This new show gave us something new to watch after ages of cliché sitcoms and rehashed stories. Grace and Frankie is primarily based on four characters in their 70’s who are trying to deal with life when something unexpected hits them.
Crazy and Uniquely Entertaining Story Line
Grace’s husband leaves her for Frankie’s husband, both of whom were in a secret love affair for about twenty years along with being partners in a law firm together. The two women then start living in a beach house the two families got together years ago. Despite their initial annoyance to one another, they both end up creating a beautiful friendship, which flourishes as the episodes go by.
What this show achieves to do is portray old people in a way like never before. To put it simply, they portray old people as, well, just people. Of course, other family shows like Modern Family and Superior Donuts have one main old character who is also portrayed as a normal person, but we classify them as the old person in that entire show. More often than not, their old age becomes a defining trait as no other character shares the trait.
Old People Are Just People!
Whereas Grace and Frankie is primarily based on old people and how they live their lives. In its own spectacular way, it’s removing the stereotypes surrounding old people that often infantilize them. We see these four unique characters of Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Sam Waterston and Martin Sheen with their own interesting personalities going about their life as anyone would. The fact that they’re old is just a trait they have to deal with; it’s not the sole focus of their character or even the show.
Reinventing Identities Gives Hope
The show adds another layer when the story becomes about reinventing identities. It both gives us fear and hope when we realize that anything can happen when we’re in our 70’s. Like Grace Hanson and Frankie Bergstein we might think everything is just fine with our life partners for 40 years and the same daily routine would continue until our death. But suddenly our life could be turned upside down.
Jane Fonda’s character Grace being organized and judgmental becomes more compassionate and eager to take risks. Frankie (Lily Tomlin) being completely in love and dependent on her husband Sol and her hippie lifestyle learns that she needs to let go of some things and focus on new ones. Their ex-husbands, Robert (Martin Sheen) and Sol (Sam Waterston) create a new life together where they can finally be themselves.
It’s Still Realistic
However the show doesn’t completely ignore the factors that come with old age. That ensures that the show stays even more realistic than others. It’s not stereotypical behavior of old people just losing their sense or memory completely, it just highlights the fact that eventually we will have to deal with old age. Each one of us will have our unique problems, whether it be physical or mental. It shows that we won’t be able to depend on ourselves always. With instances like Grace (Jane Fonda) hurting herself while using a vibrator due to her arthritis and Frankie (Lily Tomlin) having a hard time getting her license due to her weak memory, and at one point both of them spending a whole day laying in bed because of back pain shows that it’s still difficult to get old. But it’s not an excuse to give up on life.