twist came on, which was her favorite, and she saw that the best dancer in school was available, so she grabbed him and they killed it and she figuratively thumbed her nose at the administrators who told her to stop dancing with a black man. So where this episode was progressive in 1980, my mom was progressive 20 years earlier.

Lest you’ve forgotten, vending machine Fred is still there, and while the other girls go to hit the books, Tootie declares that she has to stay downstairs for some cockamamie reason. When Mrs. Garrett figures out that Tootie just wants to hit on the vending machine guy, she leaves her to it.

Tootie confidently approaches Fred and introduces herself. It’s now that I’m reminded that there’s an episode in season three in which the conflict is that Tootie isn’t really into dudes yet so she gives herself a George Glass to escape the pressure to go on a make-out hike. She regressed a bit in a year. Maybe she got shy when she got the braces.

Fred asks Tootie what it’s like to go to school in a place like this, and she says it’s like a “cross between summer camp and Sing Sing.” God, Tootie looks so young.

Fred asks her if she has any sisters there, and Tootie naively says no, but she’s got two brothers at home. Tootie, Blair, and Natalie have magical disappearing siblings throughout the series. Jo is an only-child. But Fred asks Tootie if she knows a sister from a “sister.” Finally Tootie gets “with it,” because it’s 1980, and says sure she does. Fred makes some more comments about Tootie being in an “ivory tower,” and Tootie sticks up for her school and her friends.

Blair picks that unfortunate moment to show up with her bolt of fabric and her specs for the dress that Tootie is going to make her. Fred does not approve.

Blair doesn’t help by commenting “She is a gem!” as she exits the room, leaving Fred and Tootie to back-and-forth about whether Tootie is exploited at Eastland. Tootie compares her relationship with her friends to the Osmonds, and Fred corrects her:

“Don’t you mean the Osmonds plus one Jackson?”

Tootie doesn’t like that comment one bit, so Fred backtracks and says he’s only getting on her case because he hates “seeing such a foxy chick fading in front of [his] eyes.” Foxy chick. She’s twelve. Ew.

Tootie agrees that she’s foxy, but denies that she’s fading, and insists that the girls are her best friends. Fred replies with this bit of wisdom:

“Well good luck, because when you mix a black horse with a bunch of white ones, all you get is a confused zebra.”

Tootie wisely says that she’s not sure if she wants to talk to Fred anymore (wise choice, sister). He exhorts her to be cool. And dammit, Tootie lets her tween loins take over and she declares that Fred is an interesting person “for a cute guy” and gets all smiley-flirty again. Ugh.

Our next shot is of Natalie in their room practicing asking Alan, the dude she likes, to the dance contest. Tootie comes into the room in a different outfit than she had on before, so it must be a different day. The girls rip into Tootie a little for her new romance, but she denies that it’s a romance and says that she is attracted to Fred for his mind. He makes her think about “what it is.” Natalie: “What is it?”

Oh Natalie. Your awesomeness makes up for your horrible sweatshirts.

Jo points out that all her time with Fred made her miss the committee meeting with Mrs. Garrett about decorations for the dance contest, and when Tootie rhetorically asks what she’s going to say to Mrs. Garrett, Blair suggests “any little white lie.” Oh oh. Yep, Tootie gets indignant that the small lies are white, and wonders what color are the lies that are killers. Blair suggests plaid.

Jo’s comment that if Tootie doesn’t come up with something, she’s going to be behind the 8-ball is not received any better; Tootie is also indignant that the 8-ball is black and when you’re behind it you’re in hot water. Jo is perfectly happy to let Tootie be behind the 6-ball if she wants to.

Jo asks the question we’ve all been wondering, which is what the hell is going on with Tootie. Natalie blames the increase in candy consumption. Mrs. Garrett comes into the room to tell Tootie that Carl, her previous dance partner, is waiting downstairs to rehearse with her. She also informs Tootie that since she missed the meeting, it was decided that Blair’s doing the ceiling, Natalie’s doing the walls, and Tootie – d’oh! – is “doing the windows.”

Tootie tells Carl, her adorable little white boy dance partner, that she can’t dance with him. Her first excuse is that the prize is lousy – all they got last year were Frisbees. But THIS year, Carl says, first prize is portable stereos with tape decks! Awww…

Her second excuse is that she gets nauseated when Carl throws her up in the air. Carl says he won’t throw her up in the air. Finally she just says she can’t dance with him and that’s it. Poor Carl is so devastated I’ll even let his dumb sexist comment about never understanding women go.

Mrs. Garrett is of course concerned, and she asks Tootie why she won’t dance with Carl. Tootie says Fred told her how these things work: you start inter-dancing and you end up intermarrying. OH MY GOD THE HORROR. And when Mrs. Garrett calls her on this race-exclusivity nonsense, Tootie defends herself by invoking the gospel of Fred. Mrs. Garrett says she used to know a girl named Tootie who thought for herself. Ooooh, burn.

Really, though, I can’t be too judgmental. I’ve joked myself about Token Tootie, and I’ve never been in her place. And the speech Tootie gives in response to Mrs. Garrett – about how everyone thinks it’s such a great thing to give a black girl a white education and no one cares that one day she’s going to wake up and not know who she is – is poignant.

We return from commercial to Natalie bursting into the bedroom to tell her best friend Tootie that she did it! She asked Alan to be her dance partner and he said yes! Score another one for Natalie. I don’t think she’s ever been turned down by a dude. Tootie is excited at first, and then she cools, and then she gets pissy. Everyone wonders what the hell is wrong with her. Jo notes that lately she’s been biting everyone’s heads off. For real.

Tootie explains that she’s finding out who she is:

“I’m black.”

No really, though, all jokes aside, I feel for Tootie here. It’s easy to look at this episode through the lens of a progressive in 2016 and snicker, but imagine being a 12-year-old black girl in 1980 at a boarding school where nearly everyone is white. I went to a mostly white high school; my best friend was the only black person in our graduating class. One of the first things she was excited to tell me when she went to college at NYU was, “Vikki, it’s amazing! There are black people here!” And as much as I remembered this episode being ham-fisted, I’m appreciating it more and more as I recap it. It really is taking this issue by the horns and making people think about it. God I love this show.

Enter Mrs. Garrett.

Instead of making Blair’s dress for the dance according to Blair’s specs, Tootie made her a galabia. Mrs. Garrett gushes about how lovely it is, and it is. Blair comments that it’s “very African,” and when Tootie snaps “Is there something wrong with that?” Blair is quite gracious. Tootie has also made a head scarf, which she calls a “kalemba” which I’m spelling phonetically because Google is not helping me to find a word that sounds like that and refers to an African head tie. However, I did discover that there is a Polish politician named Stanislaw Kalemba.

Also, my research suggests that galabias are worn primarily in northern Africa while the head ties are more common in south and west Africa, so this episode seems to be kind of all over the place with African garments, but points for trying. Bless their hearts.

Tootie is really touchy and kind of awful here. When Blair says that she thinks the dress is a knockout, Tootie snatches it back and tells her not to say that if it isn’t true. Blair protests that she likes it and she’d say so if she didn’t, and as things start to get heated, Mrs. Garrett suggests they get ice cream. Jo:

Yeah, we don’t care what flavor. Chocolate or vanilla.”

Oh, Jo. But Tootie says no thank you, she has invited some friends over and she’s going to meet them downstairs now.

Theydies and gentlethem, I give you the entire black population of Eastland school. From left: Teri, Tootie, Julia, and Madge. And I’m just going to transcribe the conversation, because I don’t think anything else will do it justice.

Tootie: “I wanted us to get together so we could talk about things.”
Madge: “What things?”
Tootie: “Well, you know, the kinds of things that we, as black women, share.”
Teri: “Right! What do we share?”
Tootie: “Well, you know, like we all come from the same place.”
Teri: “Hey, no kidding! You’re from Baltimore too?”
Tootie: “No, I mean originally.”
Teri: “Originally we’re from Atlanta. But we moved to Baltimore when I was three.”
Julia: “She means Africa.”
Madge: “Oh, we’re from Jamaica.”
Tootie: “Julia, you’re into Africa, right?”
Julia: “Yes. It’s the subject of all my poems.”
Tootie: “I loved the one that was in the school newspaper. ‘Ghana with the Wind.'”

OK, OK, OK, lame joke aside, I get where they’re going. Julia and Madge banter about double dating, and Tootie suggests that she and Teri double-date sometime (again: TWELVE). The conversation continues:

Teri: “Nah, I don’t date. I’m in training. But listen, Tootie, you can always keep me company when I run.”
Tootie: “I’d love to!”
Teri: “I’m at the track every day at 4:30.”
Tootie: “Before dinner?”
Teri: “Before breakfast.”
Tootie: “You run at 4:30 in the morning? My nose won’t run that early!”

And so we learn that the black girls aren’t simply magical BFFs with everything in common. The point is further underscored when Blair and Natalie come in. Julia thanks Blair for her advice about a blue dress that really turned her boyfriend on. Natalie comments that she heard that Julia is running for president of the Latin club. Breakthrough: the girls aren’t defined by their race.

And that’s true, and of course it is important to look at people as individuals and not to assume based on race (or sex or presentation, etc.). But for many people – myself included – race is part of the entire hash that goes into what makes me an individual and I am not interested in completely disregarding it. I think we’re getting better at realizing that (particularly as it becomes more and more apparent that racism is still an enormous problem in this country), but many well-meaning people still say they strive for a “color-blind” society. That’s not what I want. I want a society that acknowledges the rainbow and appreciates it.

After Natalie and Blair leave, Tootie tries to restart the meeting, but everyone has to go. Madge is very obviously insincere when says that getting together was a good idea. Mrs. Garrett, ice cream in hand (strawberry), comes in to find out how Tootie’s gathering was.

Tootie is bummed because it didn’t go how she hoped. Julia is smart but talks Latin all the time, Madge only talks about her boyfriend Jamal, whom Tootie finds even more boring than Latin, and she can’t see herself being best friends with Teri, whom she describes as “someone whose idea of fun is to run until you drop.”

Mrs. Garrett offers her patented motherly advice.

“You can’t whip up friendship like instant pudding. You have to let it simmer in the pot a while and thicken like spaghetti sauce.”

Y’know, I think I recall reading in Charlotte Rae’s autobiography that there were some times that she was frustrated with some of the terrible, corny lines, and I bet this is one of them. There’s another bad simile in the episode where they perform South Pacific about jealousy being like tooth decay. I feel bad for someone of her comedic chops having to deliver some of this shit.

Mrs. G reminds Tootie that she has lots of good friends, but Tootie worries that because they’re not black, they can’t be her real friends. She quotes Fred, and admits that that’s why she couldn’t be Carl’s dance partner. She says she asked Fred to be her partner instead, and Mrs. Garrett says that’s fine, but that Natalie, Jo, and Blair are her friends and want to stay that way. Tootie admits that she is confused, and Mrs. Garrett Mrs. Garretts:

“I guess when it comes to black and white, things aren’t necessarily black and white.”

Mrs. G tells Tootie that the answer to her confusion is within her, and she’ll know when she’s figured it out.

Cut to the dance, where Mrs. G is being hilarious with the headmaster.

Fred, there as Tootie’s guest, kvetches about #EastlandSoWhite. Enter Blair in her galabia. Fred thinks she’s trying to prove something and says so. But Tootie and Blair have made up and Tootie is proud. Some goober howls at Blair behind her.

The scene successfully established, Mrs. Garrett announces that it’s time to warm up for the dance contest. And what do you know, Fred is a lousy dancer. Jo sums it up while Tootie deals with her mortification:

“Another myth shot to pieces.”

Unfortunately it’s impossible to get a good screenshot of how bad Fred is, and I don’t know how to make .gifs, so you’ll just have to take my word for it. Carl, meanwhile, has seen the carnage, and he reminds Tootie that it’s not too late to enter the dance contest together. Fred gets all Tarzan about Carl moving in on “his girl” (TWELVE!), and Carl shuts Fred down by pointing out that he has not only one girlfriend, but three. Apparently, though, none of them can dance for shit, so he likes to dance with Tootie. Fred accuses him of just wanting to dance with her because he thinks she has rhythm. Tootie corrects him that Carl is the one with the rhythm. She’s the crowd-pleaser.

When Fred asks Tootie if she really wants to go dance with “that white boy,” she says no, she wants to dance with Carl, with whom she won last year, and with whom she can win again. I think she’s figuring it out.

Fred throws out some more race rhetoric, and Tootie shuts him down. Her last straw is when he flat out says that the others can’t dance.

“They can’t dance? Bro, that’s the pot calling the kettle black.”

She tells him to “lighten up,” which he doesn’t care for. She tells him that she knows he just wants her to know who she is, but she does. She’s her own person, and her friends aren’t black or white, they’re just her friends, and her taste must be OK if she likes him. She’s going to win the dance with Carl, but celebrate with him.

Damn. I hoped she’d break up with him. It’s OK though. We never see him again.

Tootie and Carl, take us out.