Freaks and Geeks

I don't give a damn 'bout my reputation
You're living in the past it's a new generation
A girl can do what she wants to do and that's
What I'm gonna do
An' I don't give a damn ' bout my bad reputation.

(Joan Jett, Bad Reputation - theme tune to Freaks and Geeks)

I’ve written about my adolescence in blogs before. Many of you have already heard the one about the navel-gazing teenager. For those of you who haven't read my back catalogue – shame on you! – I’ll summarise briefly.

I was a cliché of a schoolchild. A mess of contradictions, a tangle of torment; I was incredibly complex. I loved football, but had no sporting ability. I loved reading, but wasn’t a nerd. I could listen to girls, but not talk to them. I had an ear for comedy, but not a mouth for it. I wasn’t popular, nor unpopular. I didn’t mix with the ‘IT crowd’ or the ‘IT crowd;’ I simply blended into the crowd.

Despite sitting here bald-headed and baggy-eyed, I would not swap my life for a teenagers To my mind, Josh reversing his transformation in Big was a terrible mistake. I mean alongside getting paid to be creative he was having regular sex. Is there any better life than that? The paperboy world he returned to would be sad and depressing in comparison. That wild imagination would soon be tamed by educational drudgery. He probably became an accountant with a less springy sex life.

Idiot.

Because I’m naturally cynical towards ‘the best years of your life myth’, I appreciate TV shows that depict the reality of teen experience. I was never a fan of Skins when it came out. I don’t want to see popular kids with issues. In choosing a playground life of celebrity they made a pact with the devil; consequently they don't get my sympathy when things go belly-up. Anyway, humanising the ‘in crowd’ cheats me out of ignorant hate, which is why I never liked watching it. (In the age of Trump, who wants their prejudices challenged?)

Skins made problems look impossibly glamorous, but the best shows reveal the ugliness and brutality of adolescence. The Inbetweeners was for the most part a brilliant distillation of what being a teenager meant for most people. Most schoolchildren exist in an unhappy centre: there are a few at the top – the 1 percenters, who protect their popularity by locking it in a safe behind their sports day pictures; and there are a few at the bottom – the 1 percenters, who are perfectly happy in school so long as they have access to the board games cupboard. Most of us though were caught in an endless game of piggy in the middle where our opponents proved too tall, too athletic, to ever drop the popularity ball. 

By the third season though The Inbetweeners had run out of steam with gross out laughs replacing finely observed embarrassment. It lost its verisimilitude, becoming cartoonish and oafish; a shame because the early episodes are great.

Skins: hard to feel sorry for them.

A series I’ve been watching this week that surpasses The Inbetweeners is Freaks and Geeks. The fact that you might not be familiar with the show is because it’s something of a lost classic. When it was aired in the late 90’s it attracted a loyal following; this fan-base wasn’t enough for NBC though, who quickly pulled the show. It was only because of a public clamour that it was brought back to complete its run. With its awards and critical recognition it’s often cited as a show that was cancelled too soon. Like The Office and Fawlty Towers, the programme never lost its sparkle; with familiarity denied so too was contempt - it is therefore pretty much faultless.

Freaks and Geeks is different to The Inbetweeners: its scope is far more ambitious. For a start, it doesn’t just focus one group of teens, but two. Also, it has more emotional range: embarrassments are scored by sympathy as well as laughs. All in all, Freaks is a show that looks at the bruises behind the banter, a feat achieved with humour and sensitivity.

The first episode is indicative of the writer, Paul Feig’s aspiration to capture the range of people that inhabit teenland. Initially, the camera’s focus is on the American Football field where a coach barks instructions; it then pans up to the stand where a cheerleader seeks a four letter word from her four letter boyfriend; next, it sidles down to a surly band of gum-chewers; then pans to a trio of Bill Murray acolytes re-enacting his scenes; before ending on a gang of bullies. Within two minutes, we’re deftly introduced to the whole fabric of adolescence; a coterie of characters that will be our friends - and enemies - for the next eighteen episodes.

A jock and a cheerleader.

The two cliques that we spend most time with are the titular Freaks and Geeks. The Freaks aren’t the popular kids in school; they’re not the cheerleaders or American Football players; instead they’re the latecomers, the burnouts, the failures. They are going nowhere fast. Lindsay, a straight A student, is drawn to them. Within this motley crue, she finds an expression that is missing from her regimented life of competition and deadlines. Her father is not pleased. (You know who cut class? Jimi Hendrix. You know what happened to him? He died.) Lindsay doesn’t want to give up on her studies completely; she just wants to escape the pressure that comes with it. Her new surrogate family that consists of Ken, Nick and Daniel (Seth Rogen, Jason Segal, James Franco) seduce her into a world of light drugs and heavy tunes.

In the other corner is Lindsay’s younger brother Sam. His group of friends are much like mine. They are comedy nerds. On Sam’s door is a poster of that wild and crazy guy, Steve Martin; on Neal’s wall is a poster for Duck Soup; on Bill’s TV is the stand up of Larry Sanders. For the boys laughter is the be all and end all. If you don’t like The Jerk, then it doesn’t matter how beautiful you are you’ve become personas non grata. Comedy gives them the sense of humour to survive the ritual humiliations they are subjected to.  In today’s world of Sheldon Cooper's being a geek isn’t a big deal; in the 1980’s it was a kamikaze act of courage, only laughter could break your fall.

The Freaks and The Geeks.

Over the course of the season, Feig excavates the bravado of adolescence and finds its soul. The fact that he does this without resorting to Dawson’s Creek melodrama makes it an incredible achievement. Feig recognises that for the Geeks asking a girl to dance at prom is a valid plot-line; he doesn’t put young concerns in inverted speech marks and allow us to scoff; instead he recognises that a small step for some might be a giant leap for others. Feig himself documented his travails with love in his book, Superstud or How I became a 24 year-old virgin, and you sense his youthful timidity in the boys.

As for the Freaks he shows the cost of freedom. Yes, Lindsay loves their carpe diem lifestyle, but she learns that it’s at a cost to their future. As the series slides towards the end of school, the Freaks begin to question, ‘what next?’ It’s all very well driving through life at a breakneck speed but eventually you’re going to crash. The gang know reality will soon come hurtling into them, giving their escapades a tinge of sadness.

Freaks and Geeks is ultimately a show that celebrates teenagers, whilst denigrating the age they have to live through. It is a beautiful, bitter-sweet meditation on what it means to be young. I’ll happily watch it again-  just don’t make me live through it.

Freaks and Geeks is available on Netflix.