Betty White: A Marijuana Memoriam
I’m Trying So Hard To Come Up With A Golden Girls Pun
I’m just drawing a Blanche.
That was comedy gold, I don’t care what you think. A truly golden joke to kick things off.
That’s it, that’s the post. Wrap it up!
In All Seriousness
It wouldn’t feel appropriate to write this post without a lighter tone. I don’t believe that Betty White would want to be remembered in a post without a couple laughs, a joke or two, and a fair bit of hope for the future. I don’t feel that a memorial for such a bright and funny person should be filled with dread, because I think it should reflect the life she tried to live.
Betty White probably isn’t the first name that comes to mind when you think about cannabis. Much like many other people touched by fame, however, she was able to extend her influence beyond the screen she worked behind for decades of her life.
Betty White has never spoken much about her use of cannabis, and even famously revealed that while she filmed the series Hot in Cleveland, that she refused to make jokes about weed for the show. Her association with the substance was more cultural, as she appeared in a number of sitcoms, stoner comedies, and other cannabis-adjacent content after her return to prominence around 2009.
Her inspired rendition of the East Side Boyz’ Get Low was probably a factor in that cultural association.
Comedy and cannabis have always paired well with each other, and Betty’s brand of comedy was suited well to afternoons of getting high and watching Golden Girls in syndication. That was the first time I saw her and knew who she was- I wasn’t old enough for Mary Tyler Moore, and still a little young to see the girls in their initial run. That makes me a newer fan, sure, but that shouldn’t diminish how much I appreciate all that she did in her later career.
Plus, it’s given me a chance to learn about the awesome stuff she did before I ever heard about her.
Long Before the Bett-aissance
Pronounced like Renaissance. Kind of.
Betty White’s career in radio and television started after she left high school, but it took about ten years before she started getting roles outside of background work and smaller speaking parts. She was nominated for an Emmy in the 50’s, which is crazy, and she even had a talk show of her own that ran until the ripe old year of 1954.
She even had a game show phase! How many people get to have a game show phase of their career? It’s pretty much just Betty and Joe Rogan, right? Was Fear Factor really a game show? I digress.
She basically spent the entire next decade on Password, then went back to acting after she was finished with the game. She even married the host of the show, she loved Password so much! Personally, I’m a bigger fan of Jeopardy, but not quite enough of a fan to look twice at Trebek. Am I a fan at all…? I’m having doubts.
I don’t believe that any other game show host or personality has ever tried to be an actor after playing games for years- I certainly can’t think of any. I don’t see Steve Harvey getting many roles once all the feuding families are dealt with, nor do I believe that Regis Philbin saw much work in acting after he was finished crushing people’s dreams of being middle class.
As usual, I’ve gotten a little off-track.
Let’s Course Correct
Though she never spoke directly on the stuff in public, Betty White and cannabis became a little more synonymous when the comedian Joan Rivers famously recounted that they used to smoke together during what she called the “dark ages”. It’s unclear exactly when this might have been, but given Rivers’ long career, it could have been as early as the 60’s or the early 70’s.
I think that Rivers’ story helps to put Betty’s later refusal to joke about ‘dope’, as she referred to it in one of her more famous soundbites, in a different light. I think that, if you didn’t know her, that you might perceive her choice to not involve her character in jokes surrounding cannabis as being uptight or uncomfortable with it.
In reality, I think the revelation that she likely smoked throughout her earlier career allows us to consider that she might have simply not been comfortable with making her relationship to cannabis part of her public persona.
Especially as someone so attached to philanthropic efforts, it was possible that Betty White was trying to avoid a strong association with cannabis out of consideration for her charitable work. It’s hard enough to fundraise for the causes Betty famously supported, and a link to weed would likely make it far more difficult for her to help.
Betty was fairly outspoken about her support for a number of causes, including the welfare of animals housed in American zoos, the fight against racial injustice worldwide, and espousing support for the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals to marry.
The world is always quick to discredit progressive voices, and I think that leaning into an association with a substance such as cannabis would hinder Betty White’s ability to change the world the way she wanted to.
That’s why I believe that Betty White chose not to speak more publicly about her use, and why I feel that she should be remembered for her contributions to the world of cannabis as well as comedy.
Betty White might not have been a cannabis ambassador in the same sense as Snoop Dogg, but it isn’t really fair to base your expectations on what might be the most obvious, extreme example of a person that’s aligned themselves with weed.
Today, I think it’s worth remembering her contributions to the world of cannabis when we recall her contributions to the world at large. She was hilarious, caring, and never afraid of expressing opinions that ran against the dominant ideals of her time.
In 1954, she told producers in the Jim Crow-era South to “Live with it” when they threatened to boycott her show unless a black performer was removed. Betty also gave the man more screen time in the episodes that followed the dispute.
Basically, Betty was always a badass. She was three weeks short of living an entire century, but honestly, I don’t believe that living long was really that important to her. I like to think that, if you asked her, she would probably be pretty satisfied with how it all went down.
In closing, is there marijuana in the brownies? Not in Betty’s kitchen.
Though, she never said she wasn’t smoking up while baking them…
RIP, Betty. I hope you found Allen.