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Aw, the 90’s. Such a great time. I was a young kid growing into teenage years and I remember everything being fun, colorful and energetic. The fashion was bright, the hair was big, candy was good and cheap, the toys were awesome, technology was evolving and Thursday and Friday night TV were Black magic. I used to get the VCR ready to record all of my favs: The Cosby Show, Living Single, Family Matters, In Living Color and Martin.

As a young child, Martin and Gina were serious relationship goals for me. They were young, had cool jobs, and they seemed to have fun with each other. Despite being at different points in their careers, and having a meddling mother-in-law and dumb, but well-meaning, friends, they made it work. Even after a fight, no matter what happened they always found their way back to each other. When I was young I thought Martin was hilarious, and even now when I catch reruns I laugh like it’s my first time watching. But through the eyes of a 30-something-year-old, I no longer see the couple as “goals.” Martin was actually a verbally abusive, immature jerk, and Gina could have done a lot better. Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look back, shall we?

Martin was loud, childish, and misogynistic — traits that started the majority of the couple’s fights. He constantly let Momma Payne disrespect Gina. And while the insults like “apple head” and “muscle butt” were funny, a man should never allow his mom to disrespect his woman like that, or disrespect her like that himself. If you remember, Gina’s parents didn’t like Martin at all, but Gina always stood by Martin’s side and never let her parents disrespect him. Shanaynay constantly came for Gina and Martin never checked her. It seemed like he only reserved his slick talk for those in his life that cared for him, i.e Gina and his friends. He threw Gina out of the house numerous times. He would get mad and tell everyone to “get to steppin,” which often included his loyal girlfriend. But he had no problem entertaining other women like Monica (played by Kim Fields), who worked as Martin’s radio co-host for a short while, and Ms. Trinidad (Martin’s third-grade teacher played by Beverly Johnson). When Gina walked in on Ms. Trinidad in Martin’s apartment and accused him of cheating and broke up with him, his response was “If I knew I was going to get in trouble I would have gotten some.” Nice. That’s a mature mindset every woman wants her man to have.

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Martin was insecure about Gina making more money than him so he would act out in hyper-masculine ways only Martin could. When Gina would try to better him, however, he would cry and say that she was trying to “change him.” Essentially, he wanted Gina to dim her light to make his shine brighter. How supportive. When Gina was offered a job in New York and told Martin about it, what did he do? He took advice from Stan, his sleazy, womanizing boss who told him Gina was just trying to trap him into marrying her, and told his longtime lady to take the position. After seeing her boxes packed, Martin thinks Gina is taking her game too far so he gets on one knee and says ”Damn Gina, you win. You schemed and plotted and ‘clank clank,’ you finally got me. Will you marry me, Gina, damn.” That’s the proposal you give to your girlfriend after all she’s done for you? She’s an executive for an advertising firm and you work at a radio station and your ego is so inflated that you feel like she would pretend to move to New York to get you to marry her? Boy bye. Let’s not forget when the pressures of life got to be too much for Martin he joined a cult and became brother Shaquille Sunflower instead of talking it through with his woman (right before they were supposed to get married). But Gina, being loyal to a fault, stayed by his side, sought him out, and brought him back home.

There are so many more troubling examples I could give: embarrassing Gina on the radio, forgetting to buy anniversary gifts, taking money out of their joint account to buy a TV (though Gina messed up there too). Martin thinking he had a son, listening to his coddling ass momma saying Gina was trying to kill him for insurance money, taking off his wedding ring to flirt with other women and losing it, flirting with a producer’s wife (played by Kenya Moore) right in front of Gina…you get the point. I won’t even get into all the insults rooted in colorism that Martin constantly hurled at Pam.

As a whole, Martin and all of the characters on the show were definitely funny. And I’m not gonna lie, I’m going to continue to watch the reruns, but let’s just let the show be that, a funny show. Stop looking at the main characters as relationship goals because they simply aren’t. They were exaggerations of everyday relationship prototypes that, played out in real life, wouldn’t be very funny at all. So the next time someone says they want a love that Martin and Gina I hope you cut your eyes at them as hard as I will. Remind them that yes, the show was funny and is a Black cultural gem but for real for real, Gina settled and Martin was the ultimate f-ckboy.

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