“HAAAAAAAY PRORFESSOR OGLEVEE!”
These are the words everyone who checked out 1999’s hit black sitcom, The Parkers will always remember and never forget. Mo’Nique’s iconic character, Nikki Parker, was the epitome of comedy and managed to stay dressed in style and class as she executed chasing off every one of Professor Oglevee’s often stickler and stuck-up girlfriends, told off every man or woman who came for her baby girl, Kimberly Ann, or defending herself or her best friend Andell. Starring Mo’Nique, someone I looked up to lot as a child, I drew myself to this show instantly. After seeing her in Phat Girls, I saw her as such a role model; as I was never skinny throughout my entire life. So seeing her chase down Professor Oglevee (I really wonder how the actual actor reacted to all of that lol) to watching her pretend to be a trainer and massage Shaq’s butt-cheeks were highlights of my time watching that show, up until the final season, where something rubbed me the wrong way…
There is something so amusing and wholesome about Nikki Parker. She is smart, funny, stylish, charismatic, an awesome mother, cares deeply about all the people she is around daily, and is admired by every man that comes across her path—that is every man except Stanley Wayne Oglevee, a professor at Santa Monica Community College—who actively goes out of his way to belittle, demean and devalue the wonderful woman she is as much as he can. He seems to be more of a nutcase than she is, because he only chased after Nikki when she no longer wanted him, and he attempts to sabotage every encounter she has with a man (Kenny who was really digging her, and then later her fiancé Johnnie.)
verbal abuse and rejections galore
Anyone who has watched The Parkers knows that a big punchline in the show is Nikki’s para-social relationship with the professor. I seemed to be the only one looking forward to the professor confessing his long-concealed love for her through a span of… let’s say two or three good episodes. But did we get that? Now, why do you think we would? 🙃
Seasons 1-3 were full of psychotic and almost obsessive behavior from Nikki toward the professor. We discover that she has keys to his apartment, has a lock of his hair, has moved apartments just to be above his, threw a party for his failed relationship with his long time on and off girlfriend Veronica, and has even set up camp outside his window complete with food, music, outfits (incase it gets chilly) and binoculars That’s…not understandable, because the professor is straight up abusive and talked to her like she wasn’t the beautiful, intelligent blessing that she was. He didn’t see an ounce of beauty in her, and even when Kenny, his high school friend approached her, the professor only pursued her out of jealousy, not actual “love” like he claimed. The whole episode, titled “Crazy Love”, pretty much needs to be thrown in the trash, because it was nothing but a waste of my time, emotions and heart flutters. Up to the very last episode of season 5, there was nothing revealing to the audience that the professor was having a change of heart. In fact, I was hoping he realized he was nothing but a stuck-up jerk-face and left Nikki alone, because he was not anywhere near her league.
“God, that man loves me!”
Of course, it takes two to tangle.
Nikki is persistent, unnecessarily obnoxious (she seemed to lose all sense of pride and dignity when the professor came around)…the most embarrassing encounter I can think of was in season 5, episode 2 titled “Squatter’s Rights” where the professor lost all his inherited money from his deceased uncle, and went broke. This whole episode, he treated Nikki like a piece of…you know what, and Nikki surprised me by saying to Andell when she questioned her decision for letting the professor talk to her in such a disrespectful manner: “Girl, this is my dream, he’s just getting a little testy right now. He’s just stressed.” (paraphrase). I wonder what Nikki saw in him to put up with such borderline abusive and manipulative behavior from him…because he honestly wasn’t that cute.
“…Not tonight.”
At the end of season 3, the professor and Nikki have a one night stand, which to me was totally pointless and should have stayed in the drafts. Besides, the professor used it as another excuse to ostracize the beautiful Ms. Parker anyway. But for her, she believed it was one step closer to her being his wife. I was utterly confused at the amount of wasted energy this woman has toward this man.
“i’m in love with nikki parker” (for real this time: the season finale)
This episode (Season 5, titled “At Last”) confused me more than the other ones. Yes, it was 4 am and I was practically delirious, but I expected there to be some kind of revelation from the professor the entire episode, not just the moments before Nikki gets married to that fine Johnnie. Now, the way the professor came about with all his feelings is simply comedic. He is sitting alone, smoking a cigar in his apartment, talking about how “great” his life will be without Nikki. Then his mirror starts talking to him, and he starts mentioning all these (most likely unbeknownst him and especially to the audience and watchers) feelings, memories, thoughts and “surpressed” emotions that he has toward Nikki. I mean, that’s cute and all, but it would be better to see some build up, rather than everything thing seeming to pop up out of thin air. To me, I feel like everything on this episode was jumbled together, rushed, and only for shock entertainment. (But what would I know, I’m a writer and I get very emotionally attached to the things I watch/read/listen to.)
And let’s not get started on how Nikki took him back without hesitation after his measly words last minute…(see this for more info…shaking my head…)
atlthough highly comedic, i’ll have to vote it a no…
A no for Nikki trading in Johnnie willingly for a man that treated her like trash for 5 years, and decided to swoop in and propose with no real physical change at the last minute. A no for Stanley’s gut-wrenching insults: psycho, coco puff (although funny), nutcase to name a few, and him taking five seasons and 22 episodes to compliment Nikki somewhat properly “smart, funny, loving to a fault…”), and to the priest getting the professor’s middle name WRONG (it’s Wayne not Devote), just…no to the whole thing. In fact, let’s just throw it all in the trash, burn it, scrap it, shred it, forget it. It was an embarrassing to watch Nikki simp so hard for a man who was nothing near her level. He was arrogant, judgmental, did not judge himself properly at all–the professor was just all around a hot mess.
Mo’Nique hasn’t commented on her role of Nikki Parker and I haven’t (nor do I really want to) see anything on Dorien Wilson’s thoughts on playing the professor, but I did happen to run across this tweet on Twitter (paraphrased because I did not receive the author’s permission to share):
“I don’t know why Nikki Parker settled for that joke of a man, the professor. He was waaaay out of her league.”
And I see NO lie.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright © Shanedogs 2021. All Rights Reserved.
Shanedra Writes Too Much 