Friday Night Lights: The One That’s Full Of Stereotypes

Alright güeys, we’re back with another Friday Night Lights review. This week, the minority-looking characters do minority-like things. Let’s kick things off:

Part of the reason why this show is so great is because it doesn’t rely on stereotypes for storylines. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case this week. The episode, titled “I Can’t,”focuses on the decisions made by Vince and Becky.

First, there’s Vince. Things look like they were getting for the recently appointed quarterback. He found a job working at Ray’s BBQ, he finally earned the coach’s trust, and even his mom was showing up to his games. That all ended when Mrs. Howard decided to shoot up for old times sake, only this time she overdosed.

This is when Vince becomes a full-fledged thug.

Vince is a good kid. He wants to stay out of trouble and send his mom to rehab. Sadly, living in the projects of East Dillon doesn’t really afford someone the opportunity to pay for a private drug rehabilitation center unless they turn to a life of crime, which is what Vince did in the end. The writers had been toying with this for a while, keeping the neighborhood thugs in the background just in case Vince gave them a window of opportunity for them to recruit him. We don’t like it one bit. The “poor, black kid who wants to be good” is overplayed, and is not needed on this show.

Then, there’s Becky. Her life is also falling apart. Last time we saw her she had gotten pregnant with Luke Cafferty’s kid. Of course, if anyone was going to get pregnant in Dillon, it was going to be the minority-looking girl (strangely enough, both her parents are white) from a single parent home. Now, the teenage pageant queen has to decide whether she’ll get an abortion or keep the baby. Spoiler alert: she gets an abortion.

Becky, the minority-looking girl, getting advice from Tammi, the know-it-all white lady.

Now, we understand that statistically speaking, minority girls from single-parent homes are the highest at risk for unwanted, teenage pregnancy. That did not bother us too much. What bothered us was the white, conservative perspective provided by Tammi Taylor. We’ll preface what we’re about to say by saying that we love Tammi. She’s smart, funny, and above all hot. But she also lives in rural Texas, meaning that her ideology is right of center. Tammi counseled Becky in the end to do what felt right, but in her eyes, what felt right was a) not aborting, and b) not putting herself in the position to get pregnant in the first place. This, we feel, was a major gaffe by the writers.

Interestingly enough, this was the one episode that unintentionally dealt with race more than the others, and quite frankly, the did a piss poor job. We hope Friday Night Lights is finally done with dealing with this topic and focus on the upcoming game against West Dillon.