Friday Night Writes: A Relationship Between a Father and Son (Pt.1)

[SPOILER ALERT] — Note this may contain spoilers related to the show Friday Night Lights, if you have not seen the 4th or 5th season, you have been warned

“It doesn’t much matter what you say on the telephone. The telephone as a service is a huge environment, and that is the medium. And the environment affects everybody, what you say on the telephone affects very few. And the same with radio or any other medium, what you print is nothing compared to the effect of the printed word. The printed word sets up a paradigm, a structure of awareness which affects everybody in very drastic ways, and it doesn’t very much matter what you print as long as you go on with that form of activity” — Marshall Mcluhan

As Zander Nethercutt explains in his essay “The Instagram Generation’’ Mcluhan defined mediums as “extensions of man”; in this way we can say that football is one of the most influential mediums in the town of Dillon, Texas in the show Friday Night Lights.

That much is obvious, the show is structured around each week of football. But there is a medium that is more influential: the town of Dillon and its residents.

Interviewer: “is there anything else you want to say about yourself? Something that we wouldn’t pick up from reading your transcript?”

Julie Taylor: “when I started high school, I couldn’t wait to get out of Dillon. I thought that every book I read was like a rung on a ladder that I built to escape this town that was all about football and nothing else. And now that I’m actually getting close to leaving, I’m starting to appreciate that I was shaped by my town. That I have a different viewpoint than every other person. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m surprised by how happy I am to be from where I’m from”

— S4 E8 “Toilet Bowl”

Borrowing Mcluhan’s words, Dillon Texas is an environment that affects everyone, and this effect goes deeper than the characters are aware, even myself as a viewer. And I’ve seen the show multiple times.

What’s incredible is that the narrative exists on more than one level. Like Julie’s college interviewer, we have to look beyond the stories being told.

I’ll start with the following statement: every camera angle is intentional; and so, like the Dillon Panthers; a whole greater than the sum of its parts — as Landry puts it — the desire to understand how the town shapes its inhabitants has to include a synthesis of the camera angles and shots used to tell the story.

To classify the levels that the story exists on, we should begin by looking at the types of information that Steven Johnson describes in his book Everything Bad is Good For you.

1. Situational Information: We can understand as the information that is most immediately present. For example, the Panthers winning a football game.
2. Biographical information: Information about the lives of the characters themselves
3. Supplementary Information: Information that is deliberately held from the viewer.

We can conceptualize easter eggs, references outside of the show, and quick camera shots as supplementary information because it isn’t immediately present to the viewer unless they have some supplementary knowledge.

The first installation of this series will look at Matt Saracen, QB1 of the Dillon Panthers in the context of S4.

“Try to work from this place” — Richard Sherman, Dillon Genius

Before we talk about how much Matt was influenced by his father, it’s important to establish how the shots are organized in the show. When it comes to the scenes about Matt Saracen and his life, we can begin by organizing the scene into the following shot categories:

1. Establishing Shot
2. In Between Shots
3. Relationship Shot

I know there are several ways you could slice the scenes, but for now I’m going to focus on what I feel are the most important shots that explain the influence Matt’s father has on him.

Most TV show scenes use the establishing shot to show the setting. This is important because with so many stories going on, it subconsciously helps the viewer reposition themself in the narrative.

As explained in the clips of Part 1, the establishing shots for each scene involving Matt — other than the first episode of the fourth season — is either the setting, Panther Pizza, or a hand. Use of the hand is subtle and in some cases only lasts a few seconds or less, but it is important.

Matt’s art teacher at Dillon Tech makes the observation that his “art” is “drawing without a point of view.” Based on that scene, we get the sense that Matt’s reason for being at Dillon Tech is to find the point of view that his art should stem from. The sequence of events that unfolds for him the rest of the season is that point of view.

But where should he start? He has no idea until he begins working with the local genius Richard Sherman.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. Let’s establish the structure of Matt’s storyline as an artist:

The first thread of Matt’s relationship with his father — within the perspective of Season 4 — can be traced back to his first class at Dillon Tech, where he finds out about his internship with Richard Sherman. The establishing shot is a model with no arms or hands, a woman standing in the middle of the classroom, her torso and face are the only things showing — an important piece of the

In other words, the hand will be the beginning of his perspective.

During Matt’s internship, he cuts his hand and confronts Richard.

Why does Richard try to tell Matt to start by focusing on the hands in his drawing? Is he being obnoxious again? Trying to get him to do more manual labor, carrying the parts in his shop for him? Or does he genuinely feel that Matt’s artwork should begin from that place? I believe it is the latter.

When Matt and Richard drive to Clearwater, there’s a moment in the bar where Richard tells him he will spend his entire life trying to explore some deep corner of himself. We learn in S4:E5 that the corner is the relationship he has with his father.

We learn it through a quick camera shot which I will call the “relationship shot” where the shovel that Matt is using to cover his father’s grave is stained with blood.

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