With a star-studded cast playing six strong, Southern women, the 1989 film adaptation of Steel Magnolias has long been hailed as a celebration of female friendship, empowerment, and resilience.
And as resurfaced clips from the movie’s press tour show, those themes were rather timely.
Cast members Sally Field, Olympia Dukakis, Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine, and Julia Roberts sat on stage answering questions on the popular talk show Donahue. Host Phil Donahue asked his own questions and audience members asked theirs. Watching it now, though, one thing is clear: We’ve come a long way since the 1980s.
Asking women about their weight and looks was par for the course
In part one of the clip, Phil Donahue immediately comments on Dolly Parton’s weight, asking her if she eats birdseed for breakfast and telling her she almost weighs nothing. According to 1989 standards, that was meant to be a compliment, but a few decades later, it feels inappropriate.
But that’s just the beginning. Several times in part one, the women have to field comments about their weight, their looks, or their age. Often (though not always), those questions and commentary come before the ones about their actual work.
In part two, the weight and looks commentary continues. Donahue praises Shirley MacLaine for having the best legs and the best body in the business and asks her how she keeps it up. When a woman asks Sally Field how she stays so thin after having had a baby, fellow cast members immediately chime in with, “She starrrrves.”
“I starve,” Field adds with a smile. “It’s just, you know, eat as little as you possibly can. When you feel faint, eat.” And everyone just laughs as if that’s a totally normal thing to say.
Ironically, Phil Donahue was an outspoken feminist
One might not feel this while watching the clip, but Phil Donahue was a self-described feminist and proud of it. His audience was primarily women, and he used his platform to raise awareness about all kinds of topics that impact women, from domestic violence to reproductive rights.
He touted the advancements in the women’s movement throughout his career and even after. In an interview on the TODAY Show in 2017, he shared how when he started his show in 1967, “A boss could tell his secretary to walk around the room so he could look at her, could poke her in the chest and say, ‘Are these real?’ and get away with it. There was nothing she could do about it.” He praised the women who fought back, standing on the shoulders of earlier feminists.
And yet, in an interview with five women on his show, questions and commentary about their bodies were seen as totally acceptable, or even expected. That feels cringe and anti-feminist to us now, but it’s really a testament to how far we’ve come since the ’80s.
Despite the cringe factor, these interviews felt more ‘real’ than modern ones
One other observation people have shared after watching these clips is that there’s a “real” quality to the interactions that feels like it’s missing from many modern press tours. In the age of social media, celebrities feel more guarded, interviews feel more curated, and public relations feels more controlled.
It’s understandable. In 1989, no one worried that a small snippet from an interview might turn into a viral clip that gets them “canceled.” Surely, these Steel Magnolia actors put some thought into their answers, but they didn’t seem overly prepared. It’s also clear that Phil Donahue wasn’t afraid to ask all kinds of questions. The conversation, despite the critiques outlined above, seemed more natural than many do today. The fear of asking the wrong kinds of questions or saying the wrong thing in response simply wasn’t the pervasive concern it is now.
Like anything else from the past, there are positives and negatives we can take from this. In this case, let’s be real, but ditch the weird body comments, shall we?
