Let me just state right up front that "Friday Night Lights" may well be my favorite TV series of all time, so I took it as a bit of a personal affront when the Romney campaign chose to adapt the show's trademarked slogan - "Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose" - into "Clear eyes and full hearts, America can't lose" and make it its own (Jason Alexander had a similar response when he heard of this outrage on the Stephanie Miller Show yesterday).
Romney has repeated a version of the line for several days straight on the campaign trail. His campaign sent fundraising email with the motto in the subject line. And it’s now plastered at the top of his Facebook page, overlaid on a black-and-white photo of the candidate standing in the rain, his back to the camera, at a rally in Virginia on Monday.
I'm happy to report that series creator Peter Berg is
hitting back, this, despite the fact that Buzz Bissinger, the author of the book on which the series is based, has himself come out as a Romney supporter.
But the series creator, Peter Berg, has sent the campaign a letter accusing Romney of plagiarizing the rallying cry, which has been used in stump speeches, on social media and on posters. Berg’s letter went even farther, declaring, “Your politics and campaign are clearly not aligned with the themes we portrayed in our series.” He also compares Romney to one of his characters, Buddy Garrity, a somewhat ignorant car salesman who started selling imported Japanese cars instead of American-made ones.
For anyone who hasn't seen the show, "Friday Night Lights" is completely apolitical. It's just an extremely honest depiction of what
Stephen King in
Entertainment Weekly called "decent people trying to lead decent lives in a down-on-its-heels Texas town." Whatever one can say about the characters - and I imagine many of them might be quite conservative, given where the drama takes place - they are definitely NOT 1%-ers like Mitt.
So I'm glad Berg retaliated. I hate the thought of Mitt tarnishing a truly great drama like FNL for the rest of us fans.