It’s sadly not common enough knowledge that Fran Drescher (yes, that Fran Drescher) has become a left wing firebrand. For example, you may have missed this iconic tweet from last year:

@LorennaDrescher The heart of the problem, all problems w the world at its core is power & greed fueled by Capitalism. Time for a new deal!

— Fran Drescher (@frandrescher) March 16, 2016

Now, Drescher has spoken with Vulture about her political awakening, and being an all-around queer icon. Listen, actors play characters unlike them all the time (and Lord knows Drescher has been through experiences much darker than she tended to depict on TV). But Drescher is particularly hard to divorce from Fran on The Nanny, and her performing persona has always been a somewhat ditzy Jewish woman focused on a good sale and pining for love. It’s sort of amazing to reconcile it with the woman who describes herself as politically “radicalized.”

Here are just a few amazing quotes from the interview, which you really should read in full:

On surviving cancer, organizing a non-profit, and wanting to examine the chemical substances in our day-to-day lives:

“I see everything in micro- and macrocosms, and our microbiome is way down deep inside our gut, but then the world is a big living organism, too… Most of our elected officials are middle-management caught between the big business ruling-class elite and their constituents.”

On capitalism:

“I was already saying in my speeches that capitalism has run amok. It’s becoming a cannibal, and like any systemic malignancy, it forgets to die. It forgets to stop before it kills its host, thereby destroying itself. That’s what I see happening on the planet with the big-business ruling-class elite.”

“Another thing we always say is let’s start looking at indigenous cultures to help us relearn what the Industrial Revolution has tried desperately to dumb us down into forgetting. Remembering that within us lies all the answers, within us is what’s closest to our creator.”

On digital political advocacy:

“And to be at an age, to experience kind of the ’60s but with internet is an unbelievably exciting journey. I think that’s what’s beginning to happen. Once you wake up and smell the coffee, it’s hard to go back to sleep.”

Drescher also insinuates that she’s not ruling out running for office someday.

So, yeah the whole thing is a bit surreal, but amazing. Radical political activism is as a part of American Jewish history as pioneering in the entertainment industry and serving looks. Truly Ms. Drescher is the best of both worlds.

Image via Wikimedia

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There are certain TV theme songs that anyone in their 20s would recognize (and possibly start singing) from the first line: “This is a story all about how/my life got twist-turned upside down” or “Whatever happened to predictability/the milkman, paperboy, evening TV” or “When I wake up in the morning/and the alarm gives out a warning.”*

For me, the top lyrics on that list would be: “She was working in a bridal shop in Flushing, Queens/When her boyfriend kicked her out in one of those crushing scenes.”

Thus begins the story and adorable cartoon that kick off each episode of the ‘90s TV classic The Nanny.

Basically, Fran Fine (Fran Drescher) is a nice Jewish girl in her late-20s from Queens, who’s dying to get married, has big hair, a larger-than-life accent, brightly-colored suits with animal prints and giant shoulder pads, and the loudest, and let’s just say most distinctive laugh you’ve ever heard. Somehow, she accidentally gets hired as a nanny by handsome, posh British Broadway producer Maxwell Sheffield (Charles Shaughnessy).

Her qualifications, according to the theme song? “She had style, she had flair, she was there!” Not exactly a glowing recommendation, but it’s pretty true. Before taking care of the three Sheffield kids—Margaret (Nicholle Tom), Brighton (Benjamin Salisbury), and Grace (Madeline Zima)—she went to cosmetology school, was a foot model, worked in a bridal shop, and sold makeup door-to-door. In other words, Fran had no experience with kids. Yet, somehow, she managed to keep the kids alive for six seasons, and dispense stereotypically Jewish advice like “never pay retail”—Fran is obsessed with discount department store Loehmann’s—and “date doctors.”

Episodes of The Nanny often seem like one big Yiddish joke, especially when Fran’s relatives show up. Fran’s mother, Sylvia (Renee Taylor), is a binge-eater—especially when the food is free—while her grandmother, Yetta (Ann Morgan Guilbert), is senile, loves bingo, and generally has no idea what’s going on. Sylvia and Fran are always arguing, while Yetta is just comic relief. This conversation from a Season 3 episode in which the family goes to therapy sums up their relationship:

Therapist: So ladies, what brings you to therapy?

Fran: I came because my mother has an obsession with me getting married.

Sylvia: I came because my daughter has a delusion that I have an obsession.

Yetta: I came because they brought me and I don’t know how to get home.

The best thing about Fran, and probably the reason she became such a popular character, is that she’s so proud of who she is. The Nanny is a classic fish-out-of-water story. Fran couldn’t be more different from Mr. Sheffield, with his Upper East Side mansion, butler, and kids in private school. She definitely admired their lifestyle, and yet, there was no way she’d ever change. Fran never succumbed to a makeover, even if Fran’s hair got straighter as the years went on, and while her voice became “normal” for a few seconds after eating wasabi, she never expressed hang-ups about it.

While the kids love Fran the way she is almost immediately, and butler Niles is always mildly amused by her and soon becomes her good friend and partner-in-mischief, it takes Mr. Sheffield more time to warm up to her demeanor. Of course, they wouldn’t have hired someone as handsome as Charles Shaughnessy to play the boss if Fran wasn’t going to hook up with him, and finally, at the end of Season 3, Mr. Sheffield tells Miss Fine he loves her. Drama ensues, and they don’t become an official couple for another season, but eventually they start calling each other “Maxwell” and “Fran,” get married, and in the series finale, they have twins.

Not bad for a shop-girl from Queens—oh, and her mother was happy, too.

*Do I really need to tell you? The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Full House, and Saved By The Bell.

Previously on Network Jews:

Noah Puckerman, the coolest Jew in school on Glee

Andy Botwin, the promiscuous playboy on Showtime’s Pot Comedy Weeds

Saul Berneson, the CIA Middle East division chief on Homeland

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• Game of Thrones star Jack Gleeson, who plays Joffrey Baratheon on the hit HBO show, wants to get a Masters in Ancient Hebrew.

• This haunting video, the only existing footage of Anne Frank, has been viewed more than three million times on YouTube.

• The Internet loves Alison Brie. Here are the best GIFs her Community character, Annie, has inspired.

• In her new show, Happily Divorced, Fran Drescher pays a visit to her former on-screen mother, Renee Taylor.

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