7 Things "Hey Arnold" Taught Us About Diversity

Image via Complex Original

In a world where characters like Zack Morris reigned supreme, Arnold wasn’t quite as lucky. Still an obvious cool kid, equipped with a harmonica and layering skills ahead of his time, Arnold’s life was less than easy and he taught us to be accepting of those who don't come from a traditional nuclear family. He had questions about the death of his parents, leaving him in the care of his grandparents—​a grandfather full of jokes and a grandmother who was stuck in the '60s. Arnold wasn’t as smooth as the protagonists of other shows and he wasn’t exempt from being bullied from time to time.

To the naked eye, Gerald might have been your “stereotypical” Black kid. His larger than life ‘fro was the only one on the block, and his red “33” jersey suggested a love for sports. But what was refreshing to see was that he came from a two-parent home filled with love. It wasn’t the “fend for yourself” attitude that the Pataki household had given to Helga as she watched her parents deal with a loveless marriage. 

Helga had bigger issues than her unibrow. Sure, both of her parents were around, but Helga might as well have been on her own. Her dad was too busy focused on his Big Bob’s Beepers chain to pay attention to anyone other than her older sister Olga, and her mom was never coherent (a.k.a wasted). The lack of love in the household forced her to form an unhealthy infatuation with Arnold, where she would retreat to her shrine of him daily.

Phoebe may have been the smartest kid in P.S. 118, hands down, but the myth that Asian kids were just naturally smart may have been debunked here. Yes, the Japanese-American girl with the large blue glasses was the brain of the crew, but it didn’t always come easy for her. Phoebe put so much pressure on herself to be the best that she plagiarized an Emily Dickinson poem just to win a contest, but couldn’t live with that on her conscience. Don’t you miss when children's television taught you a lesson at the end of each episode? 

Back in the day, no one really questioned why Harold was having a Bar Mitzvah in the fourth grade. We knew he wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box, but 13 in the fourth grade? Forced to ditch his friends for their stickball sessions, Harold reluctantly went to his Bar Mitzvah classes and invited all of his confused classmates to his celebration. No one clowned him for his Hebrew chants or his yarmulke, and his stickball sessions went back to their regularly scheduled program.

You may have not realized, but Nadine, Rhonda’s trusty sidekick, was the biracial butterfly of P.S. 118. Her caramel tones and blonde coiled hair should have given it away but we weren’t thinking about that back during the show’s run. Her artsy parents made a cameo during Parent’s Day, where her dad displayed blonde dreads alongside her Black mother. Aside for her love for insects, Nadine remains much of a mystery, but it was nice that she existed at all. 

All too often the story of someone with an accent that doesn’t sound American enough gets lost in the sauce, but not in Arnold’s grandfather’s boarding house. Immigrants Oskar Kokoshka and Mr. Hyunh made Arnold’s Hillwood cityscape that much more believable. Oskar, the con artist from Czechoslovakia, has a gambling problem and searches for the quickest scheme to get a buck. Vietnam native Mr. Hyunh, on the other hand, loses contact with his daughter after the Vietnam War and works at Mexican restaurant for cash. So much for the American Dream.