Welcome Back, Kotter is a seventies’ television sitcom with a hackneyed concept. A man, Kotter, reluctantly becomes a teacher at his old high school. He becomes a mentor to a group of misfit kids and along with teaching them he attempts to instill some of the values he almost missed out on.
“The gangs here don’t use guns, they insert the bullets manually.” Underneath the colorful upbeat tone of the series there is a slight gloom. Kotter is forced to teach a group of degenerate remedial social studies and though he is constantly cracking jokes and making light of his situation, it is evident that he would rather not be back in Brooklyn teaching at his Alma matter. Brooklyn is not actually the beautiful, homey community the theme song “Welcome Back” makes it out to be. As the credits roll we see overcrowded city streets and trains covered in graffiti.
Kotter has not come back to his old high school by choice. After graduating with a teaching with a teaching degree he couldn’t find a place to work. Kotter needed a job so he could support both his wife and himself. And their lifestyle is by no means luxurious. Kotter and his wife live in a tiny one-room apartment. They sleep on their pullout couch and have dinner in their kitchen/living space. They probably don’t live in the worst neighborhood, but the area Kotter works is probably much worse than where he sleeps.
The manners of an individual are a reflection of the environment of which they’ve grown up. In the first episode, “Welcome Back” we see that Kotter’s students are practical jokesters who lack ambition or respect for authority. The neighborhood of is full of much the same if not worse. The moral compasses of those out of school are not as malleable as the students Kotter teaches. Welcome Back, Kotter points out the faults and problems of those in their the society through comedy. And then presents methods of tackling these problems through Mr. Kotter’s interaction with his students.
In reality, the problems of troubled, poverty stricken teens are not so easy to fix. See, the bright overhead lights of the studio aren’t really shining down in the classrooms of the Brooklyn based institution the school is based on. Honestly, Kotter’s hip and happenin’ act is not as appealing as Welcome Back makes it out to be, and neither is the backdrop.
