Jaleel White on Why He Thinks ‘Family Matters’ Not Considered Among Best Black Shows ‘If It’s Not a Hood Story, It’s Not a Black Story’

In an interview at the Wilmington Library for the launch of his new book Growing Up Urkel, actor Jaleel White suggested Family Matters gets left out of the discussion on the best Black TV shows of all time. “Being a part of the ‘TGIF’ [ABC programming block] brand sometimes makes you feel like you don’t [...] Read More... from Jaleel White on Why He Thinks ‘Family Matters’ Not Considered Among Best Black Shows ‘If It’s Not a Hood Story, It’s Not a Black Story’ The post Jaleel White on Why He Thinks ‘Family Matters’ Not Considered Among Best Black Shows ‘If It’s Not a Hood Story, It’s Not a Black Story’ appeared first on LOVEBSCOTT.

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Dec 10, 2024 - 14:00
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Jaleel White on Why He Thinks ‘Family Matters’ Not Considered Among Best Black Shows ‘If It’s Not a Hood Story, It’s Not a Black Story’

In an interview at the Wilmington Library for the launch of his new book Growing Up Urkel, actor Jaleel White suggested Family Matters gets left out of the discussion on the best Black TV shows of all time.

“Being a part of the ‘TGIF’ [ABC programming block] brand sometimes makes you feel like you don’t completely belong in the pantheon of Blackness,” White told moderator Randall Law around the 7:30-minute mark of the video below. “Blackness has been treated as a very monolithic experience in entertainment. ‘If it’s not a hood story, it’s not a Black story.’ And you know, sometimes I feel left out of that.”

“If there’s ever a poll, and they say, ‘Oh, what are your favorite black shows?’ ‘Martin’ is in there, ‘Living Single’ or any of those kinds of shows… I already know we’re coming in last,” he joked. “But if there’s ever a poll and it’s just your favorite family shows, suddenly, we rank really high. So it’s kind of interesting how we look at ourselves, even as Black folks.”

But while “Family Matters,” which ran for nine seasons, was mainly about the Winslow family, the examples that White listed aren’t technically ‘hood’ sitcoms. The ‘Living Single’ crew were longtime friends and business professionals based in Brooklyn, while ‘Martin’ also depicted the relationships between the radio DJ titular character, played by Martin Lawrence, his girlfriend Gina (Tisha Campbell), and their close-knit friend group in Detroit.

White, however, was able to recognize that the Urkel character made an impact on “Black male nerd culture.” “Any brother that grew up in the ‘80s and ‘90s and 2000s, he was told that he looked like me,” he continued. “He was called Urkel and he didn’t look anything like me, guaranteed. But still, his peers would find a way to call him Urkel, and even girls to that extent. So it’s really humbling to see how far nerd culture has come. And really it’s not nerd culture, it’s smart culture, it’s hobbyist culture, it’s skateboarders… I could never have known in a million years that I could be the face of that.”

via: BET

You can watch the full conversation below

The post Jaleel White on Why He Thinks ‘Family Matters’ Not Considered Among Best Black Shows ‘If It’s Not a Hood Story, It’s Not a Black Story’ appeared first on LOVEBSCOTT.

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