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Freaks And Geeks – Conversation Lesson

Kristin: So we just finished watching Freaks and Geeks upon your recommendation.

AJ: Yay! You liked it?

Kristin: I did, I loved it. Y’know, when you kept recommending that we watch it, I was like, it would kind of go in one ear and out the other, like yeah, okay. It just didn’t sound very appealing so finally, y’know, Joe was wanting to watch a movie one night and I was looking for something light and I was talking to you on the phone and you were, like, yeah, you should give Freaks and Geeks a try. It’s really light. So I’m glad we started that series because we ended up watching it pretty quickly.

AJ: Y’know, as I think about it now, y’know, people always ask me, our members and our fans, they’re always asking, oh, AJ, recommend a movie to watch, y’know, because they want to use movies to learn about culture or language and actually that would be a great one, because what I loved about it, and I know you felt the same, is that it was such an accurate portrayal of, like, my high school experience and it seems you had…for you, too, huh?

Kristin: Yes. Yeah, definitely with the little cliques.

AJ: Yeah.

Kristin: Yeah, that would be a great one for people to watch.

AJ: Because, by contrast, most movies I’ve seen about high school are really, really exaggerated.

Y’know, often they’re set in someplace like Beverly Hills, y’know, and it’s like that’s not typical at all. But I felt like the Freaks and Geeks show was far more of a typical kind of suburban high school experience.

For the most part, it’s TV so they exaggerate some but overall…

Joe: I think most of the time when you see TV shows or movies where high school students are shown, I think there are cliques that are shown but a lot of the times it tends to focus on the rich kids, it seems like, and it doesn’t really have as much of a contrast. And that’s the one thing that Freaks and Geeks did have because they were focusing on two distinct groups that were completely different. The freaks and the geeks, y’know? I mean the freaks are generally the people that are, I don’t know, more the burnouts, the people who generally don’t perform well on an academic level and they’re not into like geeky topics like science and they may be like recreational drug users also. And that’s what the show actually portrayed them as. Whereas the geeks don’t…they’re not like that at all. So I think that that was one of the unique things, the fact that it showed these two different groups and how distinct they were. And for me, personally, one thing that I could see from my high school was that there were two distinct groups like that, the freaks and the geeks, and then there were a lot of other cliques also. But, yeah, like that show, it was very cliquey and that show also showed the main character having difficulty switching from one group to another and her having difficulty being accepted when she switched into the freak group. So, y’know, I think that was something that’s really true of the high school experience in general in the United States also.

Kristin: Yeah, one of the things I loved about it was just, it really spoke to me. It was so accurate and I really identified with the main character in many ways. For example, y’know, she’d been in the geek group and then she was switching over to the freaks or the burnouts. I wasn’t in a geek group. I had my own group of friends, very small group, but we started hanging around the burnouts. In fact, with my mom being a teacher at my high school, I had to kind of hide that even.

AJ: Hm.

Kristin: I didn’t want her to know I was hanging out with them so much, but also I was up against the burnouts, many of them having had my mom as a teacher and not liking her and listening to their comments about what a bitch she was. So, yeah, it was…it was a fun little series to watch and I know, AJ, you said you identified with…

AJ: Oh, yeah, definitely, I was the geeky guy. The main character’s name is Sam and I had, y’know, I could identify with both sides, but much more on the geeky nerdy side. But, again, like what I found that was done so well is that it wasn’t exaggerated like you see in most Hollywood movies where they gotta really make it extreme. All the situations are so, y’know, over-exaggerated to…I guess to try to pump up the conflict and the drama which is what Hollywood always does. But this was much more of a more accurate, like you said, kind of, y’know, sweet, fairly positive view of part of American life, which is high school. And high school life affects a lot of the culture. Y’know, everybody goes through high school so it’s…it’s a memory that everyone in the culture has. And that’s why it’s probably important.

Joe: Y’know, another thing that the show portrayed was high school students really starting to gain more confidence, or maybe I should say, having a lack of confidence. Like you could see the geeks were really lacking in confidence when it came to trying to find girlfriends and they were really uneasy speaking to girls, the male geeks, at least. And they just didn’t have the confidence to go up and speak to them and they felt they didn’t know what to say, y’know? They didn’t know how to act around girls and, y’know, I think that that was something that’s true of high school. You really don’t have the confidence that you have later in life or, y’know, I hope that…y’know, you hope you get it later in life, I guess. But in high school you’re really just not as confident as a person and I thought the show really portrayed that well.

AJ: Yeah, and it is relevant, I think, to the culture as a whole because while certainly some of the extremes don’t continue in adulthood, in some ways they do. I mean people still tend to segment themselves into little subcultures or little groups and people tend to hang out with people who are similar to them and to avoid people who are not. I’m sure that’s true everywhere in the world. But this sort of cliquishness that we’ve described happens, I mean I see it in San Francisco. It’s really strong here. But it’s something that is sort of human, in general, I think.

Kristin: Yeah, they’re so much more pronounced though in high school, I think.

AJ: True.

Kristin: And I just cringed seeing the main character, Lindsay, go from this geeky group of friends trying to cross over to the freaks and on one hand, y’know, she didn’t want to be with the geeks, couldn’t really relate to them on a personal level, but she was smarter than her friends in the freak group and they weren’t…they didn’t inspire her at all and…it was just interesting to see her kind of in that, y’know, kind of between those two groups.

AJ: Yeah, and that’s a…actually that’s a good point because in some ways it’s about this…this individual who doesn’t really fit with any of these groups, who wants to be kind of a, y’know, really a, more of a broader human being and that’s something I think everyone can identify with or has experienced at some point where maybe there’s all these little groups or subgroups in your culture but, y’know, none of them really are exactly a fit for you. And so what do you do? It’s a tough situation to be different and to not really conform to any one group.

Joe: Y’know, it’s a shame that the series only lasted for one season because I think that…first off, I thought it was really good and I would have enjoyed watching more of it, but it would have been great if they would have had more episodes or it would have been great if they had like a follow-up series.

Y’know, if they could have shown what these people went on to do later in life. And I think that that’s true of life in general, y’know? It’s…it’s funny to see how people change when they get out of high school and it’s interesting to see what path they follow after they get out of high school because sometimes it can be remarkably different than what they were doing in high school.