- Once again, this is archive material. Notice a trend? Hehehe. This piece dates back to December 2004; One Tree Hill was right smack in the middle of Season 2. As usual, some dead links have been removed.
This continues a series of posts about "wimpsters" in youth culture. The first entry is here.
He Shoots. He Scores. Oh man, what a fucking bore. Nathan Scott is in, wants out. Plays b-ball, and is the team captain of the Tree Hill Ravens. Thinks he's got it all til he finds out about Lucas, his illegitimate half-brother who's a few months older and happens to play pretty good b-ball, too. Lucas has b-ball camp, as well as Dan Scott's athletic genes, to his advantage. It even warrants him a spot on the team. Not one who's inclined to share the spotlight, Nathan defends what's his: "This is MY world." But all that's about to slip when Peyton Sawyer dumps his royal ass and finds herself connecting in a more cerebral way with "the rival". So in the name of territory and "fair game", Nate resorts to bullying Lucas every chance he gets. He hatches this plan to get closer to Haley (Luke's best friend) by hiring her as his tutor. But Haley has a proposition of her own to seal the arrangement: back off Lucas.
What were initially assholic intentions on Nate's part becomes a test of vulnerability. With Haley around, he's more open and confessional about his crappy English grades and his control freak of a father breathing down his neck about b-ball. He wants to give up b-ball but doesn't seem to have anything to fall back on since it's the only thing he's good at doing, other than being an asshole, of course.
As a boyfriend, he can be a tad persistent, and there's no taming that sex drive. (Well, there's always internet porn.) When in pressure cooker mode, he doesn't deal by crying on your shoulder - that's like last resort for the emotionally-impaired. Instead, he'll do something drastic, like take uppers for peak performance just coz he's got something to prove to the old man, only to pass out in the middle of the big game and wind up in the hospital. Because he fears what Dad From the Dark Side will say and do if he finds out about those uppers, he'll bust out of there and come running to you in a tearful desperation, and could he please hide in your bedroom for just one night?
Surprisingly, Nate gets the attitude makeover - he undergoes a Sweet Valley-esque Bruce Patman transformation, pre- and during relationship with Regina Morrow. (Or if that analogy doesn't exactly register immediately, try Reggie Mantle defecting to the good side.) Which gives more viewers a reason to sympathize with the jock. Give him a sweet brainiac of a girlfriend who can change him for the better and he'll earn plus points from the hopelessly gullible. Bonus points for moving out of his parents' house and getting his own apartment. Ditto for selling the Mustang his father gave him and getting a job twisting and baking prezels just to pay the rent. Oh, and a sidenote about the car: bearing Dan Scott dealership plates, at least it didn't say 1NATHAN1.
And thanks to Haley (you didn't think he was smart enough to figure this out own his own, didja?), he realized he had rights to seek emancipation from his divorcing parents. He even unlearns spoiled rich kid (tho his popularity remains intact), becomes the dreamboat anybody could ever wish for and learns how to respect his girlfriend by keeping his hormones in check. Heck, he even marries her to keep the sex all sacred and shit.
Despite the ongoing tension built around their girls, b-ball and having the same dipshit of a biological father, Nate and Luke end up calling it a truce. The rules of "fair game" change when the boys have grown up a little. And all in one Season! Nathan becomes less selfish about hoarding the spotlight. If he was that close enough to giving it all up, then he might as well share it. After well-meaning gestures are exchanged between the two and social barriers are broken, Nate offers his world to Luke: "You want my world, man? It's all yours."
Prelude to the Insider-Outsider
College basketball left a bad taste in my mouth, especially when I came to know what total asswipes some of the players were. And we're supposed to root for them, all in the name of school spirit? Whatever.
Pondering on those serialized teen novels I used to consume like candy, I started to think that the "sensitive jock" was a figment of the teen imagination, an expectation met with so much heartache. If you were raised on, say, Sweet Valley High, the depiction of the "sensitive jock" was the reason why anyone could turn a blind eye to those glaringly obvious social hierarchies and get caught up in the drama surrounding the Wakefield twins and their friends. Todd Wilkins, the star basketball player, was focused on his game plan, yet at the same time, he remained a sweet and loving boyfriend to Liz Wakefield. But unlike the female characters of the series, the boys were never really fully realized. Instead, SVH gave the impression that all jocks were nice, and that the bad boys, who almost always exuded Dylan McKay-ness, never messed around with sports.
And then there are the gentle jocks who take on the role of the underdog. They struggle, get ridiculed for their convictions and decisions, or perhaps even defy personal type in a way that only hunky (try clunky) guys can pull it off. But for the most part, they're pretty boys just the same.
Or were, like in the case of Charlie Sheen in the 80s cult classic, Lucas. He was a football player who stuck up for the little science geek who wanted nothing more than to belong in high school. Chris Klein in American Pie and that guy Josh from Popular, have similar plot twists. While on the football team, the latter did something that was coded as feminine: he auditioned for the school play. And as comic relief in an attempt to get the girl, the former joined the glee club and even blew off the big lacrosse game to show us some of his vocal range...now how sexy is that? *snort* And then there's Sugar Daddy, Josh's teammate. Gentle giant, sweet chunk of a jock. He's not conventionally good looking, but his size could very well be the root of his insecurities. Call him fat, if you will, but he may just as well pass off as a HUGE mass of hard, unchiseled muscle, considering guys don't get as much flak as girls in that department.
Apparently, the "sensitive jock as underdog" archetype exists in yet another WB show: One Tree Hill. And we all have Lucas Scott to thank for that. Oh yes, we do. The only difference is, he's had to work his way inside from outside.
Won't the real Wimpster please stand up? Which begs the question: why initially waste so much blather on a dull character like Nathan Scott when it's Luke who has Wimpsterhood written all over?
Of course, it's easy to make a case for what makes Luke NOT a wimpster. His involvement with Varsity b-ball, for one thing. Wimpsters hate sports. Luke is also a fighter. He'll bend backwards for his girls, to a certain extent. Try pissing him off, and he can fight back - he'll even let his fists do the talking. Word has it that it's what got The Chad close to being casted as Ryan Atwood in The O.C., which he reportedly turned down. (Thank Dog for that!) Wimpsters would rather not display such brawn - inconceivable! Also, Luke doesn't seem all that insecure enough about his abilities, or about his way with girls. Rather than being all neurotic and shit about coming between a pair of best friends, he can walk away knowing that he blew it, yet still looking all cool and collected, like out-of-sight-out-of-mind, baby!
Doesn't have major sex issues, apart from Strike 1 with Peyton, which was wimpsterish in a way - he didn't want her to be just another meaningless fuck coz she was more to him than that. But he can fuck, bask in the afterglow and get on with his life while Brooke pines over him (how very Season One...then again, so is this whole post). He generally isn't emo, but he always wears a gray or red hoodie and can totally wimpster out.
He's no hipster, he just has implied hipster sensibilities. But perhaps it's his outsider status that gives him the Wimpster-peal. He's not Dylan or Ryan, just a good boy who loves his single mom and wants to play b-ball. He's not a spotlight whore. Popularity is of little concern to him. "They can have their world!" he even once told Haley. Tho getting noticed by, say, a couple of cheerleaders who happen to be best friends definitely has its perks! In fact, the show should be renamed Luke's Pals and Gals.
Between him and Nate the Great, being the outsider establishes what Luke is supposedly not: an asshole. Thing is, he's got tendencies just like any guy caught up in his own male privilege. He can be exceptionally hypocritical to Haley when it comes to what girls can or can't do as opposed to what guys can do that girls can't. Basically calling her on her principles, like some narrow-minded punk-rocker upholding this p-rock paradigm (yes, it's that bad). Actually, getting himself immersed in that whole love triangle thing with a degree of deception was pretty assholic. He can play smug bastard, alright. Even if Brooke was all like fun and fluff, getting the flirt on in her own unique Sandra Bullock wannabe-ness, she didn't deserve being cheated on. Peyton, the "indie-rock" bound-for-art-school cheerleader and perhaps the OTH writer's idea of the perfect girl, put her foot down with her guilty conscience. But for awhile, that didn't really solve the fact that, whether or not he was out of the picture, his girls still couldn't get enough of him.
And because he has other things to occupy his time and his mind, he can come off as the innocent party in all this. I'll bet he secretly liked being chased by Brooke - she's an attention whore, after all. But with Peyton, he actually did go out on a limb for her (him and his broken arm, er, pardon the pun. Oh yeah, I'm so full of 'em, I dunno where they come from anymore, they just do). He sought her affection while he was too chickenshit to break it off with Brooke. It's also implied that he and Peyton have similar taste in music, but for some odd reason, we never see him Sething out. All we know is that he listens to Travis, borrowed this Blackout CD from her and even has an eye for intentional cheese factor: he bought her a Tesla (Tesla! OMFG!) record when she was in a glamrock kick (I mean, hello RATT? Funny, coz it's something I would do). If it weren't for him, she wouldn't be drawing comic strips for Thud Magazine. And he loves to watch her draw. That's coz he lives vicariously through her art. Of course, we don't need to ask why they were never an item. (See Anna and Seth.)
As it is, Luke is all brooding and self-serious. He reads John Steinbeck. Instead of song lyrics of whatever "hip" and "happening" bands he and Peyton listen to, he quotes Ayn Rand and The Little Prince (that famous passage about grown-ups) in parts where narration is called for. He scrunches up his eyebrows when he's trying to comprehend, and chicks really dig that. And I'm here left wondering WHY.
Why, I'll take Peter Gallagher's goofyass cut-and-paste eyebrows any day!
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