while looking through TV shows trying to find a form of stereotype I flipped through and came across "Save by the Bell". As i enjoyed my old childhood TV show i begin to realize that it too had a stereotype. Screech! Screech who was the clown of the bunch was a very obvious stereotype. Screech Was the smart one from the group but what made him funny was the fact he was skinny very geeky and clumsy. Over and over the show built on these characteristics to make Screechs character funnier. It seem that in order to be a genius you had to fit in those charcteristics. Even a few of the other students who were extrememly smart were extremly geeky. I started to think where else did TV sitcom do this and I remembered "Family Matters".
Who can forget Steve Urkel. He was the star and back bone of the show and his main charcteristics were the same as Screech. Extremely smart, extrremely geeky and of course extremely clumsy. Through out the whole show Steve would always break something, it seem like he had no control over it. As smart as he was he was equivaliently clumsy. And this was humorous to all of us. He was smart enough to make robots, machines to ulter his DNA but yet he couldn't get across the living room with out breaking something.
Though not an obvious stereotype like race or sexuility nevertheless it was one. And now that i think about it i can recall many times back in grade school or J.H.S how many times we would use the term "Screech" or " steve Urkel" to describe someone who was geeky and smart.
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Interesting observations, Kevin. Many people have argued that today the male "nerd" archetype is in a renaissance and often being cast as leading man (think Michael Cera).
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