Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - Good Girls Don't: Cast Photo

Good Girls Don't... aired from June until August 2004 on the Oxygen Cable Network.

About the Show
From the creators of That '70s Show, this subversive series busts TV taboos by showing what 20-somethings really say, think, and do. An uncompromising yet riotously irreverent look at five flawed friends who will go to just about any length to find love, happiness, or - at the very least - a promising hook up, Good Girls Don't, is the comedy your mother warned you about.

An Article from The New York Times

THE TV WATCH; When Creators of 'Quality Television' Try the Opposite Approach

By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
Published: June 3, 2004

It is hard to pinpoint exactly when it became safe to be a stupid slut on television.

There were always dumb blondes, of course, but even the bubbliest and most buxom of them -- Donna Douglas on ''The Beverly Hillbillies,'' Loni Anderson of ''WKRP in Cincinnati'' or Pamela Anderson of ''Baywatch'' -- were sweet-natured objects of desire, not slatternly, intoxicated swingers.

Since then the devolution has spun ever downward to a world in which Paris Hilton, Jessica Simpson and Lindsey Lohan are teenage role models and the hit movie ''Mean Girls'' revels in what it professes to mock. (Why exactly does Tina Fey, playing a math teacher, take off her top?) Even Washington is infested with gofers gone wild: a young Senate staffer who was fired last month for posting her sex diaries on the Internet (unacceptable use of Senate computers) assured The Washington Post that she and her girlfriends all accept money for sex -- suggesting an ever-thinning line between ''hooking up'' and hooking. She said she now aspires to a job in New York publishing.

Good thinking. Simon & Schuster has a brand-new ditz-lit division called Simon Spotlight Entertainment, which will soon publish, among other things, ''The Hookup Handbook: A Girl's Guide to the Non-Dating Game.'' The publicity sheet explains: ''All over the world, from dusk to dawn, millions of singles go out, party, meet other singles, and inevitably, hook up. It's the new nondating, and it's here to stay.''

''Good Girls Don't . . .,'' a new sitcom on Oxygen that begins on Friday, sets a new low: a series entirely centered on the sordid, sad sex lives of two young girls from Minnesota who share an apartment in Los Angeles. (The premiere episode is titled, ''My Roommate Is a Big, Fat Slut.'')

A down-market pastiche of ''Sex and the City,'' and the British imports ''Coupling'' and ''Absolutely Fabulous'' (the slutty roommate is also a big, fat lush), ''Good Girls Don't . . .'' is less remarkable for its content than its pedigree: it was created by Carsey-Werner-Mandabach, the same team of producers who, in the 1980's and 90's, were creators of ''quality television'' with critically acclaimed programs like ''The Cosby Show,'' and ''Roseanne.'' This latest effort could best be described as ''quantity television,'' a cheaply taped sitcom that panders to the vast, insatiable appetite for cheerfully demeaning depictions of women.

Most surprisingly, this show, as well as two other new sitcoms of the same ilk that follow it on Friday night, ''Naked Josh'' and ''Show Me Yours,'' are on Oxygen, a network created in 2000 by Geraldine Laybourne, the former president of Nickelodeon, as a classier, more feminist alternative to ''Lifetime.'' Her ambitions were short-lived: These days, Oxygen, which has a reality/hidden camera show called ''Girls Behaving Badly,'' is hard to distinguish from ''Spike,'' the men's cable network -- except for ''Inhale'' the New Age power yoga show and the repellently frank sex advice of an elderly Canadian nurse on ''Talk Sex With Sue Johanson.''

The dismantling of feminism in popular culture began long ago, but on television, at least, ''Real World'' on MTV was a bellwether. When it began in 1992, that voyeuristic show took the music video images of wanton women out of the realm of MTV fantasy and into the reality genre, training cameras on the carnal pursuits of ordinary people and teaching teenagers that fame, however fleeting, trumps shame. ''Sex and the City'' in 1998 also lent casual sex dignity, or at least glamour, but the imitations it inspired -- both on television and in real life -- kept getting more tawdry.

Network executives at Oxygen and other networks justify their slumming by insisting that such shows are breaking down unhealthy taboos; but there are no taboos left on television, except perhaps, girls behaving decently.

Feminists have been tracing the return to protosexism for quite some time -- Susan Faludi's treatise ''Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women,'' came out in 1991. More recently, so-called ''third wave'' feminists lashed back at Ms. Faludi and her peers for being too pessimistic and too quick to cast women as victims of a male conspiracy.

Yet the younger generation's willing complicity in the antifeminist movement has its own built-in paradoxes. In the 1980's Madonna embodied sexual empowerment and fierce independence. Newer pop stars like Cristina Aguillera and Britney Spears just seem desperate to please.

And the latest fad of female bisexuality in high schools, colleges and clubs is a mixed instant message: a way to exclude men and arouse them at the same time. It's what shows like ''Good Girls Don't . . .'' leeringly refer to as ''girl-on-girl action,

The effort, most visibly in the 70's, to bring feminist principles to television did not last long, perhaps because the quest to reverse engrained social and biological behavior is a little like adhering to strict religious rituals or sitting up straight; some people take to it naturally, but for most it is all too easy to slump.

Dramas have adapted more easily. The heroine of ''Karen Sisco'' can be a United States marshal and still wear a low-cut tank top while chasing felons through the Everglades. Sitcoms are harder to finesse: women have been the butt of jokes so long that self-mockery can look a lot like like self-loathing.

There is nothing very fresh or funny about Jane, the plump, slutty and soused roommate on ''Good Girls Don't . . .'' when she balks at joining a sex-addiction self-help group, saying, ''I'm going to show those nymphos that I'm just a normal, average slut.'' (She makes Bridget Jones seem like Samuel Pepys.)

Much of the show's banter is too explicit to quote in this newspaper, but the common theme is women's weaknesses: dependence on sex, men, marital aids and alcohol, and obsession with eating disorders and cosmetic surgery.

Backlash or not, sitcom heroines are spending more and more time on their backs.

An Interview With Creator Claudia Lonow

Good Girls Dont - Claudia Lonow
By Daniel Robert Epstein
Jun 30, 2004
Believe me I was surprised when we were approached to interview Claudia Lonow because her new TV show, Good Girls Don't, is on Oprah’s Oxygen network. We’ve been turned down for interviews from the FX Network and TBS so I didn’t think another cable network that features advertising would be interested. But Lonow has created a very edgy show in Good Girls Don't.

Marjorie [Bree Turner] tells her friend Jane [Joy Gohring] to loosen up after a bad breakup and Jane goes up out and starts slutting it up. The show has already been on the air for a few weeks and is receiving some rave reviews with people comparing it to Friends and Sex in the City.

Check out the website for Good Girls Don't...
Daniel Robert Epstein: Was this show always meant to go on Oxygen?Claudia Lonow: Yes, it was created for the Oxygen channel.DRE:It doesn’t seem like they are being strict at all in terms of content and raciness.CL:They’re not being very strict. We had a couple of jokes that I thought they would never let on. But I decided to leave them in the script so we could see if they even notice it. There were a lot of things that got by that I was totally expecting them to make us take out.DRE:I read that Oxygen is describing it as Sex in the City but it doesn’t seem like that show at all.CL:I guess people at networks compare things to other successful shows because they want it to be as successful. I certainly didn’t start out to make Sex in the City because that’s already been on TV [laughs].DRE:I saw that Timothy Busfield [formerly of thirtysomething] directed the first episode.CL:Yes, it was very hard to not call him Elliot. I knew him because he directed some episodes of Rude Awakening.DRE:Is he going to be doing more?CL:He is great to work with but since he directed Rude Awakening he’s kind of skyrocketed into the outer reaches of TV directing and producing. I would like him to, but I don’t know if he would be available because we’re not paying top dollar.DRE:Originally the show was going to be called “My Best Friend is a Big Fat Slut.” Why the name change?CL:That happened because the network didn’t feel that they would be able to sell advertising time with that name. I fought as hard as I could for it. Then they latched on to the title “Good Girls Don’t” which I thought was kind of misleading because the show is kind of the opposite of that but they wouldn’t come off it.DRE:Does Joy Gohring mind being referred to as a big fat slut?CL:Not at all. She’s a comedian, a comic actress and very comfortable with herself. All of the actors in the show are pretty close to the characters. She doesn’t care. She is who she is and that’s a very attractive slightly pudgy girl. She will walk around with no clothes on because she doesn’t give a shit.DRE:If the show gets picked up will it be in her contract to not get skinnier?CL:We don’t think she will. I don’t think it’s possible for her to get any skinner. It’s not like she spends every other hour at the gym. I don’t think she has any desire to be anything other than herself, which is refreshing especially in Hollywood.DRE:There are a lot of drug references on the show and in the second episode they smoke a joint.CL:Yeah and the character of Davis is a pot dealer.DRE:I think I missed that.CL:Well we don’t talk too much about their jobs but it becomes apparent later.DRE:Were the drug references ever an issue?CL:It was a little bit of an issue because of the amount of references We had it right at the beginning and everyone was doing it so that was an issue for Oxygen. We were so surprised that what we were able to keep any of it that I wasn’t too combatative about it like “Let’s have them smoke pot all the time, every second.” There is more drinking and smoking pot in the show than anything I’ve seen which I think is realistic to young people.DRE:Is Lizzie [Nichole Hiltz] friends with the two main female characters?CL:She sort of glommed onto their group, which we address in subsequent episodes. She used to be Davis’ girlfriend and now they can’t get rid of her. They don’t like her that much.DRE:Did you know Danny Masterson and that’s how he ended up on that one episode?CL:Carsey-Werner-Mandabach who makes the show also makes That 70’s Show.DRE:Is he a real sexaholic?CL:No, but I thought he had a great sense of humor about himself.DRE:What are the expectations for Good Girls Don’t? Because Oxygen seems to really be pushing it.CL:They like the show a lot, it’s a fun show to make and we’ve gotten great reviews. It’s already been sold in England, Canada, Latin America and New Zealand. I don’t know what’s going to happen but I think they’d like to pick up the show.DRE:When do you find out if they renew it?CL:I don’t know. That’s up to them.DRE:Are you conscious of doing this trailblazing TV show?CL:Everybody has one thing they are able to do and this is it for me. It stirred up some controversy because the New York Times wrote us up as being the death knell for feminism. Which I was surprised about but I’m always surprised when people take offense to things. It’s a comedy. It’s not really saying anything but it is about young people sowing their oats and if you can’t make mistakes at that point in your life then what’s the point.DRE:Do you see it as a feminist show?CL:I don’t know if the show has any political ethos. I am a feminist but I don’t know if the characters think about it.DRE:Was Joy’s buttcheek hanging out in the first episode done on purpose?CL:Joy did that. That’s what I mean, she’s very free with her body and she has no inhibitions, which is perfect for SuicideGirls.DRE:I wouldn’t have expected Oxygen to have anything to do with SuicideGirls.CL:That was me. I was the one who knew about the website and I figured they might like the show because it’s about young women who are having a good time. They also don’t take themselves too seriously.DRE:I read that you were a bit a slutty at one point.CL:Kind of? One point? [laughs]

Hopefully it never has to end. The previous show I did for Showtime, Rude Awakening, was a lot more autobiographical. This is more of a derivation of that. I have a good time though.DRE:The odd thing is you let that be publicly known. You're cool with that?CL:Yes, I don’t think there is anything to be ashamed of. I’m not hooking. But life is short.DRE:I read you used to be an epic drinker.CL:Yes I did. I’m more restrained than I was because I have to make a living but I was a party girl.DRE:Is that the norm in Hollywood?CL:That’s the norm around a certain group of people here. I’m sort of a reformed party girl but I still hang around people who self medicate on a regular basis.DRE:What’s it like working with Andy Dick on Less than Perfect?CL:He’s very professional and he shows up to work on time. That’s all you need to know when you work with him, who cares what he does when he goes home.DRE:You started out as an actress.CL:Yes I was on Knot’s Landing and my stepfather is one of the owners of The Improv, my mom is a comic and my brother, Michael Rapaport, is an actor and was a comic. I grew up in show business.DRE:How did you avoid holding up a 7-11 like everyone else?CL:I didn’t have the energy for it. I didn’t have to. After my stint on television I cleaned up my act. But I knew all these people like Dana Plato. I saw them at industry things then later on the former child star television circuit. I’ve done all of those shows.DRE:When is there going to be a pierced and tattooed person on Good Girls Don’t?CL:I would love that. We got to get on that. I would like Jane to try to get on SuicideGirls and be turned down.DRE:Have you ever thought about an entire show centered about young Goths or punks?CL:I think that’s a great area to explore. I have a lot of irons in the fire so I could go make one tomorrow.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

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For more on Good Girls Don't... go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/blog/000519.shtml

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