Texas hasn’t gotten its due as a major piece in the complex puzzle of American art. We’re here to rectify that. Every two weeks, H. Drew Blackburn will conduct a thoroughly scientific analysis of the 254 essential (one for every county) books, movies, tv shows, albums, podcasts, songs, and magazine articles — you name it — that best exemplify the Texas spirit. These texts, products of immense talent, dig into the marrow of our being. When it’s all said and done and we’ve built The Texas Voyager collection, we’ll (figuratively) head to the Johnson Space Center in Houston and shoot it beyond the atmosphere, into the cosmos. A wise person once posed the question: “What if the aliens are hot?” Hold onto that hope — this is our chance to impress ‘em.
The success of Buzz Bissinger’s “Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream” can be measured by both traditional (a Pulitzer Prize) and non-traditional means: Did you know he has a Gucci addiction? Like, the spend-$600,000-in-two-years type of Gucci addiction? Bissinger’s got a New York Times bestselling book, and the sort of addiction I’d call a “good” one — the type where if you tell someone about it, they’re within their rights to roll their eyes. The thing is: Maybe he’s earned it. Bissinger’s iconic piece of creative non-fiction —which catapulted a mere journalist to the level of fame and wealth that fills a closet with Italian designer clothes — could officially join The Texas Voyager. Its inaugural entry, at that. So which “Friday Night Lights” is best: “Friday Night Lights,” “Friday Night Lights,” or “Friday Night Lights”?
The book, the movie, and the TV show are all great on their own merits, but the question here is, Which one best represents one of our state’s most famous pastime? Bissinger’s book, published in 1990, orbits the Permian High School football team’s 1988 season while focusing on five players and their head coach. What makes the book so special is how it dives into the culture that makes Texas high school football — and the Lone Star State in general — so dope (and troubling and terrible). It’s a combination of smooth prose and deft reporting. Bissinger sheds light on the history of Midland-Odessa, oil booms and busts in the region, class hierarchies, poverty, inequality, daddy issues, racism as well as the tension that comes with it, shattered dreams, and capital-P politics.
I’m going to rule the film from 2004, directed by Bissinger’s cousin Peter Berg, out of contention immediately. The film is proof that when you walk into a multiplex and shell out a car note for a bucket of popcorn and large Diet Coke, you’re engaging in a visual medium. Don’t get me wrong, the movie is solid. It saw some success at the box office, doubling its budget, and was well-received by critics and audiences. Berg’s interpretation is stylish in a tactical way, melodramatic but avoiding obsequiousness, masterful in its direction of sports action (something most directors fail at), and relatively faithful to the source text. The last point is the problem here. The film dabbles in the book’s topics, some more than others, but the whole conceit behind “Friday Night Lights” shoots in too many directions to serve a feature-length motion picture well. *Jadakiss voice* It’s good, but it’s not enough.
The television show (which Berg helped adapt) blends some of the best aspects of the book and movie, and adds a few layers that make it more interesting. We’re clued in on the creepy religiosity in high school football, how segregated towns are, and get acclimated with the pitfalls of Texas governance both on and off campus. Connie Britton and Brad Leland reprise roles similar to the ones they had in the film — as the head coach’s wife, Tami Taylor, and Buddy Garrity, a local businessman and booster-in-chief. In the film, these roles are forgettable (aside from Connie Britton’s hair, which looks fantastic). In the show, they are much more than stereotypes and caricatures. Taylor is a brilliant and dedicated woman who acts as the moral center and Garrity is a beacon of growth and redemption. By digging deep into the inner lives of the secondary and tertiary people in this football-obsessed world (also giving attention to the interior lives of women), the fictional people in the fictional West Texas town of Dillon feel all the more real. We get “Friday Night Lights,” but with some “Freaks and Geeks” sprinkled in there, Kendrick Lamar’s “Father Time,” and a family drama too. It was released in 2006 and moved outside of Odessa, then infused with commentary on the Bush era and America’s invasion of the Middle East, which takes the place of the roughneck’s plight, and it’s some of the best television we’ve had to date. “The Son,” the show’s greatest episode, sees one of the main characters bury his dad, which drives him to confront their strained relationship and ponder the man he wants to become. The episode earned “Friday Night Lights” its first Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series Emmy nomination (it lost to the season three finale of “Mad Men”, which, fair enough). On top of its status as one of television’s great dramas, it made lasting stars of Kyle Chandler, Connie Britton, Jesse Plemons and Michael B. Jordan.
The program’s only major flaws were that its melodrama did tend to veer into obsequiousness and also — how fucking old is Tim Riggins supposed to be? One episode he’s like 15 and the very next he’s a 19-year-old super senior. At points, I wonder if he’s maybe even 27? The writers obviously intended for him to be a senior at the start of the show and needed a way to keep him around because he was a fan favorite. But he didn’t brood and sulk like a teenager, he acted like a divorced dad. He was way too comfortable with alcohol, and knew that a cold beer can simply take the edge off rather than act as a tool for binge-drinking. The fact that an older single woman fully dates him and he becomes ingratiated with her family is disturbing, but the way he seamlessly becomes a family man is unteenagery. It’s the only awful thing the show has going for it. I’ll even ride for the season two murder subplot. The show did get a little too hopeful and saccharine, so I welcomed the off-the-rails dark-sidedness. Those are my only substantive critiques here, which is telling.
What this comes down to is which artistic medium, when done well, is best served to tell a dense story while sparing as few details as possible?
Bissinger’s reporting is remarkable. It may seem like he stumbled across a tragic figure like Boobie Miles, but great reporters stumble upon many remarkable things — they’re gold prospectors but for idiosyncratic people and secrets. Then they must somehow convince those characters to tell their story. A journalist from Philadelphia chose Odessa for a reason, and that’s why his book will always be a classic in its own right. Dillon, Texas doesn’t exist, but you’ve been there before. Been around the people who can’t seem to untether themselves from home no matter how badly they want to.
Small-town Texas isn’t full of goons and zombies all hopped up on Freedom Ale or whatever. Instead, it’s populated by real people with depth, empathy, and human flaws. You know the burnouts, the cheerleaders, the kids in the marching band (and the garage band too), the larger-than-life business owner, the artistic kid with dreams of something bigger, the awesome teacher you owe your life to. That’s made most clear by “Friday Night Lights,” the television show. Clear eyes, full hearts… well you know the rest.
(Editor’s note: This column was previously titled The Texas Canon. After learning that Chron has a similar series with the same title — which debuted first! — we’ve rebranded. We appreciate our friends at Chron bringing this issue to our attention, and we encourage readers to check out their column.)
