I don't mention it often, but I'm a huge TV fan - not reality TV (gross), but the great "prestige television" that started around the late 90s and has continued to the present day. However, I don't write about it much, in part because I almost never watch it when it's actually on TV. I watch it on DVD, sometimes years after the series ends. I actually watched Friday Night Lights relatively contemporaneously to its air date, but since I was sick for two weeks, I had the opportunity to re-watch the entire series from beginning to end (which confirmed my belief that this is, by FAR, the best way to watch great TV shows).
Bottom line, it blew me away. It's one of my favorite series of all time and if you haven't watched it from the pilot to the finale, do yourself the favor. I've been meaning to write about it, but I almost have too much to say, if that makes sense. But then I happened upon this piece by Amanda Marcotte - who I almost always agree with - and I so vehemently and viscerally disagreed with her analysis that I had to organize my thoughts as to why.
Marcotte opens by disagreeing with the notion that Coach and Tammy are feminist role models; however, this is Marcotte's entry into the post, but not really it's point. The point - and what really, REALLY bothered me - was this:
Now, I'm only 2/3 the way through the last season, but I can say with confidence that much of the show has been about disillusioning Eric Taylor when it comes to his belief that hard work and clean living is all you need.
Given that Marcotte's piece is entitled "Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can Lose," this is the real point of the piece. For Marcotte "Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose" equals "hard work and clean living is all you need." She continues:
As much respect as the show has for Eric, let's face it. Much of the show has been about the limits of his philosophy. He isn't even able to keep Tim Riggins out of jail, and Riggins was a layabout but basically a good kid.
This analysis just goes on and on, each new word deepening my conviction that we watched completely different shows.
It's difficult to know where to start because Marcotte's interpretation of "Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose" is flawed at every juncture.
First off: "Clear Eyes, Full Hearts" does not equate to hard work and clean living. I'm not sure how she makes that leap, but my best guess is that for Marcotte "clear eyes" refers to "clean living" (I guess because blurry eyes is the mark of hard living?) And then "full hearts" is the hard work part? I think you'd be hard-pressed to find much textual support for this interpretation (find me Coach Taylor telling anyone that all that is required is hard work and clean living).
I would argue - adopting a fairly literal interpretation - that "Clear Eyes" means knowing and accepting the truth. That can seem trite and easy to gloss over, but there's almost nothing harder than knowing and accepting hard truths about yourself, about others, about reality. For example, almost the entire town refuses to accept Jason Street will never walk again (the significant exceptions being Coach, Tim Riggins, Tyra Colette and Jason himself). Tyra later identifies Jason Street's injury as the key turning point in her life because, at that moment, she knows and accepts that life is not fair for anyone, which takes away her excuse to fail:
Tyra (angry): What should I write [my college essay] about? My trashy family? About the fact that my sister's a stripper? Or my mom is a high school drop out who drinks boxes of wine like it's water? Or about the fact that I lost my virginity when I was thirteen, or the fact that my papa wasn't around? How about that? Oh, I know. I could write about how up until two years ago I had enough hate in my heart to start a freaking car.
[pause]
Landry: What changed?
Tyra: What?
Landry: What changed? Why did you stop having enough hate in your heart to start a freaking car?
Tyra: Jason Street got paralyzed....
I realized that he was this great guy - this hero, and it happened to him.
It made me realize that life isn't fair for anybody. Not just me.
Marcotte's notion that Coach thinks that all that is required to succeed is "hard work and clean living," is simply false. Jason Street, of course, is the paradigm of "hard work and clean living" and he's paralyzed. In the pilot. And Coach is never deluded about Jason's injury, in fact, this is his reaction:
Give all of us gathered here tonight the strength to remember that life is so very fragile. We are all vulnerable. And we will all at some point in our lives fall.... We will all fall.
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…
We will be tested to our very souls.
We will now all be tested.
It is these times, it is this pain that allows us to look inside ourselves.
This is not someone who thinks "hard work and clean living" will magically result in desired outcomes. It's someone who recognizes those outcomes are out of our control and that our happiness and well-being, to be enduring, must depend on something internal and independent from the contingencies of life.
And, of course, "Full Hearts" is not merely about good intentions. It's about character and integrity. It's about relationships to friends and family. And it's about living with love and joy. It follows that the point of "Can't Lose" obviously isn't that you literally can't lose a football game - or be paralyzed for fuck's sake - the point is that if you truly have "Clear Eyes" and a "Full Heart," you've already won. The point is: the outcome was never the point. Football - like life - isn't really about the outcome. That's the meaning of "Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose."
In the film Friday Night Lights - also written by the TV show's creator Peter Berg - the fact that it's not really about winning is made explicit:
Mike Winchell: You ever feel cursed, Coach? Like, no matter what, inside your heart you feel that you're gonna lose. Like something's hanging over you, following you like a witch or a demon that just... I feel like that all the time. Even when things are going good. When we're winnin', it's there. And when we're losin', it's there.
Coach Gary Gaines: It took me a long time to realize that, uh, there ain't much difference between winnin' and losin', except for how the outside world treats you. But inside you, it's about all the same. It really is. Fact of the matter is, I believe that, uh, our only curses are the ones that are self-imposed. You know what I'm sayin'? We, all of us, dig our own holes.
In the film, Coach repeatedly asks his players: "Can you be perfect?" Of course, literally, no one can be perfect - just as literally everyone will lose. But the meaning is explained in the final half-time speech, a speech that is clearly the origin of the aphorism that anchors the TV show:
Well it's real simple: You got two more quarters and that's it.
Now most of you have been playin' this game for ten years. And you got two more quarters and after that most of you will never play this game again as long as you live. Now, ya'll have known me for awhile, and for a long time now you've been hearin' me talk about being perfect.
Well I want you to understand somethin'. To me, being perfect is not about that scoreboard out there. It's not about winning. It's about you and your relationship to yourself and your family and your friends.
Being perfect is about being able to look your friends in the eye and know that you didn't let them down, because you told them the truth. And that truth is that you did everything that you could. There wasn't one more thing that you could've done.
Can you live in that moment, as best you can, with clear eyes and love in your heart? With joy in your heart?
If you can do that gentlemen, then you're perfect.
I want you to take a moment. And I want you to look each other in the eyes. I want you to put each other in your hearts forever, because forever's about to happen here in just a few minutes.
I want you to close your eyes, and I want you to think about Boobie Miles, who is your brother. And he would die to be out there on that field with you tonight. And I want you to put that in your hearts.
Boys, my heart is full. My heart's full.
How someone can read an all-you-need-is-hard-work, magical-thinking philosophy into that... well, as I said, we watched different shows.
Coach Taylor: When I first met you, you were climbing out of a police car. People said you were a punk and you'd never last on the field.
Vince: Screw that.I work hard for everything.
Coach Taylor: I know that and you oughta be proud of that. I am. Your teammates are proud of you. It's about character. It's about striving to be better than everybody else.
Vince: Coach, my dad just got out of prison. He's staying with me at my house. And I can't stand him. My mom she asked me to forgive him, to be better. And you're asking me to be better. I don't know how to be better because he never taught me how! He never taught me to be better! He's not around. And I'm supposed to be better!?
Coach Taylor: Listen to me. I said you need to strive to be better than everyone else. I didn't say you needed to be better than everyone else. But you gotta try. That's what character is. It's in the trying.
Far from being the shallow, borderline magical philosophy Marcotte attributes to Coach, "Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, CAN'T LOSE" almost couldn't be more profound. It is the thesis - first articulated by Heraclitus - that "character is destiny." It is not - as Marcotte claims - a philosophy that denies the existence of tragedy; it is a philosophy that consciously defies - and ultimately transcends - tragedy.
0 comments:
Post a Comment