In the mornings before school I watch reruns of Saved by the Bell. I was too old for it when it was actually on TV as I was already in my 20's. So I have only seen it in reruns. A curious element of the show is the shows only black girl Lisa Turtle. She is drop dead gorgeous, her parents are still married and very rich. However she almost never has a boyfriend, and if she does, you don't get to know anything about him and he doesn't ever hang with her and her friends. Only once do you see her in a relationship, and she had to pretend not to be the vapid California brat that she was in order to get the guys interest.
She is constantly stalked by the shows head nerd Skreech. She always says insulting things to him and has even resorted to physical violence toward him in the act of htting him over the head unneccesairily like the period at the end of a sentence. Her character is always very verbally insulting and aggressive toward him, and dismissve of his feelings.
Other than that, she's always the 5th wheel with Kelly, Zach, Jessie and Slater. Screech is part of the group but Lisa and Screech aren't a couple.
On one episode that took place on Valentines day she wore a custom suit. Now you would think that since it's Valentines day and all there would be a nice red heart on the lapel or shoulder, right? Nope, there was a big black SPADE on the white suit. As if the suit was part of a collection of suits and she got the spade by coincindence. Um, she's the BLACK character, why must she wear a SPADE? Why didn't the actress object to that? Maybe it went right over her head. I'd love to talk to her about it someday.
The love relationships between the main characters were always ongoing. Lisa shares a passionate kiss with Zach at her house one night, and starts having feelings for him. But there is no follow up, and it's never ever mentioned again. It made me wonder if there was hate mail.
Anyhoo, the only real revenge for being the odd girl out the whole time the show was on was really when the gang got summer jobs working at a beach club. Lisa's parents belonged to said club, so they had to wait on her all summer. She had her own cabana, that she let the girls crash in with her. But Lisa never had to work. Unlike the black character on the new 90210, the only one who has a job when all the other kids come to the Peach Pit for him to wait on them.
When the kids go off to college, Lisa is accepted to fashion school and is written out of the show never to be called, written or visited or heard from in person ever again. They mention her in passing but she is never physically seen. When I saw her on a reunion special she seemed sort of absent from the whole experience. As if she really wasn't happy to see the cast again, or even be included. It seemed like there could have been bad feelings there. Going forward, I really hope people do a better job of writing in black characters into white shows. I have yet to be impressed but who knows. Maybe I'l have to write the script my damn self.
No comments:
Post a Comment