Steel Magnolias: Movie Still Hits a Diabetes Nerve 30 Years Later
Quick, name the movie... " Drink your juice, Shelby! " and " Don't talk about me like I'm not here! " Those two lines are likely what's burned into the brain of anyone with diabetes who saw... you guessed it! (if you read the post title)... the movie Steel Magnolias . It's the 1989 film in which Julia Roberts plays Shelby, a young woman with type 1 diabetes, who's dealing with family stresses alongside complications in the U.S. South. There's the famous scene in the beauty parlor, where Shelby has a low blood sugar while getting her hair prettied up before her wedding. Beads of sweat appear on her lip and brow, and she's trembling and being held down as she fights off the cup of orange juice that her mom — played by Sally Field — is trying to force down her throat. And then there's everything else that happens in this movie that's influenced a generation of women — and some of us guys — on the topic of diabetes in a not-so-positiv