Research Paper On Friday Night Lights

The film Friday Night Lights (2004) is based on the real-life story of the 1988 Permian Panthers football team in Odessa, Texas. The film is a more fictionalized account of the book it’s based on, written by author H.G. Bissinger and downplays the more intense issues that plagued Odessa when Bissinger followed the team during the 1988 season (Briley 1). The film follows Coach Gary Gaines (portrayed by Billy Bob Thornton) as he coaches the Panthers in the football obsessed town. The film portrays the societal pressures put on young athletes, especially in a town where one sport seems to be the dominating past-time. No matter where these athletes go, they can’t escape the pressures to succeed in the sport and go undefeated. There is the underlining

They mimic the real life pressures placed on young athletes. There are plenty of scenes throughout the movie where these boys are all but harassed by their fellow community members. The support can turn off with a flip of a switch. You can see how the pressure affects them and their love for the game. Leff states, “Parents may support their children in their athletic endeavors physically, emotionally, or financially, it is primarily emotional support.... Support and encouragement by family members, especially by parents, are important in young athletes’ initial involvement in sport.” (Leff 187). Billingsley’s father, a former Panther State champion, is shown to be mentally abusive, running onto the field on the first day of practice to yell at his son for “not holding onto the football.” Winchell and his mother study football strategies at breakfast, all the while with her asking him if he’s going to get a scholarship. When a couple scouts come to speak to Winchell, his mother inserts an answer for him and when asked by one of the scouts if he thinks football is fun, Winchell is slightly hesitant to answer. The movie portrays the issue of when young athletes feel much more pressure and stress to succeed in their sport than they should. It becomes almost important to win. The

A caller on the radio calls him an “idiot” with a not-so-nice expletive and states that the team “can’t do anything without Boobie.” Boobie is their star player and with his injury comes anger, stress, and disappointment not only from the team itself but from the community. Mark Edmunsond wrote, “Sport is also--it almost goes without saying--an intensely hierarchical world. In sports your identity and prowess are one and the same. When one teammate looks at another, what he sees first is how good the other is. He makes a quick calculation: Am I more or less able than he is? Or are we the same? If we are, what can I do to surpass him? Sports are about standings, and not just of one team against others but within the team itself. Everyone has a place in the hierarchy, and that hierarchy is constantly shifting” (Edmundson 8). With Boobie’s injury and the subsequent lose that is suffered at the next game without him, it seems as if the stress grows on the boys. Even before they end up winning the next game, due to Chris Comer, Boobie’s backup-backup, coming in to save the day. After hearing the fallout from the injury, the following scene involves Winchell, Chavez, and Billingsley where Winchell states that they are “dead” without Boobie. Chavez reminds the other two that they are only seventeen years old. This causes Billingsley to retort, “Do you feel