Freaks and Geeks.

I borrowed Freaks and Geeks from Chris yesterday and finished the entire 18 episode series around 4:30 today. It was on in 99-00, set in 1980 Detroit Suburb, and supposed to be about "High School for the rest of us."
Freaks and Geeks failed. It was a great show with some awesome characters and good writing. However, it didn’t accurately display high school, at least as I knew it, because it couldn’t. At times, it got very close. However, it was doomed to start. High School is a case where art cannot capture life.
The problem with talking about high school, especially through art, is that art cannot talk about monotony and continuity and routine. Art is wonderful at telling stories and portraying events. High School, however, is not defined by the events, the things done once. High School doesn’t suck because of the Saturday nights when you do things. It sucks because of the nights when you sit at home doing nothing. It’s not the one time you got beat up that sucks. It’s the next time you think you saw anyone that witnessed it – or worse, the guy who beat you up. High School doesn’t suck because of the time a girl brushed you off. It sucks because for the next four years, every time you see that girl you will be carrying that rejection around with you.
We so often see depictions of the classic scenes of high school – prom, Friday night football, parties, failing a test. None of that captures high school. Of course I struggled to find a date to prom. It was tough to ask a girl out. But it was also hard for me to walk up to a girl and talk to her on a Tuesday between fourth and fifth period. I went to a lot of football and basketball games, but I was on the wrestling team, and that was what mattered. No one gave a shit about the wrestling team, but they still knew I was on it and that we sucked and I still got crap for that. And so the awfulness that was being on a crappy wrestling team cannot be summed up by one match, by one practice, by one boring ride home where no one could celebrate. Wrestling was summed up by spending two hours a day for 3 months a year losing, and everyone knowing that I was losing, no one caring that much about it, but me feeling really bad.
Failing a test sucks, but it isn’t the worst thing. The worst thing is getting 6 B- ‘s when you know you can get A’s. The worst thing is that you aren’t allowed to feel bad about B’s because you know that somewhere there is a kid that is getting C’s and D’s that would kill to get your 83, but you go home and your parents are wondering why you didn’t get a 95, and they tell you that you are grounded and so you can’t talk to your friends and so you, once again, are home on Saturday Night not doing anything. Then, the fact that six other people said they didn’t really do anything on Saturday Night doesn’t help you feel better, because somewhere someone is telling a story about something really fun that they did, and you know that you could have been doing something fun.
The problem with boring life is that it makes for an even more boring story. TV is not about people, it is about characters. And all characters have to do something. All characters have to get a girl, even if she was born with a penis and no one else likes her. Even if he is a burnout who ends up playing dungeons and dragons. The Geeks still do stuff. I didn’t. I did nothing in High School. I never could have played D&D – I was way too self conscious. And so you stay home. You don’t think your friends are cool so you don’t really hang out with them and you stay home and watch tv shows about people who do things, and think about the girl that you want to walk from fourth to fifth period with, and all the homework you didn’t do, and you start to feel bad about yourself. And then on Sunday you go to church and people tell you how much they love you and you tell people how much you love them, except you really don’t so you feel bad, but Jesus loves you, so maybe it’s all better. If only you could talk to that girl.