Although I thought the humor in Radio Days (1987) was superior to that of Welcome Back Kotter, I found some striking similarities between Kotter (Gabe Kaplan) and a few of the characters in Radio Days. However, I felt like the whiteness in the t.v show and the film was a little different. By that, I mean there was a different whiteness to live up to in each.
There is a similar situation that Kotter and Joe’s family are both put in that I’d like to point out. Joe’s family attempts to stay true to their Jewish traditions, and the scene that’s relevant to my point is the one where they are resting on the holy day, but the neighbors are playing music. When the uncle goes next door to “tell them off”, he comes back and is considering the newly proposed, white lifestyle that these neighbors suggested. He is easily influenced here, and that’s the quality that’s transferred over to Kotter in “Basket Case.”
Kotter is in a little bit of a different situation here. When the basketball player needs to pass in order to play, Kotter is pressured by an overwhelming majority, including adults, to pass him regardless of his class performance. However, what surprises me here with Kotter’s character is that I didn’t see him as one to give in to pressure. I thought for sure that he would stand up for what he thought was morally right. This is where I became confused when analyzing the whiteness in both, because I don’t understand how the whiteness he’s surrounded by here is supposed to come off as. In a way, it’s a whiteness that wants to strip him of his morals?
In a way, I kind of wanted to combine all three questions, because it seems like this whiteness comes out through the humor that pressures him in this urban environment to change his identity! But that would take up more than a blog post, so I’ll end on this statement: whiteness seems to appear in the films and shows that we watch almost as an epidemic. As of now, it doesn’t seem that Kotter is immune to it!
