The cast of Freaks and Geeks.
I recently started watching the television show Freaks and Geeks on DVD. This show came out in 1999, but at that time I did not watch TV at all. During my junior year of high school, which is when the show aired, I was too busy talking on the phone and getting my chat on AOL instant messenger.About Freaks and Geeks
The show centers on a pair of siblings, Lindsay and Sam. Lindsay is a goody, goody, smart girl who begins to rebel against this stereotype by seeking acceptance from her new friends the “freaks.” Sam is a nerdy, little guy who desperately wishes that he were cooler so that he could win the affections of his beloved Cindy Sanders. The show’s creators brilliantly capture within these characters and their friends what it is like to be a teenager and the desire to fit in that comes with that time in life.
Lindsay vs Millie
Millie is Lindsay’s long time friend from the Mathletes, who is extremely religious, super studious, and never gets into trouble. As Lindsay begins to wander away from the straight and narrow path, the concerned Millie is always there to offer her unsolicited advice. Her character is overly exaggerated to make her look really, really, really prudish.
Lindsay on the hand is the classic story of good girl turned bad girl. It is clear that she has a conscience as she most always has reservations about the awful things that her freaky friends coax her into doing, but time after time Lindsay gives into their peer pressure and frequently suffers the consequences of her poor choices.
Although Millie is supposed to be a “good girl” and Lindsay is thought to be a “bad girl,” I think that each girl is both bad and good, just like the rest of us. Millie is good in the way that she strives to live morally and is often compassionate towards Lindsay when she gets into a mess, but bad because she takes her moralism to a very legalistic extreme and says some ugly, judgmental things. On the other hand, Lindsay is a bad girl since she gets into trouble and hangs out with deadbeats, yet she is good when she is kind and accepting towards all types of people.
Reflection
Like these girls on Freaks and Geeks, every person is both good and bad. Brennan Manning said it like this in his book The Ragamuffin Gospel, “When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games. Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer.”
If we are honest with ourselves, we would likely agree that we are the same in this regard.
I bet you guessed that the black and white photo is Millie, and the other is Lindsay.
Freaks & Geeks is made of win. I remember not wanting to see it for a long time because I thought it was going to be too much of a simplistic effort at subversion ("losers and nerds aren't as bad as you think they are! Did we just BLOW YOUR MIND?") but after I finally watched it I was in genuine appreciation of the way they accurately crystallized why so many of these people simply don't fit in. The show's Freaks are still most definitely burnouts & dead-enders and the Geeks are still terminally awkward, but every single character is most definitely a well-rounded, three-dimensional person. F&G only got better as the episodes progressed, and by the time I got to the last episode I was quite sad that I'd never be able to see what else was in store in this wonderful little world.
ReplyDeleteThen a couple years later I loaned the DVD set to my super-beautiful girlfriend, and the rest is history ;)
Aww. You made me smile. p.s. I love your words.
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