****Note: This post first appeared on April 16, 2011 over at my other blog Righteous Venting. But due to its timeliness, and my continuing passion for the material, I felt it was exactly the right way in which to launch this new endeavor, which aims to celebrate those tv series and films gracing our screens which have defied the odds by being both entertainment and -- gasp! -- art. To do this kind of work, that magical melding of art and entertainment, is exactly what inspired me to leave New York and move to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a screenwriter and director.
If you measure success by employment, then I was successful for well over a decade. But in the all-too-cliche battle to tell and sell stories that "mattered," that were more than mere forgettable, disposable, albeit profitable, distractions, I was increasingly being defeated. Screw me and the naive horse I rode in on, I suppose. But I'd left New York with dreams of being an artist, not a "success," much to my parents' chagrin. (Although "successful artist" is a mantle I would have worn proudly.) And after countless soul-killing, mind-numbing meetings with people who clearly were not interested in "art," I rode out on my now exhausted, beaten, cynical, pissed-off and depressed horse and headed back to NY, but only getting as far as the midwest, where I now continue to write scripts and consult and have found sanity through blogging. And just when I've given up hope that good work can be done on television and in film, I see something revelatory. Something that reminds me why I descended into the hell of L.A. in the first place. Something that makes me say -- Damn, I wish I'd written that. So if you need an example of what I'm talking about... read on....
This one has to be quick before my husband/parents/kids come looking for me (after a brief yet interesting stay at my in-laws' house in NJ -- more on that soon -- I'm now ensconced in my parents' home just outside NYC) and discover I'm typing away at my laptop, when I'm supposed to be "resting" (aka letting life pass me by) because I still can't quite shake this bronchitis thing.
So I got out of bed at like 1:30 pm today after Nyquil put me into a coma, plus I'm just plain ol' exhausted from this sickness kicking my ass, and felt utterly panicked. Where has the day gone? Instead of luxuriating in the knowledge that I actually got a decent night's sleep, I worried that I had missed something important. And that's when the queasiness kicked in...and it wasn't the amoxicillin I'd just downed with some tea and matzah. It was the feeling of impending loss, and worse -- the feeling that I somehow had been guilty of obliviousness about this impending loss until it was all right up in my grill. As I searched my mental hard drive for the origin of this feeling, the grief began to wash over me -- because
Friday Night Lights are about to be turned off forever. After doing its final DirecTV run, this past Friday it began its concluding season on NBC. And frankly, I guess I'm just not ready for the game to end, or, to screw the football metaphor, I really don't want to say goodbye.
Not just because it's such a damn good -- nay, outfuckinstanding -- show, but because it represents a humongous victory... a rich, complex, intelligent, insightful, subtle and nuanced tv show that, like its scrappy characters, found a way to survive against tremendous odds. A show that managed to say so much about what it is to be human, what it is to be American, without standing on a soap box and preaching down to anyone.
Here's the thing -- you may not have watched this show because you assumed, fairly, that it's about "football," and, again fairly, you might not like football. But do you like America? Do you like being human in the 21st century (okay -- even if you don't, you're probably pretty invested in that concept, nonetheless)? Do you care about witnessing one of the greatest portraits of American life ever to be done in any artistic medium? Because if you do, then you should be watching
Friday Night Lights. And not on NBC. You should go back and rent the DVDs and start at the very beginning. (Although if you're too lazy to get the DVDs, then by all means -- watch on NBC, and start right away.)
FNL is about an America that many of us live in (I don't; but see that's why my watching it is even more important, dare I say... essential), but few ever see, let alone discuss. It's not the America everybody else scorns, mocks or hates -- unapologetically greedy, selfish, self-important, entitled, superficial, and immoral, where Real Housewives display their fake boobs and inflated lips. It's not about the side of America that sometimes makes us hate ourselves, or at the very least, feel ashamed -- come on, lets admit it. Sometimes the most conspicuous parts of our culture are disgusting.
This is about the small, quiet places that make up the majority of our country, not the louder, flashier coasts and larger cities that somehow, misguidedly and inaccurately, represent WHO WE ARE as a nation and as a people. This small dusty town with rusting cars and double-wide trailers is also home to a nobility and triumph of the human spirit. And if you thinking I'm being hyperbolic or maudlin, then clearly you haven't watched FNL.
Frankly, as one who worked in television for years (and yes, I will address that after I've returned from my spring fakation road trip and kicked this lung infection...), I marvel that a show like this ever got made. It took brains, heart and seriously brazen cajones for Creator and Executive Producer Peter Berg and his cohorts (among them Brian Grazer and David Nevins) to dare to try, and for network executives to actually air it. It took faith in a system that really doesn't deserve much faith. I never read H.G. Bissinger's non-fiction book on which it's based, so I can't speak to how faithful the series is to its source material. But I do know that in 2002,
Sports Illustrated named
Friday Night Lights the fourth-greatest book ever written about sports. However, I can guess that, at the very least, the book was inspirational and gave Berg and his associates a framework with which they could tell stories that went far beyond the football field and which spoke to so many facets of American life. Let me rephrase that -- so many facets of CONTEMPORARY LIFE. Period.
Part of this show's brilliance is just how "real" it all feels. Like a documentary where you're unaware of the camera. Weirder still -- in an age of reality television (which, given all the contrivances and editing, is really an oxymoron) -- it seems more "real" than these so-called unscripted shows. Its truths seem so basic, so evident, so humbling in their insightfulness. After all the other shit that passes for entertainment these days, somehow watching FNL feels redemptive and cleansing. I hesitate to say it, but.. it's fucking ENLIGHTENING.
Without over-sentimentalizing it, FNL reminds us of the things most important in this life. It resets our perspectives and priorities. Informs us that getting a decent education is both a fundamental right and yet still an enormous challenge, and not just for people in Africa or the Middle East -- but right here in this country. That putting food on the table is more important, and more pervasive a problem, than eating that food at the right table in the right trendy restaurant while wearing the right shoes. That friendship can be a saving grace. That integrity is always worth holding on to, and never goes out of style. That keeping a family together is a brutally difficult task, but well worth the effort. And that family also comes in many, often surprising, guises.
The characters on FNL are young, old, black, white, fat, thin, wrinkled and often (because I don't know all the intimate details of some of their undeniably attractive actresses, but I'm just judging by appearances here...) with real breasts, and beyond three-dimensional. You will fall in love with them. You will cry for them. You will pray for them. You will wish they lived next door to you. And most of all, you will be humbled by their struggles to forge their own paths and stick to their values -- core so-called American values that many of us have forgotten. And I don't mean "Christian" values, though most of the shows' characters are in fact church-going.
So where does football fit into this, you're probably wondering? It is the communal glue, a uniting force fueled by tradition and a belief that traditions matter. And that the concept of tradition is often more important than the tradition itself. It's a metaphor -- you don't have to love sports to understand the idea of a team effort. Of unique and wildly different individuals working together, fighting together, sometimes failing and recovering together, in the pursuit of a common goal. So yeah, there's a football team -- which for many of the young characters is the only shot they have of making it out of their fictional town of Dillon, Texas, and of raising themselves up. But it's also where they learn the value of hard work, of pushing one's self to one's limit, of asking the best of yourself and not letting others down, of living up to your responsibilities and the rewards that come with commitment.
And the people who come to watch these games? They're not rabid fans living vicariously. They're the brothers, sisters, parents, friends, neighbors of these "players"... uniting in support of a group of kids with the odds against them. Because in watching these kids play, they're watching the best that humanity has to offer. They're watching hope for the future. No, they're not curing cancer, but maybe because they learned some lessons about life, and themselves, on the gridiron, they might grow up to be that doctor, lawyer, astronaut, president of the united states, etc....
I must admit that writing about one of the most well-written shows on television is a daunting task. They make the most of every word..., and every silence. The writers, directors, producers and actors of FNL understand that the most profound aspects of our existence can often be best illustrated by the simplest of lines, the most seemingly mundane, even trivial, moments. Would it be absurdly over-the-top for me to suggest that the world would be a better place if there were more shows like
Friday Night Lights? Well, I don't give a damn, because that's pretty much what I'm saying. Would it be equally absurd for me to say that FNL gives me hope for the future? Not because the characters are real, though they easily could be. But because the writers and everyone else involved in the show believed in these characters and invested them with all their talent and their passion, instead of doing lesser, easier work like so many others in the entertainment industry. And people watched it. Not nearly enough of them, but damn it, there were enough of us out there who recognized something extraordinary, though it cloaked itself in the modest trappings of the ordinary.
In order to create a better world, we have to do more than dream it. We have to believe in that dream... and fight for it. Relentlessly. Unwaveringly. And often without a thought to the sobering statistical chances of achieving that dream. And for five seasons now, the team behind FNL have continued to do just that. To fight for an artistic vision they felt was important, that had something to say to all of us and about all of us. And against unfavorable odds. (And if you don't believe the odds against them were enormous... just check out the majority of disposable, cheaply produced crap on television these days...because THAT is what's selling, and sadly, that is what people are watching, thus creating a vicious cycle of shitty supply and ludicrous, tasteless, willing-to-settle-for-less demand).
When the artists give up, we are lost -- as a people, as a nation, as a species. Peter Berg and his team were as single-minded in their pursuit of a victory as the players on the fictional football teams they depicted. I would end this post with an inspirational quote from Kyle Chandler's character, Coach Eric Taylor, but choosing just one, after nearly five eloquent seasons, seems an impossible challenge. So I'm going to end this post with a challenge of my own: give this show a chance. Even if you hate football. Look at it as an act of faith. If you took the time to read all this, then chances are you're inquisitive, intelligent and/or adventurous enough to pick up the gauntlet, or perhaps you're already a fan of the show, and are simply sharing my sorrow at the passing of something lovely and amazing. Either way, you've got nothing to lose, except maybe the forty-something minutes you might've wasted instead on Snookie, The Situation, or a housewife who is not only far from real, but denigrates the term for all the underappreciated women who bust their asses to raise children and manage a home. In other words, it's a win-win. And even if you're not a fan of football, or any sport for that matter, you gotta admit those are some damn favorable odds.
(
Amendment: So this morning, my husband got around to reading the post and the one thing that struck him is, perhaps not surprisingly, the same thing that was eating at me after I'd published it. And that is my neglect in giving well-deserved praise to the actors, as well as the producers and casting people who bestowed the opportunity upon these people to use their incredible talents to fully inhabit and bring to life such breathtakingly drawn characters. Yes, I did say breathtaking. And no, I'm not overdoing it. Again, if you watched FNL, you'd know I'm not exaggerating. This cast was beyond outstanding. They made those well-drawn portraits into people who will continue to live in our memories with the same vividness as those we knew and loved in our everyday lives. And now, we will mourn their loss. Admittedly, it will be hard to see them move on to other roles, and sadly, it is unlikely many of them will find roles whose quality even comes close to the work they did on this series. But we wish them every success. They damn well deserve it.)
