this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2024

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Sappho & Her Friend play rulepermarket sweeps (90s socially acceptable edition) (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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alt-text

A social post and a follow up. The post shows a screengrab from the show, and the follow up shows the happy couple featured in it taking a selfie.

Tom Zohar @TomZohar • 2h
I love watching old episodes of Supermarket Sweep because these two just said they're "business partners" who "design sets for plays" and I'm like oh I'm sure

Tim Leach
Here we are! Just celebrated our 41st anniversary. Married in 2008 on our 25th anniversary as soon as it was legal in California. We ran a business together designing and painting backdrops and sets for 27 years.

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[–] [email protected] 66 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Speaking of which, does a Sappho and her friend community exist somewhere federated?

[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 months ago (1 children)

If not you know what you need to do.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Wow, NO results for 'Sappho' in communities? Damn. That's unexpected.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (3 children)

What or who is sappho?

[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 months ago

In addition to the other comment - "Sappho and her friend" refers to the unfortunate practice by historians of portraying queer relationships in a callously heteronormative way, like referring to Sappho's female lover as "her friend".

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Sappho was a poet from the island of Lesbo, which is where the word lesbian comes from.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

The mythological legend regarding Lesbos was that all of the women Lesbians started having sex with each other one time when all of the men Lesbians went off to war.

Edit: Sappho was a real poet really from Leabos, and is one of the founders of lyric poetry in Western literature. Lyric poetry here means mostly any kind of poem that's a lot shorter than the multi-chapter epics.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

Lesbos not Lesbo

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Since both of these are assuming you know the island of lesbo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sappho

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

Lesbos not Lesbo

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago

You started something

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago

[email protected]

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

What is this Sappho thing?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

a greek poet. "sappho and her friend" makes fun of straight people pretending that an obviously homosexual relationship is just a friendship

[–] [email protected] 41 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Love the post, don't live the headline.

Since when do we use Sappho to refer to all things queer and not Lesbian specific?

Sappho was the OG lesbian (as far as history remembers) from the island of lesbos. That's why we call lesbians lesbians. And the whole "Sappho and her friend" thing comes from centuries of historians calling her love poems to be about "friendship".

I know there is gay erasure too, but why do we have to make everything about men?

[–] [email protected] 39 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

"Sappho and her friend" is used as an ironic term by queer people, specifically to make fun of cishet people calling an Obviously queer couple friends. There was/is a subreddit called that.

As well, Sappho does not mean "Lesbian-specific", it just means between two women. That definition is pretty important to people like myself and other bi/pan women, as we already get marginalised enough by people like "gold-star" lesbians.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Sorry, thought it was an (or the) appropriate umbrella.

You got me curious -

Had to see if I was the only one and see the top two posts of all time on the original sub are about men. Second top post from this week is the OP. Saying this to share a tidbit of perhaps how widespread this misconception of mine is, certainly not to take away from your point.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Now I went and had a look at reddit too and I must say that r/SapphoAndHerFriend has become a lot more "male" since I left reddit. I'm quite sure that back when reddit was still fun and somewhat authentic, this sub was mostly female.

Maybe I missed some development here and the meaning did change. I'm far from being an authority on this. It just rubs me the wrong way, that a tool to point out female queer erasure now puts women to the back again in favor of queer men.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago

There used to also be r/achillesandhispal, but I haven't checked.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago

i recall following a sub called r/AchillesAndHisPal; if the other person is really trying to gatekeep homosexual lingo for lesbians only, i suppose you can use this instead.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 3 months ago

Oh my god they were ~~roommates~~ business partners

This is so cute

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 months ago

I miss this show. It was like the Nickelodeon Toys'r'Us shopping sprees but for adults who need regular ol' groceries.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 months ago

To be fair, they didn't lie.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 months ago

They are so friggin cute together. Love it

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago

this is the Internet eye bleach I needed today. Thank you.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago

Love it! I have known couples like this and its great when they can be themselves after a long time of being together.

[–] Zagorath 5 points 3 months ago (4 children)

I'm struggling to understand this. Two characters in a show, obviously gay but telling people otherwise. Then two other blokes who are married IRL saying they had the same jobs as those characters? Or are they the actors of those characters? And what's going on with the 27 years and 41st anniversary? Did they change business? Are they trying to say this is how they met before they married? Sorry I'm just generally lost here.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 months ago

Game show contestants, not actors :)

Met at least 41 years ago somewhere & somehow, started a relationship 41 years ago in 1983, couldn’t get married while it was illegal, painted backdrops for 27 years together, got married in 2008.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I'm also an aussie and never seen the show, but I'm assuming the show is/was a reality TV show so they came on during the 90's and the couple gave their backstory as just business partners.

Someone recently watched re-runs and made a post commenting that they're clearly were actually a couple, That post went "viral" the couple saw it and commented with proof that yeah they were gay all along.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Supermarket Sweep was a game show themed around grocery shopping, not a reality TV show.

Unless we're calling game shows reality TV now in which case I'll be very sad.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Never seen it, don't think it ever aired in Australia so I'll take your word for it. I would personally lump game shows in with reality TV just for the fact that the shows aren't scripted and the people on them are usually average joes and not playing a role

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (2 children)

One could argue that game shows are less scripted than reality TV. They tried unscripted reality TV and found out just filming normal people doesn't drive ratings, so they have a ton of producers inventing drama.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

I'd agree with you there!

[–] Zagorath 1 points 3 months ago

If you haven't seen it already, the scripted drama Unreal was fantastic.

[–] Zagorath 3 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Oh! Reality TV! I don't know why that never occurred to me.

The second post being a comment specifically on the first post...are you sure? The original is a Tweet, the updated post is on Facebook

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

https://ew.com/supermarket-sweep-couple-react-to-going-viral-8686460

I mean yeah, EW isn’t the most valueable of sources, but “reality tv gay couple” isn’t likely to get much coverage anyway

[–] Zagorath 1 points 3 months ago

Fair enough. And I don't think you need an especially high quality source for something like this. Especially not when the source you did use presents its sources so transparently.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It was so believable, I didn’t question it. Any good post is hitting every major social network.

[–] Zagorath 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Yeah that's true. I was just confused because the way this post is framed makes it look like two separate posts, rather than being clear one is a comment on the other (e.g. if the follow-up Tweet from Tom had been shown, or if Tim's Facebook comment had been shown under the assumed post of the screenshot of the Tweet).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Gotcha. They were two separate screenshots I found & stitched. How should I have presented ‘em? Could’ve annotated I suppose, added a title to each. Or stitched them vertically, and annotated “a few days(?) later…” in between or something.

[–] Zagorath 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Oh this is OC? To be honest, if you found two separate screenshots I'm not sure there was much you could have done. The ideal would be if the screenshot was something like this one:

Though I had to edit the page to remove a post in between before taking that screenshot.

But I think ultimately I just didn't have the context beforehand to get what it was, and I don't know if that was possible to overcome in a simple post.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

“Update” annotation in between das right 👌 thanks :)

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago

First picture is of two men appearing on a game show -- they're not characters, they're real people. Second picture is those same two men years later. The gameshow was filmed at a time when rampent cultural homophobia prevented these men from presenting themselves as a couple.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

The actor IS the character. The character is the actor. They're just normal people!

It was a game show that took real people and let them play the game. They'd introduce them as Such & Such from Here & There. These two were obviously a gay couple but 90s TV wouldn't acknowledge that. So they just said they were business partners who designed sets instead of saying they were a couple like they would anyone else.

Then it turns out that one of the guys who was a contestant in the show someone replied to the Tweet saying "hey it me" and confirming that they were indeed a gay couple and have been happily married for decades.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Relevant SNL Skit: Supermarket Sweep