Let’s Talk About Jay Kelso
Warning: spoilers for That 90s Show
So I just binged T90S, and I’m not really sure how to feel, particularly about Jay. On one hand, I did really like his character, but not as much as I thought I would. And part of me thinks that’s my own fault for creating this idea in my mind of exactly what I thought he would be like without the show even being out yet, but part of me feels justified in my disappointment in the way his character was written and I’m wondering if anyone else agrees with me on this.
Jay started out really strong, he was flirty and charismatic, yet cheesy and respectful. The first two episodes have kind of blurred together at this point since I pulled an all nighter to watch this and I’m coming down from my caffeine high, but I saw a lot of potential for his character that I really didn’t see fulfilled in the rest of the series. Let me preface this by saying that I do not blame Mace Coronel, who plays Jay, AT ALL for this. I adore Mace and believe he’s beyond talented and did the best he could with what he was given. I blame it on lazy writing. As much as I love both T70S and T90S, a lot of the writing REALLY pisses me off (especially the treatment of Jackie in both shows, but that’s a topic for another time).
In my opinion, Jay peaked in episode three and it was all kind of downhill from there. Again, I still enjoyed his character, but it wasn’t what I expected or wanted from him. And maybe I am just projecting and set unreasonable expectations for his character, but I have a strong feeling the fandom will agree with me on this. Ep3 Jay really felt like the fanon Jay that I had imagined in my mind and had seen in posts from other users on here. He was still a charismatic flirt, but he was also slightly awkward, incredibly sweet, and a little dorky like I had imagined him. Between what I’d seen in trailers, official character descriptions, other tumblr users’ fan theories, and my own imagination, I imagined Jay having the charm of Kelso but much more depth. I saw him as being a bit of a nerd who loves girls but, unlike his father, isn’t a womanizer and genuinely respects them. I imagined him as very introspective, poetic, and intelligent, which I didn’t really see much of at all after episode three. Kelso himself even says in the pilot that Jay has his good looks and Jackie’s brains. And Jackie was always truly intelligent, even though she usually wasn’t treated that way. He was also described as always having a camera with him and constantly taking videos and photos of his friends which, correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think we saw that even once in this season. In my mind, Jay Kelso was a goofy film geek who’s popular with the ladies due to his good looks and charisma, but in a much more unconventional way than his father is. But as the series progressed, I felt like he became more and more like Kelso. Which sucks because I despise Kelso with a passion.
Let’s talk about what I liked about Jay in episode three. When Leia tries to get Jay to kiss her, he turns her down because he doesn’t want her to be a meaningless fling and because he can tell this isn’t really what she wants. So I was like okay, consent king, respecting women, we love to see it. I also fully expected Jay to be a virgin for a couple reasons. First of all, in the original series, all of the core cast (except maybe Hyde) were virgins at the beginning of the series, EVEN KELSO, and besides Jackie, they were all older than the T90S crew at 17/18, whereas the next gen of Point Place kids are all 14-16, maybe some of them 17. But in T90S it’s heavily implied that the whole gang beside Leia (and possibly Ozzie, since his boyfriend lives in Canada) have all lost their virginity. Secondly, it would be such a plot twist. A Kelso being a virgin? Unspeakable! I fully expected this grand reveal of Jay saying he doesn’t want to make the same mistakes of his father and that he’s waiting for the right person, someone he’s truly in love with, and that person being Leia (though I am glad that Jay and Leia didn’t have sex for multiple reasons. The age of the characters, their lack of chemistry, and the age difference between the actors, to name a few). I was also genuinely surprised at Jay’s lack of daddy issues. All the posts with spoilers from before the show was out from people who had seen tapings suggested Kelso being an absent father who doesn’t really love or care for Jay, which led me to believe Jay would want to be as little like his father as possible, but there was literally nothing about that in the show. Also, a bit off topic, but can we talk about how awful the circumstances of Jay and Leia getting together were? Sure they developed genuine feelings for each other eventually, but it literally starts with Leia being like “hey, I want my first kiss, and my only option’s Jay. Eh, might as well, better than nothing.”
All of these hopes were crushed in episode four when we find out that not only has Jay had sex, which okay, fine, whatever, but he’s also a player who’s broken multiple girls hearts, and it’s implied that he does this on purpose. So basically Kelso 2.0. Cool. While I do have critiques for the other episodes, I did genuinely enjoy them, whereas I absolutely despise episode four to the point where I hardly even consider it canon. Between the horrible light it painted Jay in and the insensitive and disgusting Menendez brothers joke that made me actually pause the show for a good ten minutes to process it and almost give up on the show completely, episode four was horrendous. When Nikki suggests that Jay has feelings for Leia and actually sees her as a person and not just a sex object, Jay seems genuinely surprised at best, if not disgusted. While him telling Leia in the previous episode that he doesn’t want her to be a meaningless hookup implied that he treated all women with this level of respect, this seems to flip the script to say that he sees only Leia this way, because she’s “different.” Why, because she’s the main character, because she’s a “pure” nerdy virgin, because she’s “not like other girls?” Why is Leia put on a pedestal and treated like she deserves better than other girls whereas the rest aren’t worthy of basic respect? (If this sounds familiar, it’s because this is exactly how Donna was treated in the original series as opposed to every single other girl on the show, particularly Jackie.) Because Leia is “special” she “deserves” to be treated with basic human decency, unlike “other girls,” because fuck them, right? At the rave, we see what could have been a cute moment where Leia and Jay confess their feelings for each other, but instead, Jay takes advantage of her vulnerability and arrogantly declares that he “knew it” when Leia admits her feelings rather than telling her he feels the same way. However it’s hard to hold all of this against Jay considering how out of character this seems for him. Episodes 1-3 paint him as kind and empathetic, whereas episodes 5-10 continue that sort of personality for him, but also turn him into a one note love interest that doesn’t have much else to his character. Episode four Jay literally feels like an entirely different character than the rest of the series.
In either episode four or five, forgive me for not remembering, we meet Serena, who could essentially be replaced with a piece of cardboard and nothing would change. Serena literally only exists to be “the other woman” getting in the way of Jay and Leia’s relationship. While Leia, thankfully, isn’t unkind to her just because she’s with Jay, the writers are. Unlike Leia, apparently Serena doesn’t deserve a happy ending, a good boyfriend, or a shred of respect. She’s older, she dresses in a more conventionally attractive way, and her personality is nonexistent. It’s unclear if Jay *technically* cheated on Serena; while Leia calls her Jay’s girlfriend, it’s important to take into account that Leia is an unreliable narrator and it’s entirely possible that Jay and Serena were just casually going out and not official (especially considering they were just going on their first date a day or two before Leia’s birthday), but it’s also a very real possibility that Jay did cheat on her when he kisses Leia on her birthday. Regardless of if they were official or not, it’s pretty shitty that Jay entirely casts her aside as soon as Leia shows interest. Serena who, right? No seriously, that’s literally what he says. If the roles were reversed and it was Leia he did this to, Jay would be seen as a total asshole, but since it’s Serena, we’re not supposed to care. For my swifties out there, Leia is Betty, Jay is James, and Serena is Augustine - just a “summer thing.” So not only is Jay a “player” and a “man whore” as he’s called by his own friend group, he’s also likely a cheater. Sure, he’s Kelso’s son, but that doesn’t mean he has to be a carbon copy. It’s like the writers copy and pasted Kelso into the 90s, edited a few things, and said “yeah, that’s good enough, no one will be able to tell.”
While this may sound like I hate Jay, I really don’t. In fact, he’s still probably my favorite character in the reboot, although I’m probably a bit biased due to my affections for him from before the show came out (and my eight year long crush on Mace Coronel, but that’s irrelevant.) Jay does prove himself throughout the rest of the season, showing that he does care about Leia and exhibiting empathy his father could never muster, but he still doesn’t feel like his own character. While Kelso habitually cheats on Jackie and then blames her for it, admits to using her for sex and money while she’s 15 and he’s 18, and hounds her into sex until she eventually gives in and says yes so he’ll leave her alone (ie: rape), Jay is genuinely kindhearted and would never do those sorts of things (or at least I hope he wouldn’t, but it wouldn’t shock me if the writers decide to ruin his character in later seasons.) Like Red says when Kitty points out that Jay is better than Michael, the bar isn’t all that high. However, Jay does prove himself to be a good boyfriend who genuinely cares about Leia (I don’t use the word love since their relationship developed so quickly and they’re so young, so it’s unlikely that it’s real love, despite the fact that they believe it is). He exhibits true selflessness throughout the series and continually puts himself in the line of fire (usually from Red) to protect Leia.
Nevertheless, good person or not, Jay doesn’t feel original. He seems to exist only to be Leia’s love interest boy toy. Jay lacks the soul I imagined him to have before watching the show. While it’s nice to see the female characters fleshed out for once, as was very lacking on T70S, the male characters lack dimension in comparison. Leia, Gwen, and Nikki, all have their own personalities, values, and ambitions, whereas Ozzie tends to be the sassy token gay friend (although let’s bffr, none of these new kids are straight, but the writers don’t want to admit it), Jay not only feels like Kelso Lite ™, but as the series progresses, him and Nate seem to morph into basically the same person. Two well intended, yet dumb horndogs who lack depth or any true personality of their own beyond being love interests for their girlfriends and comic relief. Again, I love, love, LOVE Mace Coronel, and have since seeing him on Nicky, Ricky, Dicky, and Dawn on Nickelodeon, and don’t blame him at all for the way his character is written. Now if you follow my blog, you probably already know that I absolutely adore not only Mace, but also his NRDD costar Aidan Gallagher, who I fell for after seeing him in The Umbrella Academy. However, Mace was the one I had a crush on as a child and it was very exciting to rediscover him when I first found out about T90S. While Aidan’s NRDD character Nicky Harper and TUA character Five Hargreeves share the same cunning spirit, they’re extremely different in most ways and I was incredibly excited to see Mace show this same sort of range on T90S. And I do believe that Mace has that range, but he unfortunately seems to be being typecast, considering Jay basically feels like teenage Dicky Harper in the 90s. Maybe I’m being overdramatic, but I was really hoping for more for Jay’s character and I was slightly disappointed, and I hope he gets fleshed out more and more deeply explored in later seasons.
Thanks for reading my long ass rant lmao. TLDR; I love Jay Kelso (and Mace Coronel) but hate how he was portrayed. Justice for Jay (oh, and for Serena)
Tagging my favorite T70S/T90S blogs for engagement: @thestupidhelmet @lily-267 @thatseventiesbitch @einsteinsugly @that90sshowgoldencouple
tangentwithtanner
jacobvanloon
titsay
yousharknotpass
