On Buzzfeed, Bitchery and the Evolution of Sass
By Monthly Contributor Maureen Thomas
A male friend and I were joking around and I made some smartass comment.
“Sometimes I understand why you are single,” he observed.
Wow.
Now, this is not a mean-spirited guy. This is a very sweet person, who rarely points out the foibles of others. Later I asked him what made him say that (because I honestly couldn’t remember what I had said that provoked that comment). He couldn’t remember either. Probably because on the personality continuum, I am far to the left of sweet, somewhere between sassy and salty. I am comfortable with both. But I hope my personality car is not parked in Bitchy’s driveway.
Which got me thinking…what exactly defines a bitch? What is “sassy?” What are the stereotypes and how are they perpetuated? I asked around.
My (awesomely feminist) uncle: “Are you really just describing a woman who’s assertive? Sassy and bitchy are both passive-aggressive in nature. It seems like S&B are on the same side of a communication continuum….”
My sister (the sweet one) says, “Both of those terms perpetuate the stereotype.”
People mentioned Maya Angelou, Queen Latifah, Bethenny Frankel, Hillary Clinton as examples of both bitchy and sassy. I was very confused. What exactly is the stereotype? How has it permutated from my young adulthood in the ‘80s until now?
When all else fails, I turn to Buzzfeed, source for all things topical as well as those quizzes that, yes, I am addicted to. I found some answers, and not just in the “What Does your Phone Case Say About You?” quiz, but rather in the illuminating and socially relevant, “Are You an ‘80’s, ‘90’s or ‘00’s Bitch?” (P.S. I’m a “naughty ‘90s bitch” as I evidentially “like drinking, illegal substances, and sex. Lots of sex. You turn heads when you strut into a room, violating every single dress code, and if someone gets in your way, they end up dead.” )
Ah Buzzfeed.
But the quiz did get me thinking.
For us ‘80s kids, true bitchery started in the era of nighttime “soaps.” Dynasty’s Alexis Carrington, with her shoulder pads and crimson lipstick, was Cruella deVille minus the Dalmatian Coat, the bitch everyone loved to hate, the perfect antagonist to the annoyingly sweet, Krystle Carrington. Before the era of near instantaneous publicity, and “reality” on the tube, these characters consumed the American TV- watching public. Alexis was a bitch people loved to hate: manipulative, powerful, madly overdressed and made up, but most of us secretly cheered when she won out over the seemingly morally superior Krystle. The heroine, who was, after all, the secretary who had married her former boss, Alexis’s ex-husband. When watching old clips from the show, what resonates now with me is that what they were really fighting about was the love of a man, Blake Carrington, ruthless patriarch, and role model for the “greed is good” culture of that era. Even the super bitchy Alexis really just wanted, deep down, to be loved. Not a really empowering message, but oh, those shoulder pads!
On the heels of all that drama came the advent of true sass, The Golden Girls. A series that had and still has, a surprising amount of male viewers. I remember a close male friend of mine, typical alpha-male, stock-brokery type, was obsessed with it. A series, that Troy Patterson summarizes perfectly in a 2009 piece for Slate,
Golden Girls boasted characters who were sharp in their humor and secure in their freedoms, which included the freedom to be mean…That the characters insult one another so viciously indicates their intimacy…”
Golden girls was and still is “us.” Even though 50 is the new 30 and all, some of us are getting pretty damn close to Golden.How many times have my friends and I compared ourselves to them? And I doubt there’s a 50 something woman who hasn’t played the game with her 3 closest friends; which GG will you be when we’re retired and living in Miami? The older I get, the more I see a Golden Girl-esque future as my future. Because those women rocked. They struck a chord with women who realize the power of female friends, how most great friendships outlast relationships, crises, illness, and children running amok. How well we know each other as friends — -our strengths and weaknesses and each of us with “our own brand of crazy”, as one of my friends says.
Taking things to the next level in the ‘00s, was Sex and the City. We drank our Cosmos and argued over who was who. Carrie was the true sass: sarcastic yet sweet and somehow trusting and innocent at the same time. She was also smart and, most of all, learning from life’s lessons (how can you not learn from breaking up via a post-it note?) that were seemingly about men, but truly about empowerment and balance. Samantha with her take no prisoners approach to owning her sexuality, yet struggling with intimacy, and finally learning it when dealing with cancer. Charlotte, embracing wealth, privilege and traditional male-oriented values, who finally finds happiness with a man she initially finds physically unattractive, but his mind, temperament and values eventually win her over. Miranda, probably the most realistic character on the show, juggling a high powered career with family issues: dating and having a baby with a blue collar guy who eventually becomes her husband. She also deals with a senile mother-in-law, pregnancy and a child. We laughed and related. Ok, we didn’t have the Louboutins, but in other aspects, SATC was a real awakening to sass, to the idea that, as Charlotte puts it, “Maybe we can be each others’ soulmates. And then we can let men be just these great, nice guys to have fun with.”
I didn’t realize it at the time, but looking back, I think that is where it began for me.
And that is how I define Sass. A woman who is not afraid to be smart. Who might step on someone else’s toes a little, but doesn’t stomp on them. A woman who understands the pleasures of accomplishment, but doesn’t want power just for power’s sake. A woman that is not afraid to create and fail. A woman who wants to mentor and guide younger women in their choices. A woman who adores men, but doesn’t need a man to be her soulmate. The whole, “you complete me”, in Sass-ese, is “you compliment me.” I may choose to partner with a man, and that may be what compliments me, but that is just the beginning of me.
I realize these are “old school” examples; I haven’t even touched on today’s awesome models of sass, such as Laverne Cox, Lena Dunham, Tina Fey, Chelsea Handler (ok, jury is out on bitchy/sassy/just plain funny but I don’t care), Shailene Woodley et al. I watch them with admiration and interest. I know that sassy started well before the ‘80s. But for me, born in the last year of the baby boom, raised by Betty Draper, and constantly told, “Be sweet. Why can’t you just be sweet,” finding the balance between sassy and bitchy has been the Holy Grail of my adulthood. Thankfully, girls growing up today won’t have to search so hard.
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