Whenever I encourage someone to watch Friday Night Lights—which happens often, as I’m quite evangelistic about my TV shows—the response is always the same: “But that’s a football show.”
For most shows, I would leave it at that and move on. But Friday Night Lights, currently airing its fifth season on DirecTV on Wednesdays at 9/8c, with a run on NBC this spring, is not most shows. And while football is central to the residents of Dillon, Texas, anyone who has watched one episode can attest that their lives are about much more than football. At its core, this is a show about marriage and family and the everyday moments that make up a life.
The show revolves around Eric and Tami Taylor, the coach and guidance counselor at East Dillon High School in rural west Texas. In the season five premiere, the Taylors are practically the only remaining original cast members, and their marriage anchors the show. They impact the kids of East Dillon not just as coach and counselor but by example, their lives and love modeling what many of the teens don’t have at home.
Slatecalls the Taylors’ marriage “the defining achievement of FNL, quite possibly the greatest marriage in television history.” New York magazine called the Taylors “the only living grown-ups on television: complicated, emotionally alive, intimate, and totally in love.”
And I’ll just come out and say it: I want to be Tami Taylor. Not until I started watching FNL did I realize the dearth of strong female role models on television. Like many women, Taylor wears many hats: wife, coach’s wife, mother, counselor, sister, friend. But what’s striking about Tami is that she often finds herself in situations where she does not know what to do, yet forges ahead and honestly addresses the situation head-on. Sincerity is her hallmark.
For example, when Taylor finds out that her daughter Julie has started having sex with her boyfriend, she insists they have an open talk about it (something sure to make any 16-year-old squirm).
Tami: And you know, just cause you’re having sex this one time doesn’t mean that you have to all the time, and you know if it ever feels like he’s taking you for granted, or you’re not enjoying it you can stop anytime … and if you ever break up with Matt it’s not like you have sex with the next boy necessarily.”
Julie: Why are you crying?”
Tami: Because I wanted you to wait … but that’s just because I want to protect you because I love you, and I want to make sure nothing bad ever happens to you. And I always want you to be able to talk to me even if it’s about something so hard like this.
Julie: I didn’t want to disappoint you.
It’s frustrating that Taylor implicitly allows her daughter to continue having sex, and I hope it might play out differently should I ever find myself in her parenting shoes. Yet hers is the first message I would look to for guidance, because Taylor’s love for her daughter is so obvious. Any teenager watching the scene would recognize it as well.
Earlier this year, Friday Night Lights made headlines when it aired an episode that portrayed a pregnant teenager seeking out, having, and not regretting an abortion. New York magazine described the episode as the “best and most honest portrayal of the heartrending decision to end a teenage pregnancy that we’ve ever seen.” (In fact, I argued in favor of this point.)
But, as is true in life, the story could not be neatly wrapped up in one hour-long episode. The rest of the fourth season effectively addressed the fall-out of such a decision in a small west Texas town. Because the girl had sought out Taylor’s guidance, and because the father’s parents are pro-life Christians, they were horrified to find out that information Taylor provided led the girl to have the abortion. (Taylor did not recommend that the girl have an abortion, suggesting adoption first, but did agree with the girl that abortion was one option.) At the outrage of her boyfriend’s parents and the principal of a local high school, by season’s end Taylor found herself demoted as principal down to guidance counselor.
Through it all, Tami exemplified why she is the best female character on television now, and perhaps ever. She acts in the interests of her students and is willing to keep jumping hurdle after hurdle with them so she can get them as far as she believes they can go. And she is gracious, willing to admit defeat or step aside when the battle is lost. She knows what she believes is right, and stands resolute and firm to defend it.
Though the Taylors regularly go to church (as nearly every character on the show does), Tami has never verbalized much about her faith. But one thing I appreciate about Friday Night Lights‘ portrayal of faith is that the characters we know to be Christians truly live lives consistent with Christianity.
I look forward to this final season and hope Taylor continues to be a strong character of power, grace, and love.
If you watch FNL, do you think Tami Taylor is an exemplary female character? Who are other strong female characters on TV?
