Freaks, Geeks and Germans
by Bob Cook
Now that it's out on DVD, "Freaks and Geeks," which chronicles life among the outcasts at early 1980s McKinley High School, plays out more like an 18-part movie than the short-lived NBC TV show it was. One reason is that the episodes are finally viewable in their intended order, as opposed to the one created by the constant time-slot and episode shuffling the show endured
in its lone season, 1999-2000. But another reason is that the clarity of DVD brings out the cinematic flair of a show written and shot, as creator Paul Feig said, to look like film.
Feig had plans for successive years of the show — having characters graduate, replacing them with new characters. "I had always from day one conceived of it not as a high school show, but a show about a town," Feig said in a phone interview. "People would graduate, and you'd see who left town, who didn't leave the town." But the always-looming threat of cancellation forced Feig and colleagues such as executive producer Judd Apatow and writer Mike White to give storylines a quicker and grander progression, giving the series a more epic feel than it otherwise might have had, and a sense of finality to its ending.
"It was always my joke [to call the show] 'McKinley Alexanderplatz,'" Feig said, referring to Rainer Werner Fassbinder's masterful "Berlin Alexanderplatz," which aired on West German TV in 1980 and chronicled life among the outcasts in 1920s-era Germany. It looks and plays out more like a 15-part movie than the TV show it was. But Feig's joking aside, "Freaks and Geeks" and "Berlin Alexanderplatz" have striking similarities: a sympathetic view of outsiders; a spotlight on the difficulty of changing yourself and your social circle; a lot of actors cast as whores; a main character going insane and primed to join the Nazi party... OK, maybe not so much "Freaks and Geeks" on those last two.
But Feig and Fassbinder both drew upon profound experiences in their own teenage years to create truthful and difficult-to-watch programs that — if not accepted by the masses — certainly hold the attention of a fervent cult of viewers. In fact, 40,000 such fans pledged on the "Freaks and Geeks" website to buy a DVD set before one existed.
Fassbinder first read Alfred Doblin's 1929 book "Berlin Alexanderplatz" as a teen. Having just told his father he was gay, Fassbinder identified intensely with the main character, Franz Biberkopf and his intense relationship with another man. He was also fascinated by the book's examination of, as the director himself put it, "how even the shabbiest actions express a desire for tenderness." Emphasis on the shabby.
Fassbinder's series starts as Biberkopf is released from prison, vowing to go straight after a four-year sentence for murdering his girlfriend. Biberkopf is a believer in the essential goodness of people, and for this he is constantly taken advantage of, particularly by a small-time crook named Reinhold. Biberkopf finds himself drawn to Reinhold and thinks he can make him a better person; meanwhile, Reinhold thinks Biberkopf is kind of dumb and uses him to shoo away women when he's done with them. Later, Reinhold shoves Biberkopf out of his car while fleeing a robbery, and Biberkopf loses an arm when it's run over by a pursuer. Still later, Reinhold comes back to kill a prostitute Biberkopf had been pimping — obviously, the going straight thing was not working — and frame Biberkopf for the murder. Then Biberkopf is sent to prison and goes insane.
It's quite a dark vision, which isn't shocking when you consider Fassbinder was an enfant terrible who pimped men, consumed enormous quantities of drugs and worked feverishly until dropping dead of an overdose at age 36, two years after "Berlin Alexanderplatz" aired. But Fassbinder wasn't unrelentingly bleak. Taking Doblin's lead, he didn't abuse his characters just to abuse them. "What is important is the author's attitude toward his characters," Fassbinder wrote in his own description of "Berlin Alexanderplatz." "He finds that violence is simply a form of love, that people always hurt one another as soon as they pay attention to one another."
Feig, 41, having already outlived Fassbinder, might not say violence is a form of love, but he seems to agree that people hurt one another as soon as they pay attention to one another. Feig did, after all, thank four childhood bullies from his hometown of Mount Clemens, Mich., by name for "inspiring" him. "I hope you're nicer now," Feig wrote to the bullying team of Ron White, Mark Allen, Frank Gutenkuntz and Kevin Jones in the "Freaks and Geeks" liner notes. Feig and the "Freaks and Geeks" crew are hyperaware that the reason high-schoolers are so cruel to each other is because they're insecure and hate themselves — and that those feelings don't change much as they become adults.
In "Freaks and Geeks," high school junior Lindsey Weir is a mathlete and all-around geek who is shaken existentially by witnessing her grandmother's death — Grandma informs Lindsey just before she goes that there's no light or St. Peter or anything at the end of the tunnel. Lindsey chucks her geek life, dons her dad's old Army coat and starts hanging out with the school burnouts. Like Franz Biberkopf, Lindsey is generally positive about the human spirit, and is drawn to befriend and reform someone who treats her horribly. Freak girl Kim Kelly, however, merely insults Lindsey, leaving her arms and sanity intact.
As Biberkopf has difficulty escaping his criminal surroundings, Lindsey struggles to shed her geekdom. Of course, her parents and her geek brother, Sam, wonder what's up. But fellow mathlete Millie becomes the living embodiment of Lindsey's conscience, popping up at beer parties, the high school smoking lounge or wherever freaky things are happening to badger Lindsey about her choices in life.
"We were all nerds, and then in high school some of my friends turned to superfreaks," Feig said. "I was the Millie with several friends of mine."
While Fassbinder broods, Feig laughs — if you're a generally stable adult, most of the crap that happened to you in high school just seems funny. The standard comedy equation is tragedy plus distance equals humor. If you feel distant enough from your high school days, you'll laugh at "Freaks and Geeks" out of recognition. If not, you'll cringe. Even if you do feel distant, you'll cringe at cruelties like the jocks pounding the geeks at dodge ball. But it's a very cathartic cringe.
If Fassbinder is more violent with his characters than Feig, it may be due to a philosophy Feig adapted from his fellow German, Friedrich Nietzsche, who famously opined that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. "What's great about the geek spirit is that life never seems to stop us, and they never seem to kill our enthusiasm, our optimism and our hunger to experience the world," Feig writes in the DVD liner notes. "We keep our sense of humor, we protect our dignity, we talk to our friends about the experience and then we start again fresh the very next day." As if to prove his point, Feig is working with NBC again, this time on a pilot for a science fiction comedy.
E-mail Bob Cook at bobc@flakmag.com.
