Preppy vs. Wrestler
Before there was Edward versus Jacob, there was Zack versus A.C. Slater, the original, and better, rivalry. One was a preppy lady’s man, the other a hunky, slightly sexist, wrestler. They didn’t sparkle in the sun or wear cut off jean shorts to ease their man-to-werewolf transition. They didn’t brood or lament over the same sullen girl. They schemed, lied, manipulated and vied for attention, all while teaching us valuable life lessons. Though they often competed for the affections of school beauty Kelly Kapowski, and every teen girl in America, their friendship allowed girls to like both. Girls could like Zack this week and favor A.C. next week without resorting to aggressive t-shirt campaigns and obsessive feelings towards mythical creatures.
If neither of these high school heartthrobs suited your taste, you only had to wait until Blossom or Boy Meets World came on. Blossom featured a young Joey Lawrence as Blossom’s older, but not wiser, brother, aptly named Joey. While he did not add much to
the show in the way of wit and wisdom, he was nice to stare at for half an hour, and his trademark “Whoa!” could turn any day around. Continuing with the Lawrence family’s good looks, Boy Meets World cast little brother Matthew Lawrence in the later years. Already fulfilling every girl’s bad boy crush with Rider Strong as Shawn Hunter, Cory Matthew’s best friend, the show killed any chance of Cory ever being the cute one by casting Matthew Lawrence as Shawn’s long lost older brother Jack. Even as girls everywhere started to outgrow the show, it was worth continuing to watch just for those two.
Today’s teen girl doesn’t have much hope in the way of crush-worthy idols. In addition to glittering vamps and jorts-wearing werewolves, girls have rather limited options. With Gossip Girl’s Chace Crawford and Ed Westwick, or Jersey Shore’s Pauly D and The Situation, who is a girl to crush on? While they are nice to look at for an hour, Crawford and Westwick ruin the image with their constant self-indulgent whining and totally avoidable self-made problems. Even Penn Badgley’s above-it-all character Dan kills any attraction to him with his over the top brooding one minute and bad snap decisions the next. On the “reality” spectrum, it isn’t even clear that Jersey girls like Pauly D, The Situation, and the rest of the gang except as a vehicle to their 15 minutes. Until we get some genuine heartthrobs for these girls, I guess they can borrow ours via re-runs and downloads.
