So I am now watching Freaks and Geeks. I'll maybe do a longer post on it later, but for now, in relation to My So-Called Life, which we discussed a while back, I still stand by my previous assertion: by the terms discussed, MSCL does it better. To wit, it is a more accurate portrayal of teenage life from the actual teenage perspective, which is the particular valuable thing I think MSCL provided (and, again, I doubt F&G would have been possible w/o it). For all the accuracy of certain high school relationships/types in F&G, it's undeniably shaped from an adult's analytical perspective, whereas MSCL's impact centetered firmly on the immediacy of the experience, the particular inability to see the bigger picture that's one of the hallmarks of adolescence. It seems obvious to me, even on a superficial level: F&G takes place 19 years in the past, whereas MSCL took place in the present day. The former is a show of reminiscence, the latter of the feeling of being inside the storm; the former centering on I-know-better-now embarassment, the latter on this-matters-so-much hyperdrama.

It's hard to tell which one I like more, especially given the nostalgia factor associated with each (the actual memories of viewing MSCL while it was on the air in my own teenhood v. F&G's referencing of things from my youth) but I am certainly enjoying F&G a lot, so don't take this as necessarily a criticism of the show; I just think it's trying to do something different from MSCL, speaking to a different audience in a different way. Although the F&G commentaries rub me the wrong way; they're muddled and in-jokey and have an annoyingly elevated regard for themselves. I remember something in the 101 commentary to the effect of "See how we don't use much music? It's not like those WB teen dramas that use current pop songs all the time." Yeah, because WB teen dramas and current pop songs both suck balls.
posted by Mike B. at 10:51 AM 0 comments