Terminator Tirades

Known to stand by her convictions, Julia Sugarbaker is famous for being able to put her thoughts into words and speeches so articulate and long-winded that the person at whom they are directed has little or no time to even think of a response. Though she is the first to defend the little guy and is passionate in her belief in equal rights and common sense, she can be quick to judge and is occasionally wrong-headed. But friends and adversaries alike still know better than to anger......the Terminator!

Reservations for Eight

During the great debate between men and women.
JULIA: ...........in general it has been the men who have done the raping and the robbing and the killing and the war-mongering for the last two thousand years.... and it's been the men who have done the pillaging and the beheading and the subjecating of whole races into slavery. It has been the men who have done the law making and the money making and the most of the mischief making! So if the world isn't quite what you had in mind you have only yourselves to thank!!
REESE: Oh yeah? That's what you think about men? Well let me tell you something about women............... They're always late.

The Beauty Contest

JULIA: Excuse me, aren't you Marjorie Leigh Winnick, the current Miss Georgia World?
MARJORIE: Why, yes I am.
JULIA: I'm Julia Sugarbaker, Suzanne Sugarbaker's sister. I couldn't help over hearing part of your conversation.
MARJORIE: Well, I'm sorry. I didn't know anyone was here.
JULIA: Yes, and I gather from your comments there are a couple of other things you don't know, Marjorie. For example, you probably didn't know that Suzanne was the only contestant in Georgia pageant history to sweep every category except congeniality, and that is not something the women in my family aspire to anyway. Or that when she walked down the runway in her swimsuit, five contestants quit on the spot. Or that when she emerged from the isolation booth to answer the question, "What would you do to prevent war?" she spoke so eloquently of patriotism, battlefields and diamond tiaras, grown men wept. And you probably didn't know, Marjorie, that Suzanne was not just any Miss Georgia, she was the Miss Georgia. She didn't twirl just a baton, that baton was on fire. And when she threw that baton into the air, it flew higher, further, faster than any baton has ever flown before, hitting a transformer and showering the darkened arena with sparks! And when it finally did come down, Marjorie, my sister caught that baton, and 12,000 people jumped to their feet for sixteen and one-half minutes of uninterrupted thunderous ovation, as flames illuminated her tear-stained face! And that, Marjorie --- just so you will know --- and your children will someday know --- is the night the lights went out in Georgia!

Full Moon

A series of events gets the ladies taken to the police station.
JULIA: Suzanne, I still cannot believe that you were dumb enough to hang out the second story of your house and fire a semi-automatic rifle into the dark Georgia night. We could all have been killed.

JULIA: If I ever get out of this mess, I am going straight to Washington and I am going to take on the gun lobbies and all those wimpy slack-jawed politicians who are terrified of 'em, and we are going to get a sane law passed in this country that makes these kind of semi-automatic rifles illegal. Because you and I and every deer hunter in America know in our hearts that these weapons are not used for hunting anything but people.

Julia Drives Over the First Amendment

Julia gets a visit in jail from the female publisher of a nudie magazine.
TERRY: Mrs. Sugarbaker, I'm Terry Wilder.
JULIA: Yes, they told me you wanted to speak with me.
TERRY: I've decided to drop the lawsuit.
JULIA: Yes, they told me that, too.
TERRY: I had you checked out. You're a very tough lady. And I like that.
JULIA: So you're graciously going to set me free?
TERRY: Just so you know Mrs. Sugarbaker, this is still America, and free speech will always be protected.
JULIA: I know it will. But pornography won't always be, Miss Wilder. This country will let the Nazis speak, and the Ku Klux Klansmen speak because as dispicable as their statements are, they are speaking their mind. But when you publish your magazine, you're not speaking your mind. You'd shut that magazine down tomorrow if it weren't turning a profit. You know it and I know it. Pornography is not free speech, it's commerce. Otherwise you couldn't zone it out of certain nice areas of the city.
TERRY: Well, I see I am getting nowhere. We're both business women. Let's just leave it at that. I won't bother you, and you won't bother me.
JULIA: No, that's not quite right, Miss Wilder. You bother me very much. I know I can be sanctimonious and self-righteous, but nevertheless I've just gotta say it. Shame on you for calling yourself a feminist. And shame on you for hurting and demeaning women everywhere -- all for a lousy nickel. I may not be able to stop you today, but someday...we're going zone you right out of the city. And then we're gonna zone you right out of the county and then we're going to zone you right out of the country. And in fact, Miss Wilder, if I had my way, we might just zone you right off the globe.

The Women of Atlanta

A sleazy photographer goes one step too far when he asks Julia to pose for a photo shoot while sucking pearls.
JULIA: I'm saying I want you and your equipment out of here now. If you are looking for somebody to suck pearls, then I suggest you try finding yourself and oyster. Because I am not a woman who does that, as a matter of fact, I don't know any woman who does that, because it's stupid. And it doesn't have any more to do with decorating than having cleavage and looking sexy has to do with working in a bank. These are not pictures about the women of Atlanta. These are about just the same thing they're always about. And it doesn't matter whether the clothes are on or off.........it's just the same ol' message. And I don't care how many pictures you've taken of movie stars --- when you start snapping photos of serious, successful businessmen like Donald Trump and Lee Iacocca in unzipped jumpsuits with wet lips, straddling chairs, then we'll talk.

Getting Married and Eating Dirt

After reading a New York Times article that says that Southerners eat dirt for the vitamins, Julia calls and leaves a message for the editor.
JULIA: Yes, you can give him a message. You do take shorthand, don't you? Good, we take it in the South too. Anyway, just tell him that I have been a Southerner all my life, and I can vouche for the fact the we do eat a lot of things down here........ and we've certainly all had our share of grits and biscuits and gravy, and I myself have probably eaten enough fried chicken to feed a third world country ---- not to mention barbecue, cornbread, watermelon, fried pies, okra, and ...........yes.........if I were being perfectly candid, I would have to admit we have also eaten our share of crow, and for all I know --- during the darkest, leanest years of the Civil War, some of us may have had a Yankee or two for breakfast. But........... speaking for myself and hundreds of thousands of my Southern ancestors who have evolved through many decades of poverty, strife, and turmoil, I would like for Mr. Weaks to know that we have surely eaten many things in the past, and we will surely eat many things in the future, but --- God as my witness - -- we have never, I repeat, NEVER EATEN DIRT!!!

Killing All the Right People

An old "friend"/client of Julia's overhears their plans to decorate an AIDS funeral room.
IMOGENE SALINGER: Now I don't like to hurt anyone's feelings, but if these boys hadn't been doing what they were doing, they wouldn't be getting what's coming to them now.
MARY JO: Imogene, gays aren't the only ones getting it.
IMOGENE: No, but they're the ones who started it.
KENDALL DOBBS: Actually nobody knows how it got started. Gays are just one of the first groups it showed up in.
IMOGENE: Yes, and for a good reason.......you reap what you sow. You boys brought this on yourselves. As far as I'm concerned this disease has one thing going for it.......it's killing all the right people!
JULIA: Imogene, I'm terribly sorry. I'm gonna have to ask you to move your car.
IMOGENE: Why?
JULIA: (pulling her towards the door) Because you're leaving. The only thing worse than all these people who never had any morals before AIDS are all you holier-than-thou types who think you're exempt from getting it.
IMOGENE: Well, for your information, I am exempt. I haven't lived like these people, and I don't care what you say, Julia Sugarbaker, I believe this is God's punishment for what they've done.
SUZANNE: Oh yeah? Then how come lesbians get it less?
IMOGENE: That is not for me to say.......I just know that these people are getting what they deserve!
JULIA: Imogene, get serious! Who do you think you're talking to? I've known you for 27 years, and all I can say is.......if God was giving out sexually transmitted diseases to people as a punishment for sinning, that you would be at the free clinic all the time! ........and so would the rest of us!!
BERNICE: I think she makes a good point.
IMOGENE: Oh, who cares what you think?! (she points at her head) You're not even all there!
BERNICE: (shocked) Well, as long as we're on the subject, (pointing at her chest) neither are you!
IMOGENE: (totally furious) Well, you needn't look forward to any more of my business in this lifetime!
JULIA: Wonderful! I'll close up your account! And another thing, my son has an A in chemistry! In fact, he's making all A's! In everything -- including P.E!!

Pilot

A middle-aged swinger approaches the ladies in a sushi bar:
MAN: Allow me to introduce myself -- Ray Don Simpson.
JULIA: There's no need for introductions, Ray Don, we know who you are.
RAY DON: (smiling) You do?
JULIA: Of course. You're the guy who is always wherever women gather or try to be alone. You want to eat with us when we're dining in hotels, you want to know if the book we're reading is any good, or if you can keep up company on the plane. And I want to thank you, Ray Don, on behalf of all the women in the world, for your unfailing attention and concern. But read my lips and remember, as hard as it is to believe, sometimes we like talking just to each other, and sometimes we like just being alone.

Miss Trial

After Charlene turns juror Julia in for hearing about her case outside of court.
JULIA: (on phone) Hello, Charlene. I just wanted to thank you again for turning me into the judge. Now, the whole jury is sequestered till Lord only knows when, and I am here in Motel Hell, sharing a room with a women with no lips.
CHARLENE: Julia, I had to do it. We violated that law. By the way, I don't think your supposed to be making telephone calls. I'd hate to have to report this, too.
JULIA: If you are so all fire, heaped up about turning people in, I believe you'll find some overdue library books in my upstairs den. Why don't you just report that too, and maybe you'll get your merit badge, you big 'ole donkey girl scout!
CHARLENE: Now, Julia, you sound overwrought.
JULIA: Yeah, well, you're gonna think overwrought. If I miss my dinner with Jimmy and Rosalind Carter because of this, you're going to pay and pay big. I'm going to find you and hunt you down like a dog! I'm talking about you running through the woods in the snow with blood hounds ripping your clothes off! And remember, Charlene, I have your address. You'd be wise to ask yourself "Do I know where my baby is?"!
CHARLENE: Julia? Julia!? (hangs up) Oh my gosh, she threatened Olivia.
MARY JO: What'd she say?
CHARLENE: She said she was going to hunt me down like a dog and hire blood hounds to rip my clothes off! Now, I thought the judge was just going to give her a warning. I didn't know she was going to be shut up in a motel room. Now, Suzanne, you know Julia. I mean, when this is all over she'll realize I had to do it and forgive me, don't you think?
SUZANNE: I think you and your baby should get some black wigs on and get the hell out of town.
MARY JO: Maybe Bill can put in for a transfer. I here there's a big base up in Greenland. On second thought, Julia'd probably just strap some snow shoes to her pumps and track you down like caribou.
CHARLENE: I didn't know Julia had this in her.
MARY JO: Well, we all have things about ourselves that even we don't know.

Julia is trying to push the votes through.
JULIA: Alright, that's 7 to 4; who didn't vote? (woman raises hand) Well, Janice, what is the problem? Did you intend to mime your vote?
JANICE: I'm just not comfortable making a decision yet.
JULIA: I see. And yet you are perfectly comfortable smearing your face with white grease paint and annoying pedestrians all over Atlanta. Interesting. No really, Janice, I think it's time you came to a decision. As a matter of fact, I think it's time you all came to a decision. We've been here almost three days, and apparently you people have nothing better to do then to sit around here hogging up the tax payers' money, eating baskets of friend cheese, and staying at the Fair Price Motel. Which, I understand some of you think is the nicest place you've stayed in a while. (the "no-lip woman" fumes) Well, let me tell you something, it is not the nicest place I've been in a while. And for your further information, I'm having dinner with a former president and first lady of the United States tonight, because we are all going to be out of here. And the reason we're all going to be out of here, is that this case is very simple. Did any of you listen to the judge's instructions? He practically told us to acquit. The case is frivolous! The defendant was not negligent. Case closed! Q.E.D.! Over and out! Hit the road Jack and don't you come back no more, no more! Go up to the table and mark your ballets, and if you don't mark them right, I'm going rip that fire extinguisher off the wall and blow your over-fed, under-read, simple- minded butts out onto the Fair Price Motel parking lot!
NO-LIP WOMAN: I don't think jury members are supposed to threaten each other. I don't appreciate that.
JULIA: Oh, really? Well, I don't appreciate you leaving you big 'ole box of June Allison bladder pads on my night stand for all the maids and bellboys to see! Of course, you don't care if you never get out of here; you don't even have to get up to go to the bathroom! Now, I am passing these slips for the final ballet, and I want to tell you right now, read my lips: Mark your slip wrong, and I will wrap it around a fried cheese ball and shove it down your throat!

The Candidate

Julia is in a televised debate with Commissioner Bricket, and already getting impatient.
CALLER: .........and I just don't think I could vote for someone like Mrs. Sugarbaker who is so obviously against school prayer.
JULIA: Let me say once again, that I am not against prayer.
BRICKETT: These people are never against prayer, per say. They're what I call 14% Christian. They go to church one day and week and spend the next six trying to keep morals and decent values out of our schools and government ---- the very two institutions who should be instilling these things into our young people to begin with. Well, I say there's a reason we call it "One nation under God, indivisible" ...........maybe Mrs. Sugarbaker has just forgotten what that phrase was all about.
JULIA: (irritated) No, Mr. Brickett. I have not forgotten. I was just thinking that you seem to have forgotten the phrase "Separation of church and state", but the one thing I did forget was just how divisive, dishonest, and distasteful someone like you can be. I've sat here today and listened to you pander to these people, but you don't actually care about them, or you wouldn't be sitting here reinforcing their ignorance and prejudices.
BRICKETT: You heard that, Caller. She just called you ignorant and prejudice!
JULIA: (angrily) I do not think everyone in America is ignorant! Far from it!! But we are today, probably, the most uneducated, under read, and illiterate nation in the western hemisphere. Which makes it all the more puzzling to me why the biggest question on your small mind is whether or not little Johnny is gonna recite the Pledge of Allegiance every morning! I'll tell you something else, Mr. Brickett. I have had it up to here with you and your phony issues and your Yanky Doodle yakking! If you like reciting the Pledge of Allegiance everyday then I think you should do it! In the car! In the shower! Wherever the mood strikes you! But don't try to tell me when or where I have to say or do or salute anything, because I am an American too, and that is what being an American is all about! And another thing.........I am sick and tired of being made to feel that if I am not a member of a little family with 2.4 children who goes just to Jerry Fallwell's church and puts their hands over their hearts every morning that I am unreligious, unpatriotic, and un-American!! Because I've got news for you, Mr. Brickett...........all liberals are not kooks, anymore than all conservatives are fascists!! and the last time I checked, God was neither a Democratic nor a Republican! And just for your information, yes I am a liberal, but I am also a Christian. And I get down on my knees and pray everyday ---- on my own turf --- on my own time. One of the things that I pray for, Mr. Brickett, is that people with power will get good sense, and that people with good sense will get power.........and that the rest of us will be blessed with the patience and the strength to survive the people like you in the meantime!!

Old Spouses Never Die

Julia goes to see Charlene's doctor.
JULIA: Dr. Mitchell, I'm Julia Sugarbaker. May I come in?
DR. MITCHELL: Yes, but I hope this won't take long. I'm on the staff of three hospitals, and I still have rounds.
JULIA: Oh, I understand how very busy you are, and I'll be brief. I've come because I'm a very close friend of Charlene Frazier's.
DR. MITCHELL: Charlene Frazier is no longer my patient, so I can't see....
JULIA: Actually I'm not here only for Charlene, but on behalf of all your patients.
DR. MITCHELL: I don't understand.
JULIA: What I'd like to know is, how many more women do you plan to kill before you retire.
DR. MITCHELL: I beg your pardon?!
JULIA: You see, I've done a little checking on you, Dr. Mitchell, and I've discovered that Charlene is not the first woman you've told to wait. You said the same thing to another close friend of mine, only at that time I didn't know that you were her physician. Well she trusted you. She waited four months before her breasts had become so misshapen she had to come back, but by then it was too late.
DR. MITCHELL: Mrs. Sugarbaker, I don't think I'd like to discuss with you medical judgments which you know nothing about.
JULIA: Medical jargon doesn't impress me. I was brought up in a medical family, and my grandfather always said 80% was common sense. There's nothing mysterious about having a lump in your breast. It's simple, when you find one you have it x-rayed or biopsied. I know that. Most physicians know that. What I don't understand is, why don't you know that?
DR. MITCHELL: Well, it's obvious to me that you are an emotional and overwrought woman.
JULIA: Not emotional, Doctor, I'm just plain mad. Which is why I'm filing charges against you with the state medical board and the AMA.
DR. MITCHELL: Well, if you'd like to make a fool of yourself, be my guest, but I can assure you you're in no way qualified to make these judgments. I think this meeting is over.
JULIA: I think so too, but as for qualified, neither are you. You don't depend on medicine. Your weapon is intimidation. You're a seemingly kind, benevolent authority figure who tells women to let you do their worrying for them. Well there's just one thing wrong with that, Dr. Mitchell; you don't have to do the dying.

A Blast From the Past

Julia house is placed on a Tour of Homes and she is enforced to open her home to inconsiderate tourists.
TOURIST: Y'know, the other houses were much nicer than this one. This is boring.
KAREN, THE TOUR GUIDE: Well, this isn't one of our better ones. In fact, the only reason it's on the tour is because this was the home of Lucifer T. Stonewall Sugarbaker. He was a very famous horse thief and Yankee spy. Who's seen Gone With the Wind? Do you remember Belle Watley's house? Well this was the original that it was based on.
TOURIST: This used to be a whore house?
JULIA: Alright!! That's it. This is not a whore house, this is my house. And I've had all I'm gonna take of you. You don't care about history, you just want to sell it. You don't even sell it honestly. You just want to sell the myth.........the myth of the Old South. You all know that myth, don't ya? Happy darkies singing in the field while Miss Scarlet primps around throwing hissy fits. Well that's an insult. It isn't the South. It's an insult to all the people who lived and died here not so very long ago. We Southerners have had to endure many things. But one thing we Southerners don't have to endure is a bunch of bored housewives turning historical homes into theme parks, not to mention ill-mannered tourists with their Big Gulps, Mysties, Slurpees, and Frosties, their dirty feet overflowing rubber thongs, and babies who sneeze fudgecicle juice! Out!! Out of my house!! As God is my witness..........I will burn it down myself before I let you in again!!
(The tourists applaud........)
TOURIST: Wow! Just like the movie!
TOURIST: This is the best house on the tour!
KAREN: (nervously trying to hurry them out) Well.........we aim to please. And wasn't that a wonderful piece of theater.
MARY JO: Well................
JULIA: Well.........
MARY JO: Julia, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I don't think you're gonna be invited to be on the tour of homes next year.
JULIA: Frankly my dear...............I don't give a damn.

Reese's Friend