The show Freaks and Geeks takes place in a high school in the 1980’s. It follows the main character, Lindsay, and her brother, Sam. Lindsey is trying to figure out where she belongs after struggling with her grandmother 's death. The girl who was once an A student and a Mathlete finds herself cutting classes and hanging out with the people who are called freaks and losers. Her brother Sam in a freshman in high school and his main problem is Allen, his “freshman tormentor”. A normal person would watch this show and pay attention to the stories and the punch lines, but here’s how a sociologist might view the show, through the three sociological lenses: Functionalism, Sociological Interactionism and Conflict Perspective.
Functionalism is …show more content…
At the school in Freaks and Geeks, bullies where a natural part of school, one kid even said, “...a freshman tormentor, everyone has one” implying that bullies are a normal thing at school. At Souhegan High School, bullying isn’t that big of a problem. I’m not saying that people can’t be mean at Souhegan, but I’ve never seen anyone be slammed against the wall or have their entire purse dumped in the middle of the hallway. You act different when a bully comes up to you. That is because you give the bully a meaning, like a symbol, and it changes your behavior. Some people would say that is because of Social Interactionism.
Social Interactionism is the way of viewing society believing that we do what we do and behave the way we do because of the meanings that we assign a different symbol or situation. For example, at the beginning or Freaks and Geeks, Daniel is talking about what he wore to church, which was not formal and one if his friends said, “You can’t wear that to church!” That’s because that friend had assigned a …show more content…
As I said before the way Kim acts towards Lindsay could be seen from conflict perspective as well, Kim is the only girl that hangs out with the freaks and she sees Lindsay as a threat and tries to knock her down in order to have more control and power over the group. Unfortunately, this happens all the time at Souhegan but it 's usually not as obvious and aggressive, it comes in the form of backhanded compliments and snide remarks that you sometimes don 't even notice if they aren 't directed at you. Another example of conflict perspective is Sam and Allen. Allen has bullied Sam all of this freshman year and he does it because Allen feels insecure and knocking Sam down makes him feel bigger. As I said before I don’t really see a lot of bullying at Souhegan, which is very
Functionalism is …show more content…
At the school in Freaks and Geeks, bullies where a natural part of school, one kid even said, “...a freshman tormentor, everyone has one” implying that bullies are a normal thing at school. At Souhegan High School, bullying isn’t that big of a problem. I’m not saying that people can’t be mean at Souhegan, but I’ve never seen anyone be slammed against the wall or have their entire purse dumped in the middle of the hallway. You act different when a bully comes up to you. That is because you give the bully a meaning, like a symbol, and it changes your behavior. Some people would say that is because of Social Interactionism.
Social Interactionism is the way of viewing society believing that we do what we do and behave the way we do because of the meanings that we assign a different symbol or situation. For example, at the beginning or Freaks and Geeks, Daniel is talking about what he wore to church, which was not formal and one if his friends said, “You can’t wear that to church!” That’s because that friend had assigned a …show more content…
As I said before the way Kim acts towards Lindsay could be seen from conflict perspective as well, Kim is the only girl that hangs out with the freaks and she sees Lindsay as a threat and tries to knock her down in order to have more control and power over the group. Unfortunately, this happens all the time at Souhegan but it 's usually not as obvious and aggressive, it comes in the form of backhanded compliments and snide remarks that you sometimes don 't even notice if they aren 't directed at you. Another example of conflict perspective is Sam and Allen. Allen has bullied Sam all of this freshman year and he does it because Allen feels insecure and knocking Sam down makes him feel bigger. As I said before I don’t really see a lot of bullying at Souhegan, which is very