mixed feelings about television shows
So, i was watching NBC’s new Friday Night Lights the other day, and it stirred some conflicting opinions in me.
For those of you who have not watched the series, or seen the movie, or read the book (which is excellent, btw), FNL is about a town in Texas that revolves around it’s high school football team. the starters on the team are like celebrities, they get free food, women, and whatever else they want. The downside is that the pressure on them to win a state championship is enormous. The coach, in all incarnations, is an apparently level headed guy who feels the pressure and usually makes the right decision, except for several times in which he sells out his individual players to kow-tow (sp?) to the greater good of the team.
the particular scene i took issue with was after a tough loss and the star halfback criticizing the coach on TV, he wakes them all up at 3AM and makes them run windsprints in what appeared to be a drainage sewer until they realized that being a team was important and all left, except for the fullback, who had to walk home in the rain because he had left practice earlier the week (he thought it was his fault his best friend broke his back).
so… i have some problems with this. in the book there was a good deal of time taken to point out how the emphasis placed on football above everything else was unhealthy for the students, and while the movie didn’t go to those lengths, it made it pretty clear that some of the players were happier when football was over. If the TV show becomes more about “how will the coach motiviate his players?”, i feel like the message gets skewed a bit. at least for me. but i dunno. i was never sports oriented (my parents were fairly forceful about that), so i don’t always see the benefit of hazing or group suffering. even when my improv group would demean us as new members, i bristled at it. so maybe the rest of the audience is learning a valuable lesson about how important team is, and how to motivate a group, and i’m just sitting there thinking: “what kind of parent lets their 17 year old kid out of the house at midnight on a school night to go work out with his football coach?”.
what do we think?
superkb wrote:
I disagree. I think last week’s show was more about how Coach Taylor (I heart him) needs to teach his team a little respect. Aside from it being midnight when the team was called out for wind sprints, I found the scene to be “some what” realistic for a high school that holds sports at such a high level of importance.
However, I do have issues with the cheerleader beating up the best friend and then falling into a makeout. It’s just absurd.
Posted on 23-Oct-06 at 9:09 am | Permalink
manlio wrote:
I wasn’t saying that it was unrealistic, only that showing that part as a “triumphant” moment seems to support the idea that hazing at all hours for high school students is productive, which i don’t believe is something we as a society should be encouraging.
Posted on 23-Oct-06 at 10:21 am | Permalink
superkb wrote:
hmm, you’re right. i didn’t read that properly. i started to think “that’s not what i got from it” and then went on to something else entirely, like / \ / \.
Posted on 23-Oct-06 at 11:37 am | Permalink
manlio wrote:
I should note, for everyone else’s comprehension, that /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ means “making out” in the lexicon that karen, myself, and a few others share.
Posted on 23-Oct-06 at 5:03 pm | Permalink
alex wrote:
I will have to respectufully disagree. I don’t think that was hazing at all. The best example of hazing I can think of is the whole fraternity process – having to endure torment in order to be accepted and ultimatley, torment others.
What Coach Taylor was doing was coaching and I think his “You think that just because you get free pie when you walk into the diner, you’re a champion…” speech really summed it up well. These kids have an unbelievable sense of entitlement because of the unifrom they wear, not for their accomplishments, which in a big way disrespects the game. That was no secret to anyone. Once Smash Williams publicly declared his sentiments it reflected very poorly on Coach Taylor and his program in general. In that light I don’t think “hazing” is an appropriate term. He was teaching the kids respect for the game and themselves. Clearly the loss was a huge deal in the town and the season is at somewhat of a crossroads so he needed to kick the coaching into overdrive if he wanted to make an impression on these guys and turn things around.
Also, I think hazing can often imply “potential for harm” to the people involved. In this case, there was none. It was hard and some of them puked, etc… but its nothing they shouldn’t be able to do.
I think Taylor was just using the Midnight Sprints to remind everyone of what they’re actually capable of, not just what they “feel like” doing. While everyone could probably benefit from a proverbial Midnight Sprint every once in a while, selfish high school students might be the most ripe for it.
Posted on 24-Oct-06 at 8:24 am | Permalink
manlio wrote:
well, i definitely don’t agree that there was no potential for harm for the kids involved. they’re doing sprints up a hill in the rain across a sewer/swamp. all it takes is for one of them to slip and fall down in the water and get trampled and it’s game over. and it’s midnight. on a school night. what about the potential harm to their classes/concentration the next day?
Have you ever seen “Coach Carter”? That for me is an example of teaching kids respect (and promoting academic integrity, very little of which has been mentioned so far in FNL except for the QB having to drop pre-cal in order to potentially play second string to the new kid from NO) for the game and themselves, without making the sport (basketball in this case) their only priority in life. haven’t seen that yet with FNL. still seems like it’s promoting the idea that it’s ok to live football and ignore other concerns.
Posted on 24-Oct-06 at 10:31 am | Permalink
superkb wrote:
Just to carry this on a bit longer… isn’t a major theme of the show (and the movie and the book) that these kids are not growing up in a well balanced environment? Academics are far from the forefront of anyone’s agenda (except for maybe Coach Taylor’s wife).
Maybe I should go do something other than watch TV tonight?
Posted on 24-Oct-06 at 6:00 pm | Permalink
manlio wrote:
yes! it was! and my point is, when you’re playing the midnight sprint scene as a triumphant homage to team and spirit, i think you’re encouraging that imbalance, which i find troubling.
Posted on 24-Oct-06 at 6:29 pm | Permalink
neilhell wrote:
To clarify terms:
Hazing is more a practice of higher status peers exerting pressure on lower status peers inside a social group (sports team, frat, book club) as a form of initiation. The idea is that the frosh or whatever goes through various kinds of abuse, and cognitively, it brings him or her to the opinion that if he/she is willing to go through such abuse, it must be for a really good reason, usually how awesome the organization is. That’s why it’s called ‘hazing,’ because the abuse creates a haze of appeal to beloningness and comradery with fellow abusees, and, typically, instills a desire to give it back to the next lower status fucks that come along.
What the coach is doing here is more like the abuse or “training” doled out to members of a military unit, where they find team cohesion through undergoing mutual strain. Since the commands are coming from above, not from a high status peer but an authority, the kids can band together to play as a team on the field, or shoot people with impunity.
so, for this community, where their home life is imbalanced, you’re at least giving them the balance of “The Team” to provide a stabilitzing influence (not too different from what Army recruiters do so succesfully in middle-lower income areas) Maybe the school’s math and english teachers should take the kids from their homes and make them do short essays and quadratic equations in the middle of the woods, just to cover all the bases.
Posted on 25-Oct-06 at 8:09 am | Permalink