In a world where it seems like there is a new teen show out every week, Grace And Frankie offers a reprieve from the constant onslaught of youthful dramas and romances. Yet, at the same time, despite the contrasting age groups, Grace And Frankie ultimately stresses the similarities between people of all ages.
Everyone is concerned with romance, everyone fights with their friends, everyone has trouble asking for help sometimes, and everyone is constantly learning how to be a better version of themselves. In this way, the show asserts how crazy it is that there aren’t more shows featuring people of varying age groups! Here are 10 examples of the show breaking boundaries, and setting an example for future television.
10 Grace And Frankie Become Friends
Grace and Frankie may not like each other at first–well, for a long duration of years, to be factual. But they eventually manage to find common ground and become a point of solace and support for one another. Bringing two women together who have such fundamentally different approaches to life is a refreshing shift from TV that loves to pit women against one another.
9 The Husbands Are Gay
The most glaringly obvious example of the show breaking boundaries is it being based on the fact that Grace and Frankie become friends due to their elderly husbands declaring their love for each other. Gay couples are becoming less and less rare on TV, but a full storyline about a gay couple in such a late age group is a rarity.
8 The Leads Are Late In Life
All of the main characters of the show are people who are late in life. That is to say, the show puts center stage the thing that nobody wants to talk about–growing older. And it’s done in a way that makes us want to watch and to stop dismissing age as something to be denied until one must face it, but to acknowledge it as a natural part of life.
7 Grace And Frankie Invent A Vibrator
Perhaps one of the things that risks having the greatest shock-factor on the show is Grace and Frankie’s attention to sexuality. Grace begrudgingly engages un such conversation with Frankie at first, but eventually, both are on the same team, clearing a place at the table for the sexual health of elderly women to be talked about.
6 Brianna Being A Boss
The character of Brianna exemplifies many characteristics that are often deemed as unattractive and undesirable in a woman.
She is the head of a company and she knows what she wants and has no trouble asserting it–something that would usually earn a woman the title of “bossy”, if not some other cruel nicknames. But in actuality, she’s simply a woman who acts in defiance of societal constrictions.
5 Grace And Frankie Have Lively Dating Lives
The dating and sex lives of older people are rarely represented in popular media. It’s as of once a person passes a certain age, they cease to be a human in any of the ways the public would normally recognize and relate to. This is, of course, ridiculous, and the show makes this clear by never failing to feature the complicated dating lives of its two protagonists, which are just at thrilling and petty and silly as anybody else’s.
4 It Tackles Elderly Pride
Grace and Frankie may often be the picture of living life to the fullest while older, as well as advocates for exposing the realities of being old, but they still suffer from insecurities regarding their increasing age. This only makes sense, as having zero insecurity would prove them strange and unusual. The pair often resist accepting help from the younger people in their lives and have to eventually acknowledge that help is okay.
3 Features Non-Traditional Families
The basis of the show could be categorized as “non-traditional” in itself–older gay couple, two elderly women living together–but on top of this are even more nuanced storylines.
Frankie’s family is extraordinary in many ways. They are Jewish, they adopted two children of different races, and one of the children struggles with substance abuse. The exploration of these storylines allows the viewer to dig into subjects that usually exist on the outer-fringes of popular conversation.
2 Challenges Female Body Taboos
The female body is something that has been generally avoided and met with discomfort within popular media–relating to anything outside of general sexualization–but Grace And Frankie discusses the intricacies of living with a female body in many ways that leap beyond average TV discussion, particularly concerning the fact that the discussion usually centers around aging female bodies, not just young ones.
1 Discusses The Emotional Impact Of Infertility
Frankie can’t have children, and it’s a sore spot for her. In earlier days when Grace was less considerate of Frankie, she would flout the fact that she could have children and Frankie couldn’t, stating that Frankie couldn’t understand certain aspects of motherhood because she wasn’t a mother in the same way that women who physically give birth to their children are. This issue is actually a common one but it isn’t commonly represented. Frankie’s struggle gives a voice to many women who are otherwise unheard.
