Preview

friday night lights

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
829 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
friday night lights
Friday Night Lights Media Criticism

If you were to ask a random person on the street to name five aspects that represent America the sport of football would undoubtedly come up more times than not. The sport of football is so engrained in our society that over 113 million Americans watched the championship game also known as the Super Bowl this past year3. After discovering how rooted this game is in American society it is no surprise that Football serves as the focal point of one of the most popular shows on T.V., “Friday Night Lights.” “Friday Night Lights” is staged in the quaint town of Dillion, Texas, and features a plot centered around the players of the town’s football team as they progress throughout the season. The show encompasses an ample amount of positive messages conveyed to the viewer as the characters develop throughout the seasons. Although during the show a great number of positive messages are portrayed to the viewer, “Friday Night Lights” still has one major fault in the way that it depicts minorities. Even though “Friday Night Lights” undoubtedly possesses some flaws, the amazing writing, acting, and all around good heartedness of the show make up for that and than some, making “Friday Night Lights” one of the best dramas in recent years.

Being viewed as one of the paramount shows in recent T.V. history with great shows like “Breaking Bad” and “Mad Men” to be compared to is quite a title to receive1. Even though countless other shows on television are incredible in there own right, “Friday Night Lights” retains one aspect that other shows do not, relatable. I have never been a man working at an advertising firm in the fifties nor a cancer ridden meth dealer, and no matter how hard I try I am most likely never going to be able to relate to what characters in the vast majority of T.V. are experiencing. “Friday Night Lights” offers a unique quality in its very realistic depiction of situations most teenagers, or people who have been

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    A recent cover of the September issue of The Newyorker depicts an enticing image all about scandalous football. The image details a football player running from the police and winning. The picture pertains to the recent actions of domestic violence and all around poor behavior demonstrated by NFL football players. More specifically the illustration depicts the current episodes of Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson, who both performed acts of domestic violence towards loved ones. These events caused a ruckus throughout media and inspired the artist of the cover, Barry Blitt, to create a message to his audience about the NFL.…

    • 893 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Friday Night Lights

    • 1004 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Marcus Dupree and his record breaking high school career was a stud running back from Philadelphia, Mississippi. Recruiters and coaches were hunting the 230 pound running back throughout his whole high school career. In 1982 he committed to the University of Oklahoma where he would be featured as the next best thing, not only collegiately but professionally as well. That all changed during his sophomore year at the University he suffered a horrifying knee injury, which led to him being known as the best that never was.…

    • 1004 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Book Review: Friday Night Lights takes place in 1998 when H.G. Bissinger a journalist decided to follow a football team in Texas. He finally chose Permian High which has a population of over 90,000 people. H.G. Bissinger soon finds out that football for the Panthers wasn’t ordinary. Football was life for the players, and reasonably so, they had won the past five state championships in a row. In my mind Friday Night Lights focuses on three major keys. It shows the dreams of the players, they pressure the athletes had with the community and their family, and also the commitment from the school. In the book, you notice how some dreams had been crushed, the player that shows it the most it Booby Miles, a running back who was set to have an outstanding…

    • 324 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mean Girls

    • 932 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Mean Girls, a 2004 American teen comedy film directed by Mark Waters, with the screenplay written by Tina Fey, describes how female high school social cliques operate and the effect they can have on girls. The two main characters in this movie, Cady Heron and Regina George, may have a world of differences between them, but they are also very much alike. They are alike in the way they deal with situations, but unalike in the way they handle the consequences of those actions. Throughout the movie, it will become evident that Cady is the better person both morally and physically.…

    • 932 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The film Friday Night Lights (2004) is based on the real-life story of the 1988 Permian Panthers football team in Odessa, Texas. The film is a more fictionalized account of the book it’s based on, written by author H.G. Bissinger and downplays the more intense issues that plagued Odessa when Bissinger followed the team during the 1988 season. (Briley 1) The film follows Coach Gary Gaines (portrayed by Billy Bob Thornton) as he coaches the Panthers in the football obsessed town. The film portrays the societal pressures put on young athletes, especially in a town where one sport seems to be the dominating past-time. All that matters is football; academics are barely even mentioned. No matter where these athletes go, they can’t escape the pressures…

    • 1139 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Peter Berg’s Friday Night Lights – Story of a Town, a Team and their Dreams!…

    • 401 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the film Remember the Titans, a small town in Alexandria, Virginia integrates its schools in the 1970s. Challenges arose including academics, hope, and racism, but the the football team united the town and revived their innocence because the townspeople had something to hope for and put all of their energies into. The weekly football games were also a place to forget about all of life’s problems and believe that light will shine through. When attending these football games, all problems seemed to have disappeared. Many southern towns create a lifestyle revolving around high school football that revives hope, and hides all of the town’s dirty secrets. H.G. Bissinger followed up in the blue collar, Protestant, republican town of Odessa, Texas…

    • 262 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Friday Night Lights Themes

    • 1370 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Football is life in the south, whether they are the players or just fans, many people put their whole physical and mental being into the game. Friday Night Lights tells the realistic story of the Odessa Permian High School Panthers football team through the 1988 football season. The book Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger exposes the truth about life in a town that is not just home to football fanatics but also home to racist and economically challenged people. In the movie Friday Night Lights, Peter Burg (the director), tells us a story of a team and a town that is hungry for the state title and does not touch on the problems of race, gender, education, and other important themes that Bissenger writes about. “Those lights become an addiction…

    • 1370 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Friday Night Lights Movie

    • 369 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Parent involvement. How much is too much? What do you think of the relationship between Billingsley and his dad?…

    • 369 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Racism was alive and well during 1988 in Texas and is expressed through many different ways in the story stretching from the jerseys they wear, all the way to where they grow up. In this story, the team wears the colors of white and black, two of the most opposite colors, representing the diversity that is between the white and non-white people of Odessa. They struggled bitterly with racial discrimination, so much so that in 1982 it was placed under a federal court order to effectuate the desegregation both promised and denied nearly thirty years earlier. Although these troubling issues at the intersection of race, law, and sport dominated the 1988 Permian football team's season and inspired a Pulitzer Prize winning author's investigative chronicle, Friday Night Lights, to tell the tale of that team radically de-radicalizes the story (Duru, Jeremy). Of the three high schools in Odessa, one was 90 percent minority based and the other two were 90 plus percent white based. Black players are accepted on “white” teams like Permian because, after desegregation, schools without the talent of black athletes simply could no longer compete. As long as players like Boobie miles perform as they are expected to, they reap the benefits of being a football star. If something should affect their performance like an injury, they become expendable (Duru, Jeremy). Senior Brian Chaves, only Hispanic player and stellar student…

    • 1295 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ray Rice Criminology

    • 804 Words
    • 4 Pages

    If anything defines the culture of the United States, it is American Football. This spectator sport is extremely popular and the NFL has recently been making a name for itself in terms of players of a different race, sexual orientation, and class. But there is a particular dark side that the NFL tries to sweep under the rug. NFL players are rarely punished for what they do outside the stadium, unless the incident is widely publicized or circulated. Recently, a video surfaced of Ray Rice and Janay Palmer surfaced showing the NFL star dragging his fianceé from a Revel Casino elevator.…

    • 804 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Mean Girls

    • 2577 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Mean Girls, written by Tina Fey and directed by Mark Waters, takes its viewers through high school from the perspective of Cady Heron, a young girl who never known what “high school” genuinely meant. Upon arrival, she makes friends with Janis and Damian, who were in the stereotypical “unpopular” crowd. They warn her to stay away from “The Plastics”, an exclusive clique that includes three drama-filled girls who are superficial, spiteful, and have vicious attitudes that obtain their power and fame from beauty and glamour. However, “The Plastics” ask Cady to join them. Cady, Janis, and Damian together plot against the leader of The Plastics, Regina George, the most monstrous of them all. In reality, the more time Cady spends with The Plastics, the more she starts to actually become one. The Plastics themselves show how monstrous qualities are formed in celebrity culture, while the use of Cady is the perfect example of how culture builds up celebrities to break them back down. The Plastics took Cady, someone who was naïve and candid, and turned her into something she is not through the manipulation of their own standards and rules. Celebrity culture heavily relies on qualities of manipulation. This was done through thru burn book, etc…

    • 2577 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

    • 1262 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Now this is a story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down, and I’d like to take a minute, just sit right there, I’ll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel-air. These are the opening lines to the intro song of the television comedy “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”, that me and every 90’s kids with a TV has had memorized since the day we first heard it. Even as you read that first sentence, you can’t help but to rap the words, and hum the tune as you envision a young Will Smith spinning on his royal chair with the graffiti background. The effect of the lyrics and the music video to this intro song goes way beyond pure entertainment value. The music video and lyrics spread happiness, smiles, and even helped to usher in a new generation of kids with the carefree fresh prince mindset.…

    • 1262 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mean Girls

    • 663 Words
    • 2 Pages

    It's been almost a decade since the classic teen movie "Mean Girls" hit the silver screen and this 30th of April 2014 would mark its 10th anniversary. The film has become iconic for its amazing comedic screenplay, written by the talented Tina Fey and its realistic portrayal of high school drama. From backstabbing popular girls to the art-nerd revenge, Mean Girls characters has surely taught female movie-watchers few important life lessons about high school, girl world and womanhood in today’s society (Cills, 2014). The point is, why is this movie still so in-trend? Firstly, it is said that Mean Girls is a cult classic. It is by far one of the most quotable movie of the 21st century. Teens of today can be seen slipping a few Mean Girls quote here and there in their daily conversation such as “That’s so fetch”, “You cannot sit with us” and there are even Mean Girls merchandises sold in all forms with all the infamous quotes printed on it.…

    • 663 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    American Gods

    • 694 Words
    • 3 Pages

    What do people believe in? What is it that we put our faith in circa 2017? Do we pray to a pantheon, do we sacrifice to an omnipotent deity? These are the overarching questions asked by the fantasy novel American Gods written by Neil Gaiman. While the book was published in 2001, a many of its budding concepts of a world reliant on technology and dependent on interconnectivity were premonitions of the digital age we live in today. But what have we forgotten as we’ve gained an affinity towards this shiny, instant gratification? American Gods gives us these answers and more in a novel that’s become more than relevant in our connected…

    • 694 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays