I’m thinking about writing my paper on the series (or season) of Freaks and Geeks, focusing on it’s particular definition of the American family, characterization of high school, and the transformation of Judd Apatow as an underrated TV auteur into an absurdly successful filmmaker. I probably won’t focus on all three in the paper, but those are concepts that I’m definitely exploring. I was also considering comparing it to a conventional sitcom (which I haven’t settled on yet) but I’m leaning more towards looking at the show by itself.
Freaks and Geeks
14 October 2009 · 4.52 pm · by the_hitcher
Categories: proposal
4 responses so far ↓
ddriscoll // 14 October 2009 at 7.09 pm
This would be a great topic! It’s interesting that Apatow managed to take care of some of his young stars and turn them into adult stars, taking them on a journey of success. Seth Rogen is now one of the biggest male stars around and James Franco has been in 3 Spider-Man movies!
teff28 // 14 October 2009 at 9.05 pm
I found a CNN article with this quote from Judd Apatow from 2000:
“Most of the other shows were escapist fare, were opportunities for kids to watch kids who are better-looking than themselves make out with people who are better looking than them,” he said.
“We wanted to do a show that revealed exactly what high school was like, as terrible as it was and as wonderful as it was. We always thought those kids are the majority of kids who are out there. … I think that’s why the show connects with viewers, because they can tell it’s real. They can tell we’re not making these stories up.”
It could be interesting to approach your paper with the idea that the characterization of high school / the American family was meant to be realistic. How did the show work to achieve a realistic portrayal? Was it really that distinct from other high school shows?
Also, if you want the whole article here’s the link:
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/SHOWBIZ/TV/07/05/freaks.geeks/index.html
payton15 // 15 October 2009 at 8.04 pm
I think there is so much to work on if you focus on the show alone. I really like the idea of discovering the popular definition of the American family. The definition keeps evoling over time and sometimes shows are created to make fun of the this definition.
Kathleen Fitzpatrick // 20 October 2009 at 7.39 pm
Sounds interesting. Do remember that in some sense the paper needs to be focused on questions of authorship, and so you might focus in on why the series “failed,” and whether it was simply ahead of its time or required a larger screen…