welcome back, kotter

The classroom consists of three prominent ethnic groups: Puerto Rican, African American, and Italian American. The fact that the forgotten, remedial, underachieving students consist of these races may be seen as racist or stereotypical. But in Bakhtin, Polyphony, and Ethnic/Racial Representation, Robert Stam says, “spectators themselves come equipped with a ‘sense of the real’ rooted in their own social experience, on the basis of which they can accept, question, or even subvert a film’s representations.” The placing of these particular figures in the remedial classroom was a conscious choice, and I believe it was an attempt to show “realism” in this show. The humor based on someone else’s ethnicity is shown many times in Welcome Back, Kotter. For example, Epstein, the Puerto Rican Jew, is known as the “toughest kid in school.” The school had voted him “most likely to take a life,” which the class seemed to think was humorous. There is also Arnold Horshack, who doesn’t speak unless allowed to by Vinny. He makes other people laugh by putting himself down, and takes orders from Vinny to do tricks. The fact that the only white guy in the class is the sweathog leader and seemingly a “master” over Horshack might be a bit unsettling but the class seems not to have a big problem with it. Again, as Stam says, spectators can judge for themselves if the film is being racist or not, and “the cultural preparation of a particular audience (…) can generate counterpressure to a racist or prejudicial discourse,” perhaps allowing them to enjoy the film nevertheless.