Thinking a lot about Penny Marshall's Laverne today, particularly in the context of thinking about creepy 1970s pop culture yesterday. She was such a breath of fresh air.
Laverne was a badass. Ride-or-die for her friends. Happily, exuberantly eccentric. Unapologetically sexual as a not-conventionally-beautiful single woman of the late fifties. Abrasive, aggressive, but warm-hearted and loving. Flawed and vulnerable but strong as steel.
I'm sure if I went back and watched again I'd find cringeworthy stuff, but thinking about the impression her character left on me as a pre-adolescent boy, I've got nothing but positive memories—a surprising number of them formative, in retrospect.
We all got fed a lot of bullshit about gender and sexuality in the 1970s, but Laverne DeFazio was out there fighting for justice. For real.
