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kiri-cuts · 2 years ago

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A bid for Black Sabbath bravado in “Friday Night Lights”

Within the pilot episode of the masterful mid-’00s teen drama “Friday Night Lights,” we’re presented with two best friends. There’s the all-American, wholesome good boy, Jason Street (Scott Porter) -- the star quarterback of the Dillon Panthers, with little else but a bright future glistening in the crosshairs of his steely focus. And then, there’s his lifelong pal, Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch) -- a lovable party boy who turns up to practice with vodka on his breath, and who has seemingly accepted the inheritance of a dead-end future from his deadbeat dad. If Lux Lisbon would have survived “The Virgin Suicides” to have a kid with Trip Fontaine, it would have grown up to be Tim.

Set in the small town of Dillon, Texas, the two teens occupy vastly different corners of the pigskin pressure cooker within which they exist. Nice guys like Street do well a place like Dillon, and he has everything going for him -- incredible career prospects, a head cheerleader for a girlfriend, and the entire town’s adulation.

Meanwhile, Riggins is shown to be a reckless rogue, forgiven for his sins only because of how great he plays ‘ball -- and how much the ladies love him. You can see him souring between scenes and his burnout feels inevitable and overdue -- living with his brother amidst a blur of blondes and beer bottles, with nary an emotion in sight. While Street trains and studies and earns his place on the pitch, Riggins emerges with all the discipline of Iggy Pop on a stage full of broken glass -- raw and wounded, he takes whatever fire might fuel that inevitable burnout and pours it like kerosene onto the field.

At a Panther’s Party hosted at Garrity’s Automobile -- the hottest ticket in town, folks! -- Dillon’s mayor, Lucy Rodell, squares up to Street to tell him some home truths. “You’re a nice boy,” she tells him. “And you got great manners.” And while he’s politely Yes ma’am-ing it up in response, she cuts to the chase. “Knock it off. You can't go into the game tomorrow night like that,” she proclaims. “Carpet bomb 'em, you understand? ... Chew 'em up, spit 'em out.”

A closeted lesbian who clearly knows her way around unleashing a certain amount of repressed energy wherever she can, Rodell recommends that he listen to the early work of Black Sabbath, assuring him, “It’ll make you mean.” Boys can’t be soft and nice. Winners have to be mean and gristly. The survival of the town depends on this mentality: It chugs at a fountain of toxic masculinity and it lays waste to those who cannot swallow the broth and conform.

During an episode of the podcast, “It’s Not Only Football: ‘Friday Night Lights And Beyond,” Porter revealed that the sequence wasn’t scripted. But it certainly sets up the tone for the rest of the episode, if not the rest of the show. After all, it was Black Sabbath who performed, “Killing Yourself To Live” in 1973, with singer, Ozzy Osbourne -- a good boy who arguably had to make himself mean to survive -- singing, “How people look and people stare, well I don't think that I even care. You rot your life away and what do they give? You're only killing yourself to live.”

And while the song’s lyrics may be about the hollow nature of the music industry, the song could certainly apply to a small town community that rests all its hopes, fortunes, and futures on the score card of a teenage sports team -- no matter the cost.

That certainly feels true when Street becomes paralysed after experiencing a catastrophic spinal injury during a tackle on game night. The Rodell scene might have been played for laughs, but it lurches back into focus like a harsh foreshadowing: Was Street too nice? Too polite? If he would have been tougher, meaner, nastier, would his body have experienced the impact of another body differently? Would he have been protected by the dark arts of Black Sabbath?

Obviously, the answer is no. As Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) reaffirms to Street, his team, and just about anyone else who needs to hear it, the tragedy was blameless. Unfortunate but unavoidable. Life is cruel. Unpredictable. Much of “Friday Night Lights” pivots around this problem -- like a coach drawing up the strategy of an upcoming game, you have to decide how you’re going to play against the obstacles of being alive.

Alas, though apt, “Killing yourself to live” isn’t the mantra of the Dillon Panthers, but rather the searingly motivational, “Clear eyes, full heart, can’t lose.” Like much of the storytelling on “Friday Night Lights,” the team motto doesn’t just apply to football -- it’s also a sturdy life affirmation that just about anyone in need can scribble onto the desperation of their morning journals. It’s a statement that urges anyone who can pay attention to it to remain sweet and vulnerable in the face of adversity. You’ll be dealt tough tackles, the mantra insists, but don’t lose yourself in the pursuit to overcome them.

Ultimately, it’s a mantra that suggests that softness, sweetness, and niceness can also create winners -- but it’s all about strategy. It’s no good being soft, sweet, and nice if you don’t how to apply those qualities properly. Alas, the universe -- and other people -- are generally not so kind. Make yourself too pliable, and life will contort and reshape you into something you may not recognise -- or at the very least, may not want to recognise. As the show progresses, it becomes evident that much of “Friday Night Lights” also pivots around the “Can’t lose” aspect of that mantra. Say it isolated, without the eyes and the heart, and it sounds desperate -- almost deranged. For many of the male characters, their arcs in the show center around how they reckon with failure, tragedy, and defeat: What loss does to masculinity and how others perceive it.

For Street, it hardens him. But it’s earned.

During an appearance on “It’s Not Only Football,” the showrunner of “Friday Night Lights,” Jason Katims, revealed that in the development of the show, he was drawn to the idea of producing stories about marginalised people. “There were very few shows at the time -- or movies for that matter -- that really looked at real small town America [and that were] about people that weren’t privileged,” he explained. “Television, even the good television, was really about privilege.”

In the world of “Friday Night Lights,” all fortune is predicated on football. If you’re within the vicinity of the ball, then you wield a certain amount of privilege. Whether you’re a player, a coach, a financer, or a loved one of any of these people, then you probably have a little of power to leverage within Dillon. But that isn’t to say that this power is versatile or something that can be wielded within the real world. After all, it becomes quickly apparent that being a part of the game doesn’t protect any of these characters from the indignities of prejudice. Nor does it salvage against the sort of failure that becomes of a person who isn’t equipped with the same access to opportunities as those with more privilege.

With the exception of a sacred few well-to-do, able-bodied white folk in the show, “Friday Night Lights” is populated by characters who are weighed down by obstacles related to poverty, abuse, race, gender, addiction, homophobia, and disability. However, part of the show’s charm is how it centers on these characters not so much overcoming these obstacles, but rather rising above the prejudice and bullshit of it all so they can figure out how to live their lives on their own terms. Even if that means leaving small-town Dillon, Texas -- and the team -- in the process.

In the pilot episode, Street is presented as being perhaps the most privileged person in Dillon. His parents appear to be happily married and of a fair, stable income. He’s straight, able-bodied, athletically gifted, good looking -- and, impossibly, almost ridiculously humble about all of it. But with one injury, much of that changes. He’s forced to reckon with being paraplegic while watching his family’s savings and income be stripped to the bone due to medical expenses and rehabilitation.

He’s reconfigured by the community that once heralded him a hero, and he loses access to almost all the corners of the world and the people that meant anything to him: His game, his girlfriend, his best friend.

While Street reconfigures his idea of masculinity -- featuring some bold declarations about simply being a cripple who wants to listen to Nirvana, moooom -- and toughens up in the process, Riggins stops fighting his emotions, and softens up, instead. When Street becomes paralysed, something inside his best friend breaks open and for episode after episode, he lets life pulvarise him into a tender steak of emotional frailty -- and it’s rare that he ever gets a swing in, himself. It’s a far cry from the beer chugging emo-void of episode one. Regardless, although Street accepts a tougher interior, he nevertheless maintains his heart. He might speak up for himself more now, but his actions are rarely cruel or without merit.

The character arcs of “Friday Night Lights” lean against this same principle again and again -- the people who prevail aren’t necessarily the ones who give in to the impulse to strike back and be spiteful or seek vengeance. But rather, its those who allow themselves to be vulnerable -- who take the hits without striking back and who rise above, soft and strong. Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.

But there’s someone who can put this far better than I ever could. At the end of the pilot episode, Coach Taylor makes a rousing speech to his wounded team. They’ve just watched their friend and teammate be carried off the field, his parents and girlfriend screaming from the rafters. Pushing their feelings aside, they were forced to continue the game and not lose sight of the goal.

“Life is so very fragile. We are all vulnerable. And we will all, at some point in our lives ... fall. We will all fall,” he tells them. “We must carry this in our hearts, that what we have is special. That it can be taken from us, and that when it is taken from us, we will be tested ... It is these times, it is this pain, that allows us to look inside ourselves.”

Crucially, “Friday Night Lights” hangs its cap upon the stern fist pumps of this speech. It’s a sentiment that offers the reminder that nothing is owed, and everything is earned. Mayor Rodell had it wrong when she encouraged Street to get mean and obliterate the opposition. What the show suggests is that the only path to true success and accord is to leave yourself open to being the one to get chewed up and spat out by life, not the other way around. The victory can be found in however you emerge from the other side. It takes courage to be vulnerable -- and to be vulnerable requires a period of transformation. Even Black Sabbath dropped their meanness and bat-snacking to reckon with heartbreak via a piano-ballad, “Changes” -- “The world had its evil way. My heart was blinded, love went astray.” Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose, boys.

#friday night lights #jason street #tim riggins #scott porter #taylor kitsch #clear eyes full hearts can't lose #tv #tv essays #essays

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