I have always been a sucker for sports movies. I will never understand why, since I don’t understand most sports, and most of these movies are about football, which is even more confusing to me. I’ve only played kiddie soccer until I realized that I didn’t like it, and then I was on my high school’s crew team as a coxswain. Although the four years that I spent on the crew team had a large impact on the way that I view sports, I had a liking for sports movies long before I joined the team.

The struggles that are portrayed in sports movies are some that can affect any viewer. The issues of teamwork, endurance, and stress to perform are some that people encounter everyday. In this way, Friday Night Lights is very much like the other sports movies. The conflicts that occur in the film are some that are recurring among the genre. However, unlike other sports movies, the film had less than satisfactory outcomes for many of the characters. Although in some way they were able to come together, in the end many were still unable to move on from their town or succeed in the way that they wished to. Held down by a system that does not work for them, if they are not able to achieve through sports, they will not be able to achieve their long-term goals. It is a systematically perpetuated oppression that can make it difficult for people of low socioeconomic status to succeed. I believe that this is the way that the film differs from many of the other films in the sports genre. Instead of coming out with a happy ending or decent ending for the characters, viewers are left somewhat unsatisfied with the outcomes of the characters. It makes a statement about the difficulties that can arise from not having the resources that are lacking among lower socioeconomic statuses.