That’s it, Meghan. What the Sopranos accomplished with tight thematic scripts and the Wire accomplished with a Shakespearean plot, FNL pulls off with moody music and some interesting camera work. It’s not that these shows transform brutal realities into beauty. They just make them bearable by packaging them in some coherent aesthetic way that calls attention to itself. And the result is very moving.
The inside of Tim Riggins’ house, for example, is a place that should never be shown on television. It’s a total mess, and not in an artsy Urban Outfitter’s catalogue kind of way. There’s that bent-up picture of a bikini beer girl by the television and yesterday’s dishes and napkins on every surface and nothing in the refrigerator except beer. This is a very depressing state of affairs for a high school kid if you stop to think about it. But whenever we’re in there, the camera jerks around from couch to stool to kitchen, in perfect harmony with the chaos around it. So it all feels comfortable and we experience it just the way Riggins would—another day in a moody life.
I think part of the reason Peter Berg doesn’t see these characters from such a distance is that he seems deeply sympathetic to their outlook on life, particularly their ideas about the traditional roles of men and women. The men are always being put through tests of their own manhood and decency. The boys have Coach, but hardly any of them has an actual father, so they are pushed into manhood on their own. Almost all of them have to be head of a household before their time, with interesting results. Matt is decent but can’t fill the shoes. Riggins is noble but erratic. Smash is dutiful but explosive.
Emily, that insight you had about Tami is so interesting, and it made me see the whole show differently. At first I thought Peter Berg must love women, because they drive all the action and make all the good decisions. Then, after what you said, I realized that for the most part, the women exist only to support the men. They are wives or girlfriends or mothers but don’t have many independent relationships outside their own families. Judd Apatow’s women are a little like this, too. It’s a male-centric view, and helps explain why a Hollywood director would be so in tune with the mores of a small conservative town.
It’s also why this season could get interesting. As the principal, Tami is stretching the show in all kinds of ways. Buddy has shed his vulnerability and is back to being the town bully. Coach is stuck in the middle. All kinds of potential for drama.
