The "Saved by the Bell" Reboot: Racial DIversity, Queer Diversity, and Structural Oppression

 

Saved by the Bell (1989-93), about wealthy slacker students at Bayside High, was a big hit among kids and teens. Not so much in West Hollywood.  Granted, teen operator Zack (Mark-Paul Goesselaer) and surly jock Slater (Mario Lopez) were attractive, but the show aired at 11:00 am on Saturday morning, when we were usually busy with housework or having brunch with last night's date.  Besides, there were problems:

1. Zack and Slater were obsessed with girls! girls! girls!

2. No racial diversity.  Lisa was black (mentioned in one episode), and Slater was Hispanic (never mentioned at all).

3. Everyone was annoyingly affluent, even the "poor" Slater.

4. Stupid plot complications, especially those involving goofball Screech.

Fast-forward 27 years.  The culture has changed: gay characters are no longer forbidden on teen or children's tv.  So when a Saved by the Bell reboot appeared, I decided to check it out for beefcake, buddy-bonding, and modenization.

Scene 1: A campaign ad from  the still extremely hunky Zack Morris from the old show now the smug, entittled, corrupt Govenor of California.  He goes surfing, goggles girls in bikinis, .discusses his "smokn' hot wife."  He brags that he cut  $10 billion from education, gave btax cuts to the wealthy, and bailed out the fossil fuel industry.  Geez, what a smug, entitled, corrupt jerk!

Cut to a black or Hispanic mother and daughter watching his campaign ad and complaining that he's a smug, entitled, corrupt jerk. What a relief! I thought we were supposed to like Governor Zack.  This episode was filmed during the Trump era, when corrupt officials got White House approval.

Scene 2: Zack's hunky but smug and arrogant son, Mac Morris (Mitchell Hoog, left), is now a student at the elte, well moneyed, and overwhelmingly white Bayside High (what, you thought that segregation ended with Brown v. Board of Education?).  He flirts with girls, talks to the goofball Jamie (Belmont Cameli, below), and solves a cheerleader's ridiculous problem. Ok, we have a Zack and a Screech.  Where's the Slater?  

Scene 3: Establishing shot of Dougla High: poor, mostly black and Hispanic, and falling apart.    School assembly: Daisy (Haskiri Velazquez), the girl from Scene 1, is running for class president, vowing to make some changes.  Suddenly the school is shut down.  

Scene 3: Press comference.  Governor Zack fields questions about his "disastrous education cuts."  Where are the students in the schools that have closed supposed to go?  He gets roped into sending them to well-funded districts.  The Douglas High students will be bussed to Bayside High!

Scene 4: Parents of Douglas High students complaining: an hour long bus ride every day?  "Yes, but the buses will be equipped with a modest selection of discarded magazines."   And will the Baysiders welcome them?  

Meanwhile, Bayside High parents are complaining about the Douglas High kids: they're bl...hoodlums! Our kids won't be safe!

Incidentally, the school counselor is Jessie from the original series.  She's also written "a dozen bestsellers."  So why is she still a counselor?

Out in the hallway, Jessie encounters  Slater (Mario Lopez) from the original series (he never ages!), now the football coach and inexplicably impoverished ("the hot dog I was microwaving for dinner exploded).  He flirts with her, she thinks he's a jerk. 

Scene 5:  Daisy and her mother arrive at Bayside High. Sorry, it's her friend Aisha (Alycia Pascal-Pena).  She just looks old enough to be Daisy's mother.

They are overwhelmed by the parking lot full of bright, expensive cars, the gigantic glass-and-steel foyer. No graffiti.  Was that a lesbian couple that just walked by?  Aisha  gawks at 'the hottest man I have ever seen," Goofball Jamie. 

Everyone has a Bayside Buddy to help them adjust to the new school.  Aisha happens to get Goofball Jamie, and Daisy gets the Governor's Son Mac. 

Enter Mac, arguing oveer a parking space with entitled rich girl  Lexi.  Trans actress Josieh Totah.  I wonder if her character is trans, too.

Scene 6: Mac brings Daisy to the Max, the hangout from the old series. She wonders how they can afford going to a restaurant every day.  He doesn't undestand.  Doesn't every teenager get an unlimited allowance. 

The Bayside Buddies are all divided into black/Hispanic-white and boy-girl couples: Devante-Lexi, Aisha-Goofball Jamie, Mac-Daisyt.  

Yep, Lexi is trans.  She is the star of a reality show about her transition. "And the hot friends who support her," Mac adds.

Aisha mentions that she played football at her old school.  This will become important later.

Scene 7:  Devante (Dexter Darden) complaining about how weird Bayside High is.  They got two beach volleyball teams and an artisanal bath salts club.  Slater the Football Coach approaches and asks him to try out (he must be a good athlete  because he's bl...muscular.).  Devante rejects him.

Meanwhile, Mac is explaining to New Girl Daisy that Bayside is paperless. You just download your textbooks onto your ipad.  "What if you don't have one of those things?" Daisy asks.  Gulp. 

To the locker room.  Daisy complains to Aisha that she can't take any honors classes because the Douglas High curriculum was sub-standard. "Our library was a Bible and a bunch of army pamphlets."  Aisha likes it: money for sports, teachers with Ph.D.s; the cafeteria is run by Wolfgang Puck.

Scene 8: Zack..um, I mean Mac sitting in the principal's chair.  He runs the school, like his Dad did in 1990.  He has a solution to his dispute  over the parking space: hy doesn't the principal give Mac his space?

Meanwhile Daisy-- wants to run for student council president, but the postrs have to be up by tomorrow (wait -- isn't it the first day of class?).

Meanwhile Football Coach Slater talks to Jessie the Counselor about his failed attempt to seduce...um, I mean bond with Devante. (Slater, aren't there hundreds of bl,...muscular kids?  Why not choose another?).

Scene 9:  Daisy goes to the library to pick up her little brother and make copies of her photo for the student council campaign poster, but the copying machine is broken.  So she rushes to a copy store (yes, they still have those) and makes her copies, but she doesn't have enough money to pay. 

 She makes an impassioned speech (and pretends to be a single mom) and Dean (Darryl Stephnes, right) lets her have them for free. A named character, but he only appears in two episodes.

Scene 10: Daisy rushes into the school with her hand-made construction-paper posters, only to be overwhelmed by the elegant, professionally-produced posters ("Don't you have a poster guy?") of -- guess who?  Yep, Mac and Lexi.  They don't want to improve the school, they are just running because the president gets their own parking space.

Daisy rushes off in anger.  Mac and Lexi follow to ask what's wrong: "I always thought that if you worked hard, you can accomplish anything.   Then I came here, and learned about structural inequalities and white privilege."  Ok, she doesn't say those exact words, but that's the idea.

Mac and Lexi miss everything she said except that the president goes to a leadership conference in Washington, DC during spring break.  They want to spend spring break partying, so they sabotage their campaigns: "I will make sure that teachers give Fs for no reason."   Daisy wins the election.

Scene 11: Slater approaches Devante again.  Dude, your interest in this kid is staring to look creepy.  He explains that he needs a win -- the football team hasn't beaten Valley High in 15 years.  So you assume that the black guy must be a good player?   Devante says that would be a classic white savior stunt, except that Slater is Mexican.

I yelled "Hallelujah" and almost woke up Bob.  The original series was overtly racist, assuming that no one would watch a show with an openly Hispanic character.   

"Thank you!" Slater exclaims.  "Nobody ever talks about it!"

Slater advises Devante that if he finds something he loves, he should do it, and don't worry about what other people think.  Devante approaches the sign-up boards (wait -- don't they sign up for things on the Bayside App?).

Scene 12:  Football tryouts.  A new student appears to try out -- not Devante, Aisha!  We're supposed to be surprised, but it was broadcast back in Scene 6.

Meanwhile, Daisy tells the principal that she can't be president because the election wasn't fair.   Principal explains that with structural inequalities and white privilege, it's never fair, but she won the election, and she'll be a good president.

Scene 13: Devante is trying out -- but not for football!  For the high school musical. He sings: "I believe that children are our future..." The whole song.  While Aisha plays football, and Daisy refuses to give up the presidential parking space, because she's the president. The end.

Beefcake: Lots of cute guys, but nobody takes off anything.

LGBTQ Characters:  Lexi.  I like the fact that the trans character does other things besides teaching tolerance (really, who still needs to figure out that trans girls are girls?).  None of the teens express any heterosexual interest except Aisha and Mac.  I understand that in a future episode, Jamie states that he was in love with Mac at some point in the past, so he's probably bi.  Or else everyone is post-gay "hot is hot, who cares about gender?"

My Grade:  This show is obviously aimed at the now-adult fans of the earlier series: lots of throwbacks, "where are they now," and "wow, things have changed!" references.  Contemporary juveniles are likely to think "Black and Hispanic kids suffer from institutional discrimination?  Girls can play football?  Boys can sing?  Transgender people exist?  Big deal, I've known about all that since kindergarten."  

If you saw the original series, A.  If you were born after 1993, B.