Friday Night Lights (NBC et The 101 Network, 2006-2011) ou le réinvestissement du mythe de la small town

Abstract

Taking Friday Night Lights for an example, this article aims to show how the adaptation of a documentary book, then a film in the format of a TV series can lead to an amplification and a deepening of the mise en scène such that the particular story of a small, local community in Texas leads to an original rereading of several important themes of contemporary TV fiction (self realization, social cohesion, peer pressure, etc.). The reinvestment of the geographical myth of the small town offers an occasion to the series’ creators to show a humanist and nuanced representation of collective life, as an alternative to cynical and nihilist visions that proliferate elsewhere in a number of drama series broadcasted on cable channels in the United States, without necessarily renouncing the plausibility of events and the power of emotions.

Keywords

• Friday Night Lights
• adaptation
• geographical myth
• small town
• série dramatique