We're all just freaks and geeks

This week in class, we watched the pilot episode of the TV show Freaks and Geeks. I've seen some episodes at home before, but I never thought of the show in a sociological standpoint. The show is humorous, but if you really analyze each character and what they stand for, you can see past their exterior and look at them with a sociological perspective.

I looked at the different "groups" in the show through Emile Durkheim's functional theory, and began to think of the purposes each character and their group tends to serve. At first glance, tough girl Kim Kelly seems like the typical bully. She makes fun of all the kids that cross her path and she goes out of her way to humiliate Sam for no reason at all. But if you look further into her actions, you can see that she not only represents a "freak", but she also represents a girl who has problems, whether it's at home or with her identity or school life. She struggles with her "freak" identity just as much as the "geeks" struggle with their identity. Every member in this show serves a purpose with their group.

Connecting the show to Max Weber's idea of symbolic interactionism, I began thinking of important scenes or objects in the episode we watched. For me, I thought a really important moment was when the army coat that Lindsey insisted on wearing. The show doesn't go into detail about Lindsey's past, but you do know from the first episode that she used to be a mathlete, and her grandmother passed away. Lindsey is obviously going through depression, or an identity crisis, so she is rebelling all her typical norms by wearing her dad's old army jacket. In a way, that army jacket represents her trying to find herself and change the way she fits in with society.

I think it's interesting while analyzing the show because I start thinking of myself and the way I act, which brings me back to sociological mindfulness. At a school as big as ours, I think that when you're in a group of friends, you don't really have a label or a stereotype. I don't think my friends and I do, at least, but maybe to other groups of friends, they classify me and my friends differently just like they do to everyone else. I know that my friends and I all have a lot in common, just like the groups in the show Freaks and Geeks. We all affect each other.