This is an article in Entertainment Weekly reflecting on Bea Arthur's acting career:
Beatrice Arthur: An appreciation
What's hilarious is its video of Maude first meeting Florida. Maude was Bea Arthur's character, and she was an upper middle-class white liberal with white liberal guilt. And Florida was her African-American maid, who eventually went on to her own successful Norman Lear sitcom, Good Times.
The video is Maude at her bleeding heart liberal best! I said yesterday that Lear portrayed her acts of concern as "inauthentic." Actually, I think Maude cares, but her white liberal mindset leads her to have a distorted view of those she wants to help. She doesn't really relate to them as people, but as objects of charity, or as people whose lives are totally horrible.
I'm not sure if I can describe what I'm getting at. It reminds me of a scene in Roots: The Next Generation, in which Alex Haley goes to a party of rich white liberals. One of them talks with him about the barbarity of the white South. Many of them ask him for his opinion about Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court. Haley wishes someone would ask him about an issue unrelated to race! He feels like a token, or as somebody's charity case.
In this video, Maude sincerely tries to understand and appreciate the African-American experience, but she misses the boat! Similarly, I've wondered how African-Americans respond to my posts on Black History Month. Am I being like Maude? Just something I wonder!
Enjoy!