Freaks And Geeks Analysis

In the story “I Just Wanna Be Average” the author Mike Rose argues that society very often neglects and doesn’t see the full value and potential of students.

As a child becomes a teenager they go from knowing right from wrong to having the ability to do more things without parental supervision. This kind of freedom without having someone to monitor your actions can lead to these young people doing things they

For those elders who have no idea what the show is about; “Freaks and Geeks” is a television show that aired one season in 1999. It focuses mainly around two cliques in high school: the freaks and the geeks. Lindsay Weir and her younger brother Sam Weir are the protagonists of the story. From the start, the audience learns that Lindsay is a top student and the best mathlete in the school, but recently she’s been acting up. She has been trying desperately to shed that view of herself,

I selected the book The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth by Alexandra Robbins because I was interested to read about an adult author’s perception of a modern American high school experience. I also chose the book because the reviews mentioned that it related to a TV series I enjoyed, Freaks and Geeks. As I read through the book, I found that it centered around the theory that if a student is excluded or dismissed in high school for having different traits than what other students considered normal, those same traits that made them different will allow them to succeed in an adult life after high school. As soon as I got about a quarter of the way into the book I was not as enthusiastic as I was at first glance. I did agree that these traits could benefit someone, but they don’t define what you have the potential to be when you’re an adult. This high school cliché, despite the seven heartwarming storylines, is inaccurate in describing what the future holds for high school students because our future is unpredictable, and a book with a little statistic and seven high school experiences can’t solidify someone’s adulthood. I also noticed that there were no counterarguments present in the book, leading me to assume that Robbins may not have heavily researched both sides of her ‘quirk’ argument. Although I had differing opinions than the author, the seven characters, their storylines, and the promise of a young James Franco continued to perk my interest and

Author, Alexandra Robbins, in her novel The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth, describes her quirk theory and establishes its credibility as she centers her theory around seven different characters as she narrates their high school experiences. Robbins focuses on the negative effects of popularity and how social norms can affect an individual, regardless of what social group they belong to. She creates an amusing, informative tone in order to appeal to the geeks, freaks, and popular crowds with relatable experiences and strong essays in regards with the social scene, exclusivity, and how one handles a given situation.

Zunshine’s theory of embodied transparency allows the audience to understand the perspectives of a character. She describes the moment in which the character’s body language involuntarily react to a stimulus. In “Freaks and Geeks” the concept of embodied transparency reveals the emotional complexity of Sam, Lindsay and Nick. Embodied transparency allows the audience to be engaged in the show because it provides a detailed characteristic of the character unseen by the audience. Restrain and transparency are wordless techniques that are solely based on the body language of the reviewers. The momentaneous demonstration of transparency and restrain provide a different point of view unavailable to the viewers that might subconsciously affect the perspective of the audience.

The media portrays adolescents in television shows as being rebellious, sex crazed, and unreasonable people. Freaks and Geeks, created by Paul Feig and produced by Feig, himself, and Judd Apatow, is a one hour TV show that aired on NBC from 1999-2000. The show centers around the siblings, Sam and Lindsay Weir, and their friends while they all attend McKinley High School. Freaks and Geeks is a show that portray adolescents in a way that the media doesn’t because of the lessons the characters have to learn , the choices that they choose to take, and the struggles they have to endure.

Hannah Bailey is a young, wild, and carefree teenager from a small town called Warsaw, Indiana. She attends Warsaw Community High School and she likes music, art, and photography. Majority of the students at the school are Caucasian and most of them are in cliques, relationships, and are somewhat popular. People call Hannah weird and say that she does not fit in with everyone. She wants to go to college in California to study film. Hannah lives with her grandmother because her mother suffers from depression and is not in the home, and her father works out of town in Ohio. Hannah’s boyfriend, Joel, is also a big part of her life. She spends a lot of her time with him. For Hannah, Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial Development Theory can be used to help explain her adolescent life.

The author uses words such as "ostracized for their intelligence" to persuade the audience to believe people who devote their life mastering the arts of education to be martyr and killed by the social society. He said nerds and geeks were compared as a "freak' to leave you in conclusion that nerds and geek are being imagined as a wild creature that has

The period of adolescence is crucial in the development of identity and social integration, and for many teens can be very trying. From the moment children begin attending programs such as daycare and elementary schooling, they are transferred from an environment that no longer exclusively contains their parents, to one where they are integrated with other children who are similar in age; also known as peers. In the United States, adolescents spend twice the amount of time within peer groups from a day to day basis than with their parents (Dijkstra & Veenstra 2011). The socialization that occurs within these peer groups plays a large role in influencing the behaviors of adolescents during this developmental period; whether reinforcing positive behaviors such as academic achievement or encouraging questionable behavior and delinquency. The importance of peer groups in contemporary society is accurately represented in the 2004 movie Mean Girls, adapted from self-help book The Queen Bee’s and Wannabees, depicting the life of a young adolescent who struggles to prove herself worthy of being accepted by the dominant social group. Whether it is deciding on identifying with the ‘Brains’ or choosing to imitate the ‘Cheerleaders’ in hopes of obtaining status, overall adolescent behavior is greatly influenced by their peer groups.

Often times, children of permissive parents are manipulative. This is because the parents submit to their children if they act out. Children of permissive parents are impulsive, the children do not learn how to control themselves. Children brought up by this parenting style “do slightly worse in school during adolescence and are more likely to be aggressive and somewhat immature in their behavior with peers and in school”

By using this particular analysis method, the authors were able to demonstrate the importance of situational, time-varying factors as a means to explain delinquent behaviors. The results of the study, according to Gottfredson and Soule (2005) revealed that 7.8% reported drug use, 7.4% reported property crime, and 21.6% reported any crimes against persons. I found the rates a bit high for crimes against persons but this appears to be due in part to the fact that the threat to hit another student was included here. The study revealed that drug use and property crimes occurred more frequently on the weekends than any other time. Crimes against a person often occurred during and after school. How could this be? When broken down further, youth are confined to smaller spaces during school hours which often leads to additional peer pressures to fight. Property crimes were elevated prior to school, as well.

     Some causes for conduct in adolescents are no discipline, unstructured discipline and a broken home. A broken home is one of the factors that can produce a delinquent child. A broken home reduces the opportunity for creating a strong attachment between child and parents and that reduces the parent’s ability to condition the child. Many theories concerning the causes of juvenile crime focus either on the individual or on society as the major contributing influence. Theories centering on the individual suggest that children engage in criminal behavior because they were not sufficiently penalized for previous delinquent acts or that they have learned criminal behavior through interaction with others.

Authoritative parents “set standards, but also give their child choices. They recognize the good things that their child does, but they do not overlook the bad things. These parents are more confident and nurturing. They set standards that their child can meet. Usually, this type of parenting leads to a positive self-image in the child (Black, 2008). Permissive parents “do not control their children, it is more like the other way around. There is no discipline, and the child grows up knowing they can get whatever they want. When the parent does try to discipline, the child doesn't take it seriously. These parents give in easily and avoid confrontation whenever possible” (Black, 2008). In general American parents raise their children to have an individual personality, and to be independent from a very young age. “Firm disciplines are directed toward the infant and these are gradually relaxed as the child grows” (Suzuki, 2000).

The routine activity theory could explain this phenomenon with an emphasis on the lack of a guardian in the skateparks. As the theory focuses on the situation of the delinquent behavior, rather than the