A while ago I was watching a re-run of I Love Lucy and I was suddenly struck by an undeniable truth: for all her acclaim and adoration, Lucy Ball was simply nowhere near as funny or interesting as her more subtle sidekick Vivian Vance. Lucy’s broad farce and hammy humor may have won her legions of fans and ensured her several decades as one of TV’s most powerful stars, but the fact remains: to a modern audience Lucy’s over-the-top slapstick is dreadfully dated. Her sidekick Vivian is much funnier. Her droll turn of phrase and eye-rolling runs rings around Lucy’s physical gags, and in retrospect it is clear that an important component of the show’s success was the chemistry between the hammy lead and her deliciously underplayed sidekick.
Edina and Patsy. Mary and Rhoda. Cybill and Maryann. Grace and Karen (and Will and Jack, sort of). The list of female comedic duos whose success is attributable to the star/sidekick dynamic is considerable and traces back to the dramatic “women’s pictures” of the 1940s. The prototype for the sidekick was pioneered by the likes of Eve Arden and Thelma Ritter, women who made whole careers out of playing supporting parts and often stole the picture with their clever characterizations of the sidekick. In her book All About Thelma and Eve: Sidekicks and Third Wheels, Judith Roof suggests that it's the "perversity, middleness and implied queerness" of these minor female roles that makes them so fascinating to viewers.
Eve Arden’s delicious portrayal of Joan Crawford’s best friend in the classic 1945 film noir/melodrama hybrid Mildred Pierce, an interesting film on many levels, not least because of its depiction of a female friendship, is one of the best known early "best friend" parts. As Crawford’s pal Ida, Arden creates a vivid, multi-layered character at once glamorous, experienced, and insightful – she sees the train wreck coming well before the tortured lead Crawford. Ida is totally glamorous and deliciously cynical, speaking her mind in a way the Crawford character is never permitted to do. Because her screen time is so limited, the audience always wants to know more about the rather mysterious and often acid-tongued Ida – we can’t help but wonder, in the back of our minds, about the exciting and man-filled life Ida must be living off-screen.
The Ida prototype became a staple of women’s films, serving the important purpose of speaking for the audience and providing a much-needed confidante for the suffering lead. Thelma Ritter played a sort of Ida without the glamour as Bette Davis’s wonderfully quick-witted and insightful maid Birdie in All About Eve – and her character is the only one to see through Davis’s scheming rival. In women’s pictures the sidekick is always cynical, quick-witted – and wise.
By the 1960s, though, the big screen sidekick had developed some new elements; primarily, she was losing her dignity. Ritter’s sidekicks in the Doris Day sex romps still had the best lines and the subversive cynicism, but she was often a drunk and man-hungry (Ida was man-hungry too, but she really could have had her pick of them). Perhaps the sidekick was becoming too much of a threat to the lead and her appeal needed to be neutralized by making her an alcoholic, emphasizing her comedic appeal?
Through the 1960s and ‘70s the women’s picture died and the sidekick found her way onto TV sitcoms. The Mary Tyler Moore Show was an important program from a feminist perspective, but looking at it today the perpetual doormat character of Mary is just plain annoying and irritatingly naïve. Her sidekicks, however, the blunt Rhoda (Valerie Harper, a fabulously droll graduate of the Vivian Vance school) and prickly Phyllis (Cloris Leachman) were vastly more interesting and doubtlessly underrated factors in the show’s early success and its enduring appeal. Rhoda was everything a woman could want in a best friend: funny, supportive, and stylish. She was also allowed to have a lot of other, more interesting, personality traits which Mary was not allowed to have: she was overtly man-hungry, appealingly self-deprecating, and she could be quite the bitch. She even had a more interesting family than Mary, capitalized upon in the spin-off program Rhoda (and in which, fittingly, the show was often stolen by Rhoda’s own sidekicks, her frumpy sister and her passively aggressive mother). On Mary Tyler Moore, Rhoda’s appeal came from the fact that, as a secondary character, she could say and do the things that goody-two-shoes Mary could never get away with, and it is this aspect of the sidekick that is the crux of her enduring appeal: she is more interesting than the lead because her secondary status allows her to be far more multi-faceted, cruder, sexier, and therefore ever so subversive in espousing counter-establishment opinions.
The sidekick never irritates us because she does not have to carry the show: we always want to see more of her and hear more of her homespun wit or her raunchy one-liners, but often we just want the whining lead to shut up. We never see enough of the sidekick to get annoyed with her – that’s also why she usually gets the best lines.
The height of TV’s popularity in the 1980s brought a dearth of female buddies employing the sidekick dynamic. Women were sworn enemies in the popular soap operas of the era (Krystle and Alexis in Dynasty being the most notable example), while the most important female-driven sitcoms featured aloof, acidic career women curiously lacking in female friends (Murphy Brown), or ensemble casts with no second bananas (The Golden Girls) – although Roseanne used the classic sidekick dynamic with its engaging relationship between the crass, overweight Roseanne and her slightly neurotic, slightly sexy and sometimes bizarre sister Jackie (Laurie Metcalf).
The 1990s brought the return of the sidekick with the seminal British comedy Absolutely Fabulous. Alcoholic tramp Patsy is totally over-the-top and light years from the wisdom and glamour of Ida in Mildred Pierce. Although Patsy (Joanna Lumley) still fulfils that vital role of gal pal and ostensible second banana (and in classic sidekick style Patsy always steals the show), Patsy’s femininity is totally exaggerated to the point where she looks like a drag queen and behaves like a gay man. This new sidekick persona introduced a new element of subversion: she could be totally immoral and never suffer consequences that the lead would. Unlike the all-talk man-eating Ida or the desexualized Ritter of the ‘60s sex romps, this latter day sidekick drank like a fish and screwed around as much as she wanted to. The female lead could never get away with such immorality without being punished in the end: Edina was usually humiliated in one way or another, but Patsy just went about her business.
This raises the question: when did the sidekick turn into such a lush, and why? Cybill Shepherd’s showcase comedy Cybill proved her a competent comedienne, but it was her hard-drinking gal pal Maryann (the elegant Christine Baranski) that won all the laughs, much as the ever-drunk Karen (Megan Mullally) famously stolen the show from her less interesting gal pal (and series star) Grace in Will and Grace. Perhaps the drinking is another way to neuter the sidekick and ensure the audience never takes her too seriously, but there is something more happening here: nastiness. Maryann and Karen, and even Patsy, are aggressive towards their supposed friends, often belittling and undermining them, often quite bitchy, and not at all like the supportive best friends of Ida or Rhoda’s days. Maybe they are resisting their secondary status? Maybe it’s a post-feminist backlash against the disappointments of sisterhood?
In any case, today it seems that the sidekick has once again been relegated – for now at least. But rest assured, she’ll return some day. Personally I just hope she’s more in the guise of a glamorous cynic like Ida, or a witty sage like Birdie, or even or lovable loudmouth like Rhoda, rather than the nastier, more recent incarnations.
The Ida prototype became a staple of women’s films, serving the important purpose of speaking for the audience and providing a much-needed confidante for the suffering lead. Thelma Ritter played a sort of Ida without the glamour as Bette Davis’s wonderfully quick-witted and insightful maid Birdie in All About Eve – and her character is the only one to see through Davis’s scheming rival. In women’s pictures the sidekick is always cynical, quick-witted – and wise.
By the 1960s, though, the big screen sidekick had developed some new elements; primarily, she was losing her dignity. Ritter’s sidekicks in the Doris Day sex romps still had the best lines and the subversive cynicism, but she was often a drunk and man-hungry (Ida was man-hungry too, but she really could have had her pick of them). Perhaps the sidekick was becoming too much of a threat to the lead and her appeal needed to be neutralized by making her an alcoholic, emphasizing her comedic appeal?
Through the 1960s and ‘70s the women’s picture died and the sidekick found her way onto TV sitcoms. The Mary Tyler Moore Show was an important program from a feminist perspective, but looking at it today the perpetual doormat character of Mary is just plain annoying and irritatingly naïve. Her sidekicks, however, the blunt Rhoda (Valerie Harper, a fabulously droll graduate of the Vivian Vance school) and prickly Phyllis (Cloris Leachman) were vastly more interesting and doubtlessly underrated factors in the show’s early success and its enduring appeal. Rhoda was everything a woman could want in a best friend: funny, supportive, and stylish. She was also allowed to have a lot of other, more interesting, personality traits which Mary was not allowed to have: she was overtly man-hungry, appealingly self-deprecating, and she could be quite the bitch. She even had a more interesting family than Mary, capitalized upon in the spin-off program Rhoda (and in which, fittingly, the show was often stolen by Rhoda’s own sidekicks, her frumpy sister and her passively aggressive mother). On Mary Tyler Moore, Rhoda’s appeal came from the fact that, as a secondary character, she could say and do the things that goody-two-shoes Mary could never get away with, and it is this aspect of the sidekick that is the crux of her enduring appeal: she is more interesting than the lead because her secondary status allows her to be far more multi-faceted, cruder, sexier, and therefore ever so subversive in espousing counter-establishment opinions.
The sidekick never irritates us because she does not have to carry the show: we always want to see more of her and hear more of her homespun wit or her raunchy one-liners, but often we just want the whining lead to shut up. We never see enough of the sidekick to get annoyed with her – that’s also why she usually gets the best lines.
The height of TV’s popularity in the 1980s brought a dearth of female buddies employing the sidekick dynamic. Women were sworn enemies in the popular soap operas of the era (Krystle and Alexis in Dynasty being the most notable example), while the most important female-driven sitcoms featured aloof, acidic career women curiously lacking in female friends (Murphy Brown), or ensemble casts with no second bananas (The Golden Girls) – although Roseanne used the classic sidekick dynamic with its engaging relationship between the crass, overweight Roseanne and her slightly neurotic, slightly sexy and sometimes bizarre sister Jackie (Laurie Metcalf).
The 1990s brought the return of the sidekick with the seminal British comedy Absolutely Fabulous. Alcoholic tramp Patsy is totally over-the-top and light years from the wisdom and glamour of Ida in Mildred Pierce. Although Patsy (Joanna Lumley) still fulfils that vital role of gal pal and ostensible second banana (and in classic sidekick style Patsy always steals the show), Patsy’s femininity is totally exaggerated to the point where she looks like a drag queen and behaves like a gay man. This new sidekick persona introduced a new element of subversion: she could be totally immoral and never suffer consequences that the lead would. Unlike the all-talk man-eating Ida or the desexualized Ritter of the ‘60s sex romps, this latter day sidekick drank like a fish and screwed around as much as she wanted to. The female lead could never get away with such immorality without being punished in the end: Edina was usually humiliated in one way or another, but Patsy just went about her business.
This raises the question: when did the sidekick turn into such a lush, and why? Cybill Shepherd’s showcase comedy Cybill proved her a competent comedienne, but it was her hard-drinking gal pal Maryann (the elegant Christine Baranski) that won all the laughs, much as the ever-drunk Karen (Megan Mullally) famously stolen the show from her less interesting gal pal (and series star) Grace in Will and Grace. Perhaps the drinking is another way to neuter the sidekick and ensure the audience never takes her too seriously, but there is something more happening here: nastiness. Maryann and Karen, and even Patsy, are aggressive towards their supposed friends, often belittling and undermining them, often quite bitchy, and not at all like the supportive best friends of Ida or Rhoda’s days. Maybe they are resisting their secondary status? Maybe it’s a post-feminist backlash against the disappointments of sisterhood?
In any case, today it seems that the sidekick has once again been relegated – for now at least. But rest assured, she’ll return some day. Personally I just hope she’s more in the guise of a glamorous cynic like Ida, or a witty sage like Birdie, or even or lovable loudmouth like Rhoda, rather than the nastier, more recent incarnations.
