One Great Scene in Freaks and Geeks Ep.1 (Pilot)

Welcome back to One Great Scene where I will be looking at one scene in every episode of whatever show I'm watching. I've started with 2nd season of Better Call Saul but now I'm rewatching Freaks and Geeks and have decided to do the same for this show. While I thought it would prove to be a challenge, there was actually a lot to talk about. I will be alternating between analyzing a scene with freaks and a scene with geeks. Given that the show is about the two groups and is mostly separate besides a few moments and the fact that Sam and Lindsay are related.

Starting with the Geeks. We'll be looking at the dodgeball scene. This scene takes place after the geeks get threatened by a bully in the changing rooms and things are looking up because the coach says that they will be having fun during the lesson, then he mentions that they will be playing Dodgeball. The jocks exclaim and the geeks look defeated. The bully locks eyes with Sam in a Kill Bill showdown sort of way. It cuts to the geeks against a wall dodging balls with frantic and disorienting camera angles. The coach tells them to get in the game and try to participate but when they do, they get picked off one by one until Sam is the only one left on the other team. He runs frantically trying to dodge the balls but when his bully throws the ball with a great force and all seems lost, Sam catches it, eliminating his bully from the game and the scene ends with the rest of the jocks pelting sam with dodgeballs.

Why this scene though? I just think this scene perfectly encapsulates the humor of this show. It manages to depict how small Sam feels in school. It's kind of relatable in a sense. I go to an all boys school and me having a more twink-like build among bodybuilders and muscular dudes, I feel small at my own school sometimes mostly during PE class. Naturally, in PE class the opinions of the weaker boys much less than the more active and sporty, so when the coaches want to do something fun, they cater to the sporty, or the jocks. Just like in this scene where we watch the relief flush from their faces as the coach mentions dodgeball while the jocks celebrate. This scene is about the geeks vs the jocks but it makes sure to hone in on the rivalry between Sam and his bully or tormentor as they call him. In a jarring cut, it shows us the disorientation of the geeks through cinematography, its all over the place, like someone was running with the camera and I think they even use a dutch angle at one point. Next the coach tells them to get into the game. He says they should "put down their mascara" and refers to them as "ladies". On rewatch, I'm surprised at how they ran with the theme of masculinity throughout this episode. There are many scenes prior to this where people emasculate Sam or tell him to man up or be a man. This is a fairly interesting way to deal with the conservative gender roles at the time. At flips it on its head. At the beginning of the episode, Sam's sister, Lindsay even sticks up for him. Defiance of gender roles is nothing new in movies, tv or real life but I think it was interesting for a show set in the 80s. It's almost like the play, Macbeth.  Macbeth deals with many themes but the most prominent (in my opinion) are masculinity and equivocation and how these two themes intertwine with one another. Like I mentioned, defiance of gender roles is nothing new and was even being portrayed in Shakespeare's plays. I'll keep it brief, I promise but I just want to make this comparison. Equivocation and masculinity goes hand in hand in Macbeth, equivocation being things switching places. This is portrayed through night and day, or good and evil in the play but how it works with gender is interesting. A small example would be the weird sisters or the three witches, they are women but are described with masculine features or in Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's relationship. Lady Macbeth is the one who wears the pants in the relationship because she tells Macbeth to kill Duncan and she does most of the planning, when Macbeth doesn't want to go through with it, she tells him that he is not a man. She even wishes for her gender to be removed at one point because the boundaries of being a woman in that time period are restricting her from accomplishing her plans. Anyways, that comparison is over now, sorry for boring you. I'm just saying the brother in the relationship is constantly emasculated by everyone and the sister is treated like the protector by everyone. Again, it's just interesting that that was the dynamic for a show set in the 80s. Sam also obviously feels insecure about his masculinity because his sister protects him and literally every character in this episode has to insult Sam's masculinity which drives him to fight his bully. That was what I was trying to say this whole time. The scene where everyone on Sam's team gets picked off one by one is really funny and highlights the shows humor through facial expressions because that's where the humor derives from, both witty dialog and  exaggerated, cartoon like expressions working in tandem to make you laugh. When Sam is the only one left they use cinematography again, when Sam is on screen the camera is moving aggressively but when his bully is on screen, the camera is slow and controlled. Sam finally catches the ball and gets his bully out. The geeks all celebrate on the sides and the jocks laugh. This minor victory over the jocks gives the geeks hope and works to contrast the geeks and the jocks. The jocks exercise great power over the geeks and are only united in the power they exercise over geeks but the geeks are unified in their hatred of the jocks and shared experience, suffering under them. That is what unites them and makes this minor victory worth celebrating. The part where the jocks all pelt Sam with dodgeballs is really funny to me. It's such a victorious moment and then it cuts to the jocks closing in on Sam and pelting him with dodgeballs.

I also wanted to analyze the scene where Lindsay sneaks out with Nick because it got me into Freaks and Geeks. I'm a big midwest emo fan and before I heard about this show, I was listening to some midwest emo and the one song opened with the scene where Nick and Lindsay are speaking to each other after sneaking out and that's how I found this show. 

Thanks for reading, tune in probably tomorrow for a discussion of the next episode.