Steven Urkel, Screech Powers, & Carlton Banks… What Do They All Have In Common?

I’m sure nearly everyone has seen sitcoms, cartoons, and movies featuring the geek/nerd caricature.  And, maybe, we all get a good laugh seeing these characters in action.  Some television’s most popular geeks/nerds, at least from my childhood, are Urkel, Screech, and Carlton.  What makes these characters so lovable is the same reason that makes me ardently detest them.  Despite the fact that the TV geek/nerd is extremely smart, his purpose is to make us all extremely stupid.

Now, let’s take a look at the geeks/nerds in action…

Steve Urkel

From Wikipedia:

Steven Quincy Urkel, generally known as Steve Urkel or simply Urkel, is a fictional character on the ABC/CBS sitcom Family Matters, portrayed by Jaleel White.  Steve was the epitome of a geek/nerd, with large, thick eyeglasses, “high-water” or “flood” pants held up by suspenders, multi-colored cardigan sweaters, and a high-pitched voice.  He professed unrequited love for neighbor Laura Winslow, perpetually annoyed her father, Carl, and tried to befriend her brother, Eddie.  Throughout the series’ run, Steve was central to many of its recurring gags, primarily gratuitous property damage and/or personal injury as a result of his inventions going awry or his outright clumsiness.   He became known for several catch phrases uttered after some humorous misfortune occurred, including “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” after he accidentally got drunk in one episode and fell off of the edge of a building, “Did I do that?” (previously used by Curly in the 1934 Three Stooges short Punch Drunks), “Whoa, Mama!” and “Look what you did” (if, rarely, someone else caused the damage).

Screech Powers

From Wikipedia:

Screech is seen as the geek of his peer group. Although he is often recognized for his academic abilities, his lack of common-sense and social skills provide frustration within the gang. He has a hound dog named Hound dog, and a robot pal, named Kevin, whom he built and programmed himself. He often exhibits low self-esteem when it comes to girls. During his years at Bayside High, Screech frequently pursues fellow classmate Lisa Turtle and is consistently turned down by her. However, she does agree to date him in one episode, only to spoil the date by talking through the movie. Screech is frequently roped into scams by his best friend, Zack. As a running gag, he often unwittingly sabotages them.

Carlton Banks

From Wikipedia:

Carlton Banks (played by Alfonso Ribeiro), born August 4, 1974, is Vivian and Philip’s eldest son and Will’s pedantic maternal cousin. Carlton is a quintessential preppy. While highly intelligent, he is commonly annoying and arrogant. Like many of his ilk, Carlton aspires to attend an Ivy League college. In earlier seasons, he states he aims to get into Yale University, but later fixes a determined focus on Princeton University, his father Philip’s alma mater. One running gag in the show is Carlton continuously being slapped across the head by various characters, usually in response to comments that are ridiculously self-centered (in the second half of the show, for example, he would often make humorous comments about gaining his father’s inheritance) or due to portraying ignorance of lives other than his own. Often Will would ask to hold what Carlton is holding and once receiving it he would slap Carlton across the head with the object. Carlton’s height is frequently made fun of, especially by Will, who, in an episode, said he is the average height for a woman. In earlier seasons, he makes frequent references to his virginity, and also plans to attend Princeton University. In later seasons, these arcs are both resolved: Carlton does indeed lose his virginity, but is not initially admitted to Princeton; instead he first attends the University of Los Angeles. He is sometimes portrayed as being extremely naive.

They are all basically the same character…

These three characters possess common qualities paramount in portraying who they are on screen.  Some of the obvious traits are:  they are extremely annoying,  they are clumsy, and they are socially awkward and funny looking.  All three display a lack of ability in attracting/courting members of the opposite sex.  It even goes as far as painting these characters as far less intelligent than their counterparts or their more hip counterparts as just as intelligent.  In one episode of Saved By The Bell, Zack Morris, the character shown to be the hip, cool ladies man, ended up receiving an SAT score of 1502 and being accepted to Yale University.  In The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Will, the hip, cool ladies man, received the highest score on his S.A.T. and was offered a scholarship to Princeton, the very school Carlton was denied admission.  These contrasts makes it appear as though the geek/nerd was not actually intelligent, but the hipster was the true possessor of an abundance of smarts.

But, why would these shows develop such characters?

We must realize that television’s purpose extends beyond entertainment.  Television networks and the shows featured on them are corporations, businesses.  The purpose of any business is to make a profit and grow to increase profits.  Though most people view television as a source of entertainment, the people who own and run the networks and shows, most of whom own and run other businesses, see TV as a mere marketing tool that serves two purposes:  generate a profit and influence the target audience to support their other products, whether it’s by returning to watch the show at a later date, tuning in to other shows, or purchasing some other physical object.

The geek/nerd in television programs are placed to influence the viewers, a lot of the time impressionable children, to believe that being smart or intelligent is a character flaw and should not be desired by anyone wanting to be acceptable in society.

So, why would anyone want a dumb citizenry?

It’s simple.  Decreasing the amount of critical thought in which people engage makes it much easier to sell to them things they do not need, or almost worthless goods, and it lessens the chances of mass numbers of people actually realizing (or wanting to analyze) the grand agenda of privatizing their entire lives and creating a population of robots at the command of those same corporate elitists.

After convincing kids that being smart is not cool, or hip, the above can be achieved.  Those who actually may be in the upper tiers of intelligence will suppress their own brilliance to not be ousted from society as an outcast.  Others, who may believe they are hip and do not readily show their intelligence, can point out that they are similar to Zack Morris, are actually brilliant behind their outward expressions, and can simply turn on their brilliance at crunch time.  Those with the potential (most living humans) to think critically and analyze what matters will simply opt out so that they will not be stigmatized with the character traits of the above geeks/nerds and deemed ‘uncool’.  And, since being clumsy looking weird, talking funny, and not getting the girl already hold negative connotations in the western world today, so must it be the one trait that is actually a great asset that these shows inherently linked to the perceived negative attributes… INTELLIGENCE.

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