Friday Night Lights Theory

In the Netflix-based TV show, Friday Night Lights, Tim Riggins is a fullback/running back for the Dillon Panthers of Dillon High School. The show takes place in the fictional small town of Dillon, Texas. This town is all about Friday night and high school football. Each of the football players have unique characteristics and come from diverse backgrounds, that somehow work cohesively, to make a state-championship winning football team. Tim lives with his older brother, Billy. Their parents both left them when they were young. Throughout the series, Tim is portrayed as an alcoholic, even though he’s only 17. Tim constantly is seen buying alcohol at the gas station (no, it’s not legal, but it’s a small town in Texas and he’s on the football team,

Another one of the big aspects about Tim is that he likes to sleep around. Multiple times throughout the series it is mentioned that he has slept with many girls at the school, and it is a well known fact around town. Yet, throughout all the negativity surrounding Tim, he does have moments of caring, kindness, and absolute genuineness. In Freud’s Psychoanalytic theory, he focuses on psychological forces, especially the unconscious. Tim Riggins personality can be broken down into three main aspects, each of which we will look at through Freud’s theory. The first aspect is Tim’s alcoholism. According to Freud, people’s actions can be caused by repressed memories living in our unconscious. In Tim’s case, his parents both left him and his brother when he was a kid. Now, in the show, Tim doesn’t really ever seem to mention how his parents leaving affected him. So, it is possible, if we apply Freud’s theory, that Tim has repressed the thoughts of his parents leaving to the unconscious part of his brain, so, unknowingly, he drinks to cover up the pain and sadness from that

If he took on the negative role within the third psychosocial stage, he would not have been able to gain the strength of purpose. Therefore, Tim probably drinks to help with the guilt and lack of purpose. The next aspect of Tim is his sexual promiscuity. Erikson’s sixth theory is intimacy vs. isolation. In this stage the main strength that one is trying to achieve is love, and the most significant people at this time are partners in friendship and sex. For Tim, he fell to the negative pole in the spectrum, which is isolation. Because of this, he feels the need to incur many sexual encounters, hence the sexual promiscuity. Finally, the next stage that applies is the seventh stage of Erikson’s theory, generativity vs. self- absorption. In this stage, the main strength to be achieved is care, and the significant people are within divided labor and the shared household. Now, based on age, Tim being only 17, he hasn’t yet reached this stage, yet, one could argue that based on his experiences and how old he seems, he has gotten to this stage. Tim is very involved on the football team, and even goes to great lengths to gain membership again when he gets kicked off for