That 70's Show: The Cultural Horror Show That Is Fez

(from "Cultural Bias in Prime Time Television", pg. 151)

Fez, played by Wilmer Valderrama, was the program’s infantilized, hypersexual ethnic Other, cute in his playfulness and socio-cultural ignorance, much like a three year old who said the word “tittie” for the first time - every day. Fez, like that three year old, might have engendered laughter, but Fez was not funny.

The program samples included an episode that provided a rare look into the shallow waters of Fez’s world, safe for viewers to walk through without fear of learning something new about the world or at least that of this one character. The episode trundled through each musical vignette laboriously and without any real passion, essentially a series of music videos all positioned to give exposition to another of Fez’s wants and desires as a young man from an undisclosed country who was constantly thinking about sex (or its absence) and candy. The episode seemed to be an unconscious display of the writers’ desire to keep Fez from achieving his innermost goals, whether as a young, lusty, Latin almost-lover (given, also a stereotype, but a more self-assured one) that he might have been or the emasculated, infantilized, de-nationalized clown that he really was.

The episode featured songs like The Joker (Steve Miller Band), Shake Your Groove Thing (Peaches and Herb), So Happy Together (The Turtles) and Sing (The Carpenters). The songs were performed as dream sequence production numbers with low-tech star wipes, smoke machines and shiny polyester outfits. The song vignettes were all dreams conjured by Fez as we waited impatiently for his “friends” to come to the school choral musical recital that he was a part of, presided over by 70’s rock idol Roger Daltrey, playing a pompous, brash, though also culturally unaware Brit music director, Mr. Wilkinson. Fez’s frustrations deepened as his “friends” failed to show while he waited before the recital, lapsing every so often into another musical rendition of what he thought the world should be like. Even Red exclaimed before Fez (and viewer) lapsed into another dream song, “Aw jeez, not another one!” (02/#6). Fez got to the point where he sincerely doubted his friendships, but turned it inward, calling himself a “goofy foreign kid” that no one wanted to be around (Program Sample 02/#6). Red, Eric’s father, gladly validated Fez’s feelings for him and was possibly the most egalitarian character on the program, never giving anybody a break, particularly his son or anyone seemingly not born in the United States of America or vociferously loyal to it.

Fez’s daydreams seemed to betray him as the physical performances were lackluster and the singing was poor. There was no hint of “sweetening” to raise the recorded quality of the vocals. None of the actors were accomplished or even fair singers to be performing as such. The pedestrian performances might have been produced to decrease the separation between skilled performer and presumably less skilled viewer. Fez was disappointed in his “friends” as the viewers may have been in the characters’ performance of the music segments. The story cut away at one point to find the gang smoking marijuana in Eric’s basement. They discussed how they didn’t want to go to the concert, completely dismissive of the idea that Fez would have any feelings about their actions. The program’s orientation to (or away from) Fez became apparent through the voice of Eric as they got caught up in their own pot-induced anti-Fez fervor. Each increased note of mockery was punctuated by a laugh track, the “OK sign” for viewer acceptance or dismissal of content, whichever came easier. Eric stated clearly in a close-up shot, saying, “That idiot actually thinks I’m his friend [Eric laughs]. Like I care. Iwish he were dead. [laugh track] Hey, we should kill him [louder laugh track]” (02/#6). No explanation or apology was ever made for their declarations against Fez, save for their excuse for their lateness - they were busy toilet-papering Wilkinson’s house and brought Fez his decapitated mailbox, presumably as a sign of their “friendship” and support for him. Wilkinson saw his mailbox in Fez’s hands, took it, aghast, and vowed a weak reprisal. The gang looked none too concerned, actually happy that they had “gotten him” in this way (which included a bag of dog excrement on his front steps and a symbol drawn on his door with some kind of cream or paste, interestingly enough - a peace sign).

Fez did at one point in this same episode strike a cord of nationalism and pride for the heretofore-unnamed country of his birth and its people. Wilkinson walked away from him after having leveled a barrage of insults and patronizing comments. Fez responded, “The British have always hated my people. We won the war, buddy. Get over it! Ah, good one, Fez. [laugh track]”. Fez, at least, got what he wanted - his “friends” with him at the concert. They did in fact go to the concert after all, but the ideological, socio-cultural and relational distance with which the narrative kept Fez from his “friends” was always there, too. Fez was allowed to share space with the “White Wisconsin Others”, but it seemed he could only get close to them in his cartoonish dreams.

The character of Fez was reminiscent of two of Willie Best’s characters, the “elevator boy’ Charlie” in My Little Margie and Willie in The Trouble with Father. Best, in the former “repeatedly bugged his eyes at the slightest provocation and looked stunned by the most ordinary of occurrences” (Bogle, 2001, p. 44). Bogle went on to say that “Best’s Charlie becomes delirious over the sight of the two [teen boy and girl] kissing good night. Widening his eyes, he goes into a romantic swoon. Apparently, he’s never experienced love himself nor known much about sexual desire (or fulfilling it)” (2001, p. 44). Bogle went on to say about Best in The Trouble with Father, “Again cast as a likable childlike dunce, he’s Willie, the family handyman, a nifty tagalong playmate for the family’s adolescent daughter Jackie. Mostly called upon to react and observe, he rarely initiates any action” (2001, p. 45). Much of this rang true for Fez. Fez was the consummate child, often swooning at the thought of candy or other ultimately simple things. This response could have been an expression of an immigrant’s stereotypical adoration for anything (United States of) American, an ideological frame of reference that would be easy to understand coming from a network like Fox, so deeply conglomerated and conservative in politics (Greenwald, 2004). Fez’s response was more likely the expression of a child. Fez was almost as enraptured by candy as he was for the prospect of sex. His simplistic reactions were the butt of the explicit and implicit joke. His dunce status was defined in every episode and his constant swoon and persistent, but contrived, lisp was always present to reinforce the consumption of his character as an ignorant child. If Fez walked on camera licking a gigantic lollipop and wearing knee pants, neither the audience nor the other characters would have thought anything of it.

Fez also showed his penchant for shallow, self-centered baby-isms when Wilkinson relegated him punitively to the back row during the recital, to which Fez retorted, “The back row is for the untalented and the ugly [laugh track]” (02/#6). Fez also stood his ground beforehand when Wilkinson tried to get Fez to understand the finer points of music appreciation. Wilkinson asked, “Have you ever been moved to tears by the warbling timbre of your own voice?”. Fez responded, “No - because I am a man! [laugh track]”, the laugh track almost bubbled over into a reserved, though macho cheer of support for his assertion of mainstream, narrow masculinity.

Fez, while at the school dance, was in the stairwell, along with three other couples, making out with a female dork stereotype. When word of the tornado warning reached them, Fez responded, “Oh no, I’m going to die a virgin!”. His partner expressed that it could be their last day on earth so they decided to “do it” and ran off to yet another stairwell. Word reached them later that the tornado warning had been lifted, though, before they got the chance to “do it”. His partner, then with a renewed sense of hope, snorted, chuckled and waddled off (literally) leaving Fez to tantrum before the Creator. Fez exclaimed, “Oh you can make a tornado, but you can’t make me do it! Oh you are not a just god!!” (02/#1).

The group’s flashback to their first meetings in the yearbook episode was telling of the characters’ and the programs relationship to this ethnic “Other” in the cast, the lone non-White token character for almost the whole run of the show. Fez was found hanging in a closet by his pants, preyed upon by cruel jocks. Kelso’s first response was to throw a gym ball at him. There was no major outcry to his treatment as the only “foreign exchange student” seemingly in all of Point Place or all of Wisconsin according to this program. Their empathy for Fez was underwhelming, all in the interest of the laugh track, ratings, repeat viewership and the bottom line. After they finally helped him down, Hyde asked him his name. Fez began to recite a litany of names (stereotypical and real for many Latinos/as), but as he did so, the school bell rang and obscured the viewer from hearing his name. Hyde responded, “I’m never gonna remember that”. It was not apparent whether Hyde heard the name or not, but it was apparent that he didn’t care to know his name or anything else about him.

The message was clear in all of the occurrences of Fez on screen that what was foreign was unwelcome in that world. Difference would not be tolerated and would be submerged for the greater ignorance of the self-centered (read ethnocentric) community. Fez was the butt of jokes from others and his own self-condemnation. He was the target of marijuana-induced assertions of hatred by people he called “friends”. He was neglected and disrespected off-hand. Intolerance of difference, of a different culture, a different national origin, was accepted wholesale by the characters and by the program itself. Fez might have been the best example of the worst that That 70’s Show had to offer teenage aspirational viewers looking for cues regarding how they should act and fit in - or allow others to fit in - or not - in this society.