I know my total obsession with Friday Night Lights is tiresome. I know it borders on obsessive and that makes it, if not me, kooky. Foolish. Misguided. A wing nut. But words and books and movies and sometimes even television can inspire compulsive, overwrought emotion in me. Something is exposed in such a way that makes me go: I know! I've been there! I feel that way too! Or...I never thought of it that way! Or simply...those words are beautiful. Those sentiments worth remembering.
And while I don't expect this from my pop culture diet, it sometimes happens. And Friday Night Lights is that, for me. So it was with great relief that I had a conversation with Christina W last night, an old college acquaintance, and very close friend of my sister-in-law, about our shared obsession. Her eyes lit up, like mine, in our shared and urgent passion for the show, the characters, the town of Dillon, the Panthers and Lions, the Taylors as a couple. And, of course, Riggins. Ahhhh, Riggins.
I know, it seems kind of pathetic. But I'll take my inspiration where I can get it, even a TV show that has had trouble staying on the air over the last 5 seasons. These flawed characters that try their best and often fail are a rarity in any kind of media. How often do you see the star of the football team barely get into college, go for a few weeks and then drop out before finishing a single semester? No, we like our stars to be just that ... Stars. And stay that way once their talent gets recognized. We may like underdogs but once that underdog gets over, we want him to stay there. We don't want him spending the rest of his life as a bar back in a shitty town with too many kids, an enlarged liver and not enough money. But that shit happens. And still, he might be a good guy despite his misery and hardship. It's real! It's gritty. Oh the sheer heart of it.
After the standard tour of duty recounting the characters - Tyra, Tim, Matt, Landry - we landed on the coach's wife. Our admiration for Tami Taylor figures most prominently in our obsession. I mean, the woman is never wrong. Her husband even admits she's never wrong. AND, she's beautiful, smart, honest. She loves her children - her real ones and those she councils in school - without restraint. She supports her husband while remaining an individual. She's a feminist...in Texas! She always has a glass of chardonnay close by, she doesn't appear to get Botox but still looks super hot. Oh, and did I mention, her husband often says: "You were right. I was wrong. I ahhh-pah-logize." (Texan for "I'm sorry, baby.") And she never holds a grudge. This woman is a saint.
My girl Christina even keeps a book of "Things I need to remember that Connie Britton (aka Tami Taylor) says." (Maybe she was joking? Oh well, I took her seriously, such is my compulsion.) I need to do this. If I'd had half Tami's patience and equanimity, I might still be married. Though my husband wasn't Eric Taylor, so perhaps not.
Rather than recount all of Tami's witticisms, sage moments and downright clairvoyance, I will simply recount her best moment last night. After being offered an opportunity as the Dean of Admissions at a college in Philadelphia, after enduring years (well, 2 seasons) as a guidance counselor/high school principal in a single stoplight town (read: shit hole), and following her husband all over creation in his pursuit of high school football greatness, she wants to accept this offer. Eric is none too pleased. "We live in Texas," he says. "I coach the Lions." Dick. (I still love him, he just loses perspective sometimes, but as a 'maker of men' I forgive him).
When he is offered the sole remaining football coaching job in town, after the School Board combines the two teams, and he is to resume his post at the Panthers, the very team that canned him a few seasons back, Tami simply says: "And now, I'm going to say to you, the thing that you haven't had the grace to say to me. Congratulations." And she means it too. I can tell. But then she walks away. She doesn't yell. She doesn't cry or throw a tantrum. She is hurt, yes. And she quietly makes her point without losing any credibility by being hysterical.
Is this possible in real life when emotions run high and there is no script provided? Hard to say. I've not been very good at it. I aim to do better when I get another chance.
(And by the way, this article from a few weeks back in the NYT which compares FNL to Glee, is the best assessment of why this damn show is so damn good.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/05/magazine/how-football-players-got-trounced-by-glee.html?pagewanted=1
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