Mr. Easterbrook, They Use Bookbags!

Let no one doubt that Gregg Easterbrook’s “Tuesday Morning Quarterback” NFL column is a primary influence upon “Nachoman’s Baseball.” TMQ is a Brookings Fellow and an editor for the Atlantic Monthly and the New Republic… and he’s a leading national football writer. What’s not to like?

That doesn’t mean that TMQ doesn’t get some things wrong, occasionally. I was moved to write in response to this note in Tuesday’s column regarding a cheerleader character in NBC’s Friday Night Lights:

Last season, Lyla Garrity… was working on her college apps and otherwise acting like a senior, but she once again is strolling the halls of Dillon High, textbooks pressed against her bosom. High school girls usually carry textbooks and binders in the up position, against their chests; high school boys usually arry textbooks and binders in the down position, on their hips. If you have a theory on why this is so, propose it...

But his fundamental assumption is incorrect! Here’s what I wrote:

Mr. Morning-Quarterback,

Regarding book carrying -- the FNL writers, and writers of seemingly every other show featuring high school students[1], get it completely wrong. Apparently they've never actually visited a high school...

I teach physics at Woodberry Forest School, a boarding school for boys. I don't believe I have *ever* observed a student carrying his books on the hip. Last week I visited Oak Ridge (Tennessee) High School (where awesome AP Physics teacher Peggy Bertrand is preparing a team for the USIYPT, a national physics debate tournament) – even in the co-ed public school with crowded, locker-rimmed hallways, I observed no one of either gender carrying their books as television portrays. Why not? They all use bookbags, of course! Any other method becomes quite impossible, considering the sheer (literal, not necessarily figurative) weight of the typical student’s course load. In fact, when Peggy designed her new physics lab, she included bins underneath the lab tables for bookbags, solving a major tripping problem. Ask Spencer[2] about this if you disbelieve me.

So the question becomes, why do Hollywood writers perpetuate this mythical book-carrying method? My only thought is that it’s the same underlying reason for so many television myths… it makes the girls seem more vulnerable, the boys more macho.

Am I wrong? What’s the deep sociological explanation for television’s conceit? Upon even more reflection, I’m wondering if TV writers portray book-carrying in this manner simply because TV has always done so. It’s kind of like how “aliens” all look the same and travel in flying saucers – because TV teaches us that that’s what aliens look like.

[1] Including Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Cosby Show, which I think both used stereotypical book-carrying

[2] “The Official 14-Year Old of TMQ”