Reflections on Saved by the Bell
OK, so I’m probably talking to a pretty narrow audience here, but I’d like to talk about Saved by the Bell.
I was born in 1980. I grew up with ABC TGIF, and I religiously followed the exploits of Cory Matthews, Steve Urkel, Blossom, Cody Lambert, Balki Bartokomous, Fresh Prince (though, if I remember right, he was on NBC), Mike Seaver, and Michelle Tanner. In the afternoons, it was always Ducktales and Rescue Rangers—but in the evening, the cartoons were over and it was time for the “real life” stuff. There’s no arguing that, despite being entertainment, these characters impressed some life lessons upon me. Cory was the archetypal every-kid, literally trying to find his place when Boy Meets World. Mike Seaver was that cool older brother I never had. Urkel was that incredible dork who showed us all why you should love being who you are, damn what anyone says. Balki… well, you just kind of wanted to slap him, but… Hmm. Now that I think about it, what the hell was the point of Balki in the first place?
Nevermind, it’s not important.
Point is, as an adolescent coming of age, Saved by the Bell was the show that we all emulated. And for boys, we all wanted to be either Zack or AC. Zack was the popular, chic ne’er-do-well; AC was the popular jock badass-with-a-heart-of-gold. Screech, of course, was the object of ridicule—and it’s how we all learned to ridicule the nerds and geeks in high school (while accepting their existence and allowing them into the fold).
I wasn’t buff enough to be AC, so… although most people my age (especially on this site) are probably remiss to admit it, we all wanted to be Zack Morris. He was cooler than cool. He was the definition of cool. He dominated every situation, he got both Kelly Kapowski and Tori Scott (and Stacey Carosi), and he was the king of inventive ways to get out of detention. And he had great hair. And the first cell phone. Zack Morris was my hero in those turbulent pre-teen years.
But why am I writing about this? Who gives a damn about a show from 20 years ago?
Well, it’s an interesting contrast these days. For anybody that has seen the show, ask yourself: which character did you hate the most?
Some people probably want to say Screech. He was a nerd that, despite four years of high school (and even in “The College Years”) never actually managed to go through puberty and was constantly prone to crying. Some want to say Mr. Belding. He was the authoritarian figure (who didn’t actually seem to have any real authority) but he made an active effort to lampoon himself in every episode—which got old because it was always the same exact joke. But if you think either of these, you’re wrong. The single most hated character on Saved By The Bell was Jessie Spano.
Here’s why:
Jessie was a self-righteous, whiny, politically correct, environmentalist, vegetarian, feminist bitch—who routinely picked fights for NO reason, developed a drug habit (to caffeine pills), and was insanely jealous when she was not made valedictorian and scored lower than Zack on the SATs.
Naturally, she was unilaterally rated the most unpopular character on the show. Against Screech, who went out of his way—in every single episode—to annoy us.
Even the actual nerds in high school hated Screech. Because he was too unrealistic. He was over the top. People hated him, sure—but we hated Jessie even more. Because Jessie was a reflection of reality. 20 years ago, we all hated the Jessie Spanos of this world. Why? Same reason we liked Six more than we liked Blossom. Yeah, we were supposed to identify more with Blossom—but, secretly, we all wanted to be more like Six. Dana Foster grated on our last nerve, but JT Lambert was our pal.
Why? Because nobody likes a whiny self-righteous bitch who spends all her time ramming PC dogma down everyone’s throat. How often did she pick a fight with Slater, for no reason but that she had a bug up her ass about something (that didn’t even have anything to do with him!)? AC Slater was written to have the patience of Job. I can’t tell you how many times he should have shoved Jessie’s face into a locker (especially that episode where she chains herself to the school doors… for some protest… against something… while he and every other sane character, except the hippie trying to get into her pants [eww], goes to the beach to have fun). It’s easy to spot the flaws in Kelly and Lisa. Kelly was vapid. Lisa was incredibly shallow. But we didn’t hate them. Not like we hated Jessie. Screech was annoyingly endearing. But you just wanted to punch Jessie in the face every time she played a primary plot role.
Not that there wasn’t an episode written for the other characters to “play Jessie” once in a while. To the top of my head come “Zack, the duck, and the evil evil oil,” “AC doesn’t want to join the military,” “It ain’t easy bein’ Screech,” “Kelly’s so popular it hurts,” and “Oh my god an episode about Lisa?” But these were very specialized episodes. They were written for a specific purpose. In the regular episodes, they played their roles—including Jessie. The problem is, Jessie’s natural role was to be a whiny pain in the ass. Even Screech ditched on Cut Day. But did Jessie? No. For Jessie, Cut Day was yet another excuse to bitch about something and complain that her friends and her boyfriend were total assholes for not caring about… whatever she was going on about in that particular episode. My god, this episode had Zack feeding Mr. Belding dead insects to get out of class. How does that comedy gold come second to “What’s Jessie whining about now?”
Jessie, despite her inclusion in the clique, was everything that is wrong in the world. She was the bitch who bitched about everything for sake of bitching. As if it gave her purpose and meaning. And it truly bothers me that we have far too much Jessie in the world, and not enough Zack. Is that really what we want? Did all the people of my generation watch Saved By The Bell and decide, “Hey, Jessie’s the one we should be like when I grow up!”—despite the fact that we universally hated her when we were kids?
Hey, I’m only twelve years out of high school (and almost 20 years out of Saved By The Bell), so what do I know? But I’ll be honest, I miss the Zack Morrises of the world a whole lot more than I do the Jessie Spanos. I’d rather have a creative solution that’s basically an exercise in complete irresponsibility than be a stuck-up, uptight, tight-assed bitch that whines about everything just to whine about it and feel self-important.
Imagine Saved By the Bell for a moment, but recast it to have Zack, and 100,000 Jessies. And then look at the world in which we live. It’s awful, isn’t it? God I hate all you Jessie Spanos of the world.
