The Act of Becoming, Freaks and Geeks
I wish I could say “I remember when” about Freaks and Geeks‘ debut 10 years ago today, but I can’t. I was too young, only 12, and the show’s 80’s high school nostalgia was completely irrelevant to me. So a 10-year anniversary doesn’t necessarily “take me back.” It doesn’t make me feel old. But just knowing it’s here does make me think about Bill Haverchuck, in his huge glasses, reminiscing over last night’s episode of Dallas. And it makes me want to watch through the series again, relive it–and maybe even a little bit of my childhood, too, while I’m at it. Check out the great video essay retrospective posted below from The L Magazine.
It’s an interesting nostalgia looking at your life through TV. Scenes become these ballpark feelings, the way you remember yourself in the summer, no summer in particular, just summers that aren’t here anymore; characters become moods; camera grain the fog of memory. But when you get into high school shows, really, the pickin’s are pretty slim. Beside your crappy 90201s or whatever, Saved by the Bells, the only other serious high school series I can think of is My So-Called Life. I was too young for that too–my school wasn’t all ripped jeans and flannel, either–but there’s an honesty to both of these shows that’s flat-out universal. These great dynamics, these “taking on the world” mentalities and over-conscious melodramas.
I keep thinking of Brian Krakow riding his bike outside in My So-Called Life, trailing Claire Danes down the street and trying to stop her from going to a party that night, trying to save her. “You’re smarter than this!” he tells her, stopping hard in front of her. He’s quiet and content, not the type to feel he has to break his own rules to grow up. But she’s not, at least not anymore. And he knows that no matter how nice he is to her, she’s never going to be with him, especially if she takes this next step and goes to this party, becomes one of “those” kids.
High school was the worst but that’s where you spent most of your time, constantly around people, forced to deal and eventually make memories. And that’s gotta be why these shows are so compelling, because they’re so close and also so far away. They nail it, but you don’t really remember why. They conjure up the convoluted, the act of becoming something else, of becoming. And even if you were one of those kids–like me–who tried to defy the culture and cliches, be the anti-stereotype, looking back, you realize that you were one anyway. There wasn’t a soul in that place that didn’t truly know that they were “smarter than this.”
This entry was posted on Friday, September 25th, 2009 at 4:30 pm and is filed under television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
