Save TCM
One day in high school I stayed home sick, and instead of turning to whatever combo of Maury, Ricki Lake or Sally Jessy Raphael was playing, I turned on Turner Classic Movies—a channel I didn't realize we had—and watched Bringing Up Baby.
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It was revolutionary. And hilarious! And I had no idea that this movie bombed until I heard it from Robert Osborne's mouth. Watching Katharine Hepburn hang onto Cary Grant's hand for dear life, dangling off a platform that, a minute ago, held the skeletal remains of a brontosaurus, was the funniest thing I'd ever seen.
From then on, I was hooked. Any chance I got, I was watching TCM. I subscribed to the 'Now Playing' magazine each month (and refuse to throw them out!); I would fill my day planner each month when the new schedule came out, marking down interesting titles or scouring the filmographies of actors and actresses I wanted to see more of so I could make my plans. Whenever I moved, be it from childhood home to college apartments, to now my settled apartment, I made sure I could get TCM. I watch it all the time, and even when I'm not actively watching television, sometimes I just leave my TV on and let it play in the background.
I get the emails, I have (had?) dreams of someday going to the TCM Film Festival, I look forward to 31 Days of Oscar and Summer Under the Stars. I enjoy the themed programming they cultivate (and I can spend the rest of my life praising 'The History of the Swimsuit' in 2020 because Jesus, I've never had a better time watching movies than that. It's like it was specifically planned for me.)
I'm even obsessed with this intro, and they don't even play it anymore!
I look forward to finding out who the Star of the Month will be and sometimes I just binge whenever it's a star I want to learn more about (see here, here, here and here. And in a few days, see my post about Katharine Hepburn's turn as Star of the Month!).
TCM isn't just a channel, it's a lifestyle. It's a place to learn not just about the movies, but about the context of them, both in terms of the contemporaneous but also the modern. You don't just watch the movie, you learn about its every element. I can't even begin to tell you what I've learned simply by watching Robert Osborne, Ben Mankiewicz, Alicia Malone, Jacqueline Stewart, Dave Karger, and Eddie Mueller during the intros and outros every day.
I've seen a tweet floating around saying that Kay Francis is a star you'd only ever learn about because of TCM. And it's true. And for me, it's also true for Ginger Rogers, for Esther Williams, Miriam Hopkins, Ray Milland, Myrna Loy, Loretta Young, Jane Powell... it's endless. I owe so much to TCM and to the people who have kept it going this long. They're not just drones at the top slotting films into a schedule, they actively care about what they're programming and they've turned us all into a community.
Without TCM, would Ginger Rogers still be 'the woman who did it backwards and in high heels'? I knew who she was growing up but it wasn't until I saw The Major and the Minor, Vivacious Lady, Fifth Avenue Girl, and Bachelor Mother bang, bang, bang, bang on TCM that I realized how empowering she was on screen and off.
Without TCM, I don't know how long it would have taken me to find Esther Williams (and it already took forever. I didn't see Bathing Beauty, my first, until 2018 or 2019). Would I know Debbie Reynolds as anything other than the cute singer from Singin' in the Rain without TCM?
When I think of what I'd be without the education TCM has given me—would I be someone who thinks that Old Hollywood begins and ends with Audrey, Marilyn and Elvis?—when I think of what we'd lose if it goes away, it fills me with such sadness.
I keep track of my favourite movies over on my about me page, and here's all of the ones I discovered, out of the 125 listed, that I learned of through TCM:
- The Major and the Minor
- Third Finger, Left Hand
- Seven Sweethearts
- Bachelor in Paradise
- Thrill of a Romance
- I Met Him in Paris
- Fifth Avenue Girl
- Athena
- Rich, Young and Pretty
- The Girl Most Likely
- Dear Ruth
- Duchess of Idaho
- Bachelor Mother
- The Wheeler Dealers
- Bathing Beauty
- Vivacious Lady
- Texas Carnival
- Midnight
- Wise Girl
- Jupiter's Darling
- Neptune's Daughter
- Easy to Love
- Follow the Boys
- Romance on the High Seas
- The Thrill of It All
- That Touch of Mink
- Luxury Liner
- Come Fly With Me
- Lovely to Look At
- Sunday in New York
- Any Wednesday
- Maid's Night Out
- Queen of Outer Space
- Gidget
- Bundle of Joy
- Give a Girl a Break
- It Started with a Kiss
- A Date with Judy
- The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
- The Young Girls of Rochefort
- The Grass is Greener
- The Horizontal Lieutenant
- Looking for Love
- Easy to Wed
- Bringing Up Baby
- Cover Girl
- Desk Set
- Down to Earth
- Frenchman's Creek
- Made in Paris
- Princess O'Rourke
- Fashions of 1934
- I Love Melvin
- The Women
- Designing Woman
- Stage Door
- Twentieth Century
- The Three Faces of Eve
- The Country Girl
- High Society
- Five Came Back
- Theodora Goes Wild
- Jessica
- The Long, Long Trailer
- The Tender Trap
- Libeled Lady
- Kiss Me, Stupid
- Irene
- If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium
- Rome Adventure
- Penelope
- Forsaking All Others
- Petticoat Fever
- Woman of the Year
- Adam's Rib
- Wife vs. Secretary
- The More the Merrier
- Count Your Blessings
- Old Acquaintance
- The Time Machine
TCM is an old friend at this point. The wiser, cooler friend who pops up to say, "Let's put on It Happened One Night once more and laugh in all the same places, but after that's over... do you know who Adrienne Ames is? Let me teach you, I've got just the movie!"
TCM needs to be preserved, it needs to be saved. It can't exist the way that mindless, money-hungry drone wants it to. Here's hoping that the chorus of voices expressing their outrage changes his mind.
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