What about Bill?
Harry Brighouse at Crooked Timber writes about Freaks and Geeks, which he claims (maybe correctly) was "the best thing on American TV in the past 20 years or so". It's at least an arguable position, and the more blog posts that keep the flame alive, the better.
Anyway, to add to add to Jake Kasdan and Harry's comments about whether the geeks "win one" when Sam gets to date Cindy, I think Harry is right that we come out feeling happy for Sam discovering that being a geek isn't so bad. But unfortunately I thought the transformation of the clueless but genuinely un-snobbish Cindy into the shallow bitch Reaganite girlfriend who deigns to date a "nice guy" was the most inconsistent part of the show. The point wasn't that Sam should have been contemptuous of her; he was just wrong to want her as a girlfriend. In a way, they both made the same mistake. She erred by dumping her own (actually pretty nice) basketball-playing boyfriend and he erred by wanting to run with a crowd whose values and activities he wasn't comfortable with. Isn't that the real lesson of achieving maturity -- that social constructs become less important at defining us and everything we do (freaks, geeks, cool kids, losers) but that we still choose to be around the people who make us happiest?
Anyway, the better part of the show to me was that the real "winner" among the geeks -- the guy who doesn't screw up like Sam and Neil -- is Bill. Bill "wins" in the conventional sense -- he gets to make out with Vicky, who turns out to like it. And he prevails against the bully, Alan, in the coolest/sweetest scene I've ever seen on TV. But Bill, unlike Sam, does it by knowing his place and liking it. He is a geek, and while he doesn't think he deserves to be bullied or looked down on for it, he doesn't think the solution is to be something other than he is, but to convince others to understand and care for him. That's maybe better than life usually is like, but it's sure the sort of smart, empowering message you rarely get from TV.
Anyway, to add to add to Jake Kasdan and Harry's comments about whether the geeks "win one" when Sam gets to date Cindy, I think Harry is right that we come out feeling happy for Sam discovering that being a geek isn't so bad. But unfortunately I thought the transformation of the clueless but genuinely un-snobbish Cindy into the shallow bitch Reaganite girlfriend who deigns to date a "nice guy" was the most inconsistent part of the show. The point wasn't that Sam should have been contemptuous of her; he was just wrong to want her as a girlfriend. In a way, they both made the same mistake. She erred by dumping her own (actually pretty nice) basketball-playing boyfriend and he erred by wanting to run with a crowd whose values and activities he wasn't comfortable with. Isn't that the real lesson of achieving maturity -- that social constructs become less important at defining us and everything we do (freaks, geeks, cool kids, losers) but that we still choose to be around the people who make us happiest?
Anyway, the better part of the show to me was that the real "winner" among the geeks -- the guy who doesn't screw up like Sam and Neil -- is Bill. Bill "wins" in the conventional sense -- he gets to make out with Vicky, who turns out to like it. And he prevails against the bully, Alan, in the coolest/sweetest scene I've ever seen on TV. But Bill, unlike Sam, does it by knowing his place and liking it. He is a geek, and while he doesn't think he deserves to be bullied or looked down on for it, he doesn't think the solution is to be something other than he is, but to convince others to understand and care for him. That's maybe better than life usually is like, but it's sure the sort of smart, empowering message you rarely get from TV.
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