Meet the man responsible for our "White Privilege" problem: William Zabka

Maybe I don't want my tile grout white, Billy!

He played a loser living in a van who started dating Samantha Kinisky on a 1984 episode of Gimme a Break!

Even Nell Carter thought he was hot

R2 Any rumors about Nell and Bill?

Wow, to think Nell Carter was considered obese back then, compared to the fatso's now.

He even pissed off the trans community.

Look at that smug, feathered bastard!

I had the biggest crush on this guy, at an age when I didn't even begin to admit to myself that I was gay, or really know what that meant. I've been falling for good-looking arrogant assholes ever since!

This thread is hilarious.

My choice?

James. Fucking. Spader.

What about this little silver spoon?

What about the guys in Animal House who tried to take down the Deltas? Same prototype.

James Daughton as Greg Marmalard in Animal House

He is the quintessential 80's blonde jerk. Love it.

This is the best theory I've read in a while, OP.

According to Datalounge, he would be "white adjacent."

Slavic, you know.

Love this one too

And what about Hubie Pyatt? All the shit he got away with.

James Spader in “Pretty in Pink” is in the club too.

R18 DEFINITELY

New research findings are messing with my mind! How is this possible?!

The lead Kobra Kai is directly responsible for Trump?

What happened to William?

r16 Tommy from Valley Girl is the best dick! Also played an asshole in "Jackie Brown". "You didn't exactly set the world on fire, Jackie."

R18/R19 I wanted to fucking be Steff in PRETTY IN PINK. I wanted his laissez-faire.

“....you’re a bitch. (Beat). You know you ought to see a Doctor, ‘cause that condition of yours? Could get a lot worse....”

This thread is so stupidly hilarious, it's the perfect example of why I love this site.

Anyway, how can we forget BIFF?! He was an asshole in 4 different decade in 3 different centuries!

Why so they all have to be blonde?

I love it, R24! James Spader was so fucking hot in Pretty in Pink that he singlehandedly doomed me to a life of lusting after arrogant douchebags.

OP, time to take your Zyprexa.

Hell yeah. White male privilege!

Beautiful R29. But it doesn't let Zabka off the hook.

Looks like an early 80's Falcon pornstar

He is what Ellen DeGeneres aspires to be.

Love Williams leader. Martin Kove was

HOT

The film Fresh Horses, with arrogant douchebag Andrew McCarthy, is to blame.

Hold on, F. Scott and Zelda are to blame, now that I think about it.

Zabka and Macchio:

R35 I'd watch that!

I legit had no idea this was coming out.

Wait a minute, WHAT THE FUCK??? How was that ^ not the biggest news ever?

OMG!

R38 YES.

Hmmm.

If Macchio & Zavala both star in it, I wonder if we’ll see the Fuck Energy between them flare up again. The other week I watched the original KK rehearsal footage on YT again, and during the scene where Daniel & Johnny have a shoving match and a passionate argument in their school hallway it struck me that they had an obvious edge of sexual tension there.

I love it. They play the coaches. They need a hot cast of boys. Fight it out. Awesome.

“Hey Sensei, is there any particular way you want me to wash these windows?”

“Nah, I don’t give a shit.”

Via his Twitter Macchio is saying there’s a shocking Swerve in this new instalment that we won’t anticipate. “Not everything is as seem”, Daniel-san says a la Miyagi...

So do we think that Daniel & Johnny team up in this All-Valley, maybe co-train (r: parent) some cute new KK? Or have the roles reversed, with a darksided Daniel acting as the aggressor who misuses Karate and Johnny acting as the Miyagi? Is Kreese somehow involved in this? Will Terry Silver show up? (please, please yes!)

I’m stoked to find out what comes next but I don’t have (and don’t really wanna get) YouTube Red just to see it either. Why don’t we have a dedicated Cobra Kai thread yet?

^I think former archenemies Johnny and Daniel will both come out, team up and become life partners. Somewhere, Elizabeth Shue is crying.

R44 now that would be real progress. They would have to tongue onscreen for me to really accept it as canon, though - none of this pandering gaybaiting bullshit.

I would actually like to see La Shue cameo in this retraux, just not as a Mrs. Lawrence or Mrs. LaRusso. She’s cooler than that. She could even be another Sensei...

I am loving this! I will watch! What the phuck is YouTube Red though? Ugh. Another App?!

I am living for the Zabcchio friendship. They’ve been really close for the last decade, with all these cute little in-jokes. Adorable.

Everyone pictured here looks like the product of the Nazi breeding program that made the ABBA chick

I always confuse him with this guy. I never heard of Zabka until a few years ago.

“Zylka” & “Zabka” both sound like virus. Or lesser contemporaries of Dostoevsky.

Ralph is in his late 50s and still looks adorable.

Macchio is still really cute & youthful-looking, he can pass for a man in his mid-30s easily. His skin is divine, too (has he had great Botox or is it just the Italian diet?).

Only thing is that ‘old man’ hunched stance & posture but he always sort of had that, even at 21 (guess Karate doesn’t help that?) Same with his fidgety tics and hangdog way of talking. Low confidence?

R47 aw, the look of love. I find it so sweet that Macchio is this classic moviestar with global fame who’s worked with the greats yet still he seems in total awe of Zabka and his considerable charisma. Macchio has more or less taken a backseat to Zabka in all these convention panels they’ve been doing.

I wanna jump Billy too, and as a goldstar lesbian with no interest in men that’s saying something. It feels like a primal evolutionary attraction toward him, idk why. Maybe something in his genes is 👌👌?

From OP's pics, young Zabka really reminds me of young Vince Van Patten.

It's so funny to see Zabka being so nice and charming IRL. He was so good at playing assholes in so many of my childhood films I just have him ingrained in my brain that way.

Another 'White Privilege" poster child. How does Stephen get away with it?

R55 from the newest trailers it seems as if this 2018 Johnny Lawrence is a nice guy. Well, nicer than 2018 Daniel LaRusso.

^^They need to be fucking on the Tatamae by the Finale or I’m not watching.

Didn't he end up in gay porn?

He's hot - for a Boomer.

@60, well technically he's part of Generation X.

Hey, I belong in the douche club as well.

I met Zabka a couple of years ago at a horror movie convention. A really nice guy and shorter than I expected. When I first got there, he was outside taking a smoke, and I was kind of surprised that he smokes.

Audrey’s douchey bf in European Vacation

Once again, playing a douche in Back To School

A tribute

An example of white lady privilege is also from Pretty in pink. When they assign pages as punishment to the blonde girls who are tormenting Andi with an i, and they say "we'll take the pages." It's one of my favourite lines.

Needless to say, I hate that movie and I hate Molly Ringwald's whole deal in it.

Zabka also played the son of Robert McCall in "The Equalizer":

^^Edward Woodward & Zabka had excellent chemistry. The Con plot they were talking about in that episode would have made for an interesting dark drama, with Woodward as the suave effete genius and Zabka as his pretty & strapping sidekick.

Yep R16, Michael Bowen was one of the quintessential hot ‘80s blonde douchebags. In real life, he’s half brother to Robert and Keith Carradine (they all share the same mother). Here he is sporting some VPL in Johnny Depp’s second film, Private Resort, yet another role where he played a major jerk...

I loved to be bullied by him (zabka) then had to suck him before he left me alone for that day. Just picture that in a high school restroom during lunch while his friends are out side keeping watch for the teachers

Who opened R71’s password journal?

Zabka has published several books of poetry and has won a number of poetry awards.

He also was nominated for an Oscar for a short movie he directed/produced.

R73 I'm not surprised. Even though he was the face of bullying in film in the 1980's, there was always something vulnerable bubbling under the surface. I think he was actually brilliant to let himself be typecast during that period because it's like he was able to work out the complexities in this greater, complicated human character over the course of multiple movies.

He hones "asshole" to a finely tuned perfection but you never really feel a hate for these guys. He makes you believe the old adage that behind every bully is some amount of abuse or neglect. I can feel that in his characters.

I think I've developed a fetish for feathered/highly layered hair. It looks so fresh and vital yet trashy, at the same time.

R10: How does Ricky Schroder get white privilege but not Jason Bateman? The former has the German last name, the latter has a complexion closer to Hitler's.

[quote] loved to be bullied by him (zabka) then had to suck him before he left me alone for that day.

Lived the dream, honey.

R20, this is gaslighting ! Dont fall for it !

Cool about the new series. I'm curious to see what they do with it.

For a non blond poster boy for "white priviledge" try the rich, mean boyfriend in Some Kind of Wonderful. 1987. I think it was Craig Shaffer playing him.

^It was Craig

[quote] Zabka has published several books of poetry and has won a number of poetry awards.

Link please R73? I have scoured search engines for said poetry and cannot find it.

This is like my two twin interests - 80s prettyboy actors, and poetry - colliding into one supernova, so I really must read these.

Let me put my poems in you.

Whatever OP p, you’re projecting. Just like a certain grudgeholding Italian, if that isn’t a tautology.

^Daniel-san is a Big Mood

Elisabeth Shue being assaulted by the privileged volume of Zabka's intensely feathered, crisp bang!

Subliminal messaging?

Out of all the Sears backdrops, from lasers to gray sponging, they had to pick THIS one.

Please explain and expand, R85. I’m curious.

You're cute, R86.

While he may have started as the underdog, he cheated when he won. How is kicking someone in the face legal at that match?

Even back then, there were different rules for white guys.

R88 you’re a little confused hun😂😂 it was scrawny Italian kid played by Ralph Macchio who cheated. The character played by Zabka (Johnny Lawrence) fought fairly if brutally in the karate tournament final.

Johnny Lawrence was a victim of abuse, actually. He got verbally smacked around by his stepfather Sid at home while his mentor Kreese physically threatened and assaulted him on more than one occasion. The new KK series COBRA KAI deconstructs Johnny’s ‘privilege’ and shows that money and strength and looks and white skin couldn’t save him from going broke or becoming a drunk deadbeat depressive mess.

That same mentor was the one who threatened him with violence and expulsion if he didn’t win in that notorious match against Daniel. There’s a fan-theory that Johnny took the L (and the illegal kick to the face) in the ‘84 All-Valley final on purpose, because he was morally opposed to what Kreese asked him to do that night. The show COBRA KAI doesn’t support this theory, but it doesn’t debunk it either...

Speaking of ONE OF THE GUYS, this was my most rewound scene in the movie, when Greg gives a freshman a wedgie but he also (inadvertently) rubs his crotch against the freshman's ass. It was very hot for a gayling in a small town.

These nerds are a threat to our way of life.

Ted M is a whole other ball of wax r91...

God, I miss Jack...

Which is bullshit, because your white male is no more privileged than anyone else. I see black and asian and Latinos who make and earn every bit as much as white males, every single day.

If you want to make it you can, if you fail, there is a 99% chance you're a lazy entitled cunt. It's like every time I see an homosexual with AIDS, it's 99% his own fault, yet for some reason he will not accept that. He wants to blame everyone else for his choice to not use a simple thing like a condom. At least smokers accept the fact their lung cancer is the result of their own poor choice.

FEAR. Does not exist. In this dojo. DOES IT? NO SENSEI!!!

Bump the leg.

But, is his ass nicer than Ricky Schroeder's?

There is no such thing as white privilege!

Yeah but I'll lick both Ricky and zabka nipples all day long

He looks meh nowadays, OP.

Cobra Kai was good! Can’t wait for the new season. I think it starts over the summer?