Friday Night Lights Movie
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Friday Night Lights Movie, My wife and I just finished the first season of Friday Night Lights (the television show, not the movie). The show is a teen drama that follows the ups and downs of the fictional town of Dillon and its obsession with its football team, the Dillon Panthers. Dillon’s fictional locale is somewhere in west-central Texas, about four hours from Austin. I started off the series somewhat reluctantly, knowing I would end up mad and disappointed with politically correct plots, but I have been pleasantly surprised. It is available on DVD, BitTorrent, and also via Netflix’s instant streaming service.
A few observations:
1. Overall, it seems to be a fairly accurate portrayal of the heart of Red State Texas and its high school football obsession. As an anthropological study, it is hard to beat.
2. The producer is Peter Berg, a New Yorker who apparently has a first cousin who lives in a small Texas town and became fascinated with the football cult. Not sure of Berg’s ethnicity, but the show is remarkable in its realistic portrayal of the Christian culture that still permeates rural Texas. The show does not exhibit the typical Jewish producer’s allergy to all things Christian unless it involves taking the name of Christ in vain. FNL is so enjoyable because it portrays our people as they are, not as caricatures. In addition, the sets are dead-on perfect. The houses, the furniture, the settings are all genuine Texas small town.
3. The best positive of the show is the portrayal of the head coach’s relationship with his wife. Their relationship is warm, supportive, and highly sexual. It’s unusual these days to have a mainstream television show portray heterosexual marriage in a positive way. The coach character in particular is stand-out, the epitome of a principled white male who does the right thing and doesn’t back down from adversity.
4. The first season covered at least four politically incorrect plot elements:
(a) A new black quarterback, a Katrina refugee, comes to the town, recruited by local boosters. Once on the team, he acts like a total thug, but the coach displaces the white quarterback to give it to the black, who seems to have more natural talent. During the game, the black player’s ego gets in the way of winning, the coach realizes the error of his ways and pulls the black out of the game and puts in his humble, team-player white quarterback. The Panthers go on to win the game and the Katrina refugee eventually leaves town to play for another school (and re-appears in full thug form as the Panthers’ opposition quarterback in the season finale state championship game).