Style
A "salt of the earth" kind of heroine, Stuart's character was the understanding best friend who would love to (and often did) commiserate with other characters about their sorrows over coffee. She frequently counseled best friends Stu and Marge Bergman. Her role shifted in the 1970s to counseling younger women on the program, when the actress who played Marge died, and Stu was given his own story.
Even when truly dismayed by actions (such as sister Eunice sleeping with her husband, or her daughter willfully marrying into a family who wanted to alienate her from her mother), she usually forgave offenders who showed true remorse. She got a reputation for being "simple-minded" by forgiving and forgetting, as other characters (Irene Barron in the early days, Aunt Cornelia Simmons, Patti's in-law Andrea Whiting, and Stephanie Wilkins later) saw her to be weak and attempted to prey upon her. In true soap opera fashion, however, it was Joanne's rivals who ate crow.
Read more about this topic: Joanne Gardner
Famous quotes containing the word style:
“Where there is no style, there is in effect no point of view. There is, essentially, no anger, no conviction, no self. Style is opinion, hung washing, the calibre of a bullet, teething beads.... One’s style holds one, thankfully, at bay from the enemies of it but not from the stupid crucifixions by those who must willfully misunderstand it.”
—Alexander Theroux (b. 1940)
“It is not in our drawing-rooms that we should look to judge of the intrinsic worth of any style of dress. The street-car is a truer crucible of its inherent value.”
—Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844–1911)
“The authoritarian child-rearing style so often found in working-class families stems in part from the fact that parents see around them so many young people whose lives are touched by the pain and delinquency that so often accompanies a life of poverty. Therefore, these parents live in fear for their children’s future—fear that they’ll lose control, that the children will wind up on the streets or, worse yet, in jail.”
—Lillian Breslow Rubin (20th century)