Jonathan Ott

Why We Needed the High Fidelity TV Show: If, like me, you loved the book, and if you obsessed over the movie and learned all the wrong lessons from it, just like I did as an angsty, misunderstood, hopelessly romantic adolescent, this show gives you the chance to relive all your favorite parts (e.g. the banter of coworkers, the endless list-making, the useless trivia, the insights into making mixtapes), while updating the problematic glamorization of unhealthy behavior into more clearly-stated admonishments and cautionary tales regarding relationship drama. While many detractors of the show will no-doubt reach their conclusions based solely on the very Rob-Gordon-like canonization of the original film, others may find the show awkward simply because they DID in fact learn the right lessons from the film, which they view as an indictment of a kind of behavior unique to men (I'm looking at you, Pitchfork). And while there's some truth to that, the men of High Fidelity (the film) are far from the only characters acting selfishly. I would argue that Laura not only strings Rob along, but knowingly gets back together with him for the wrong reasons. But this is why the TV show has value - precisely because it does not give us the same exact story. While obsessive fandom may be a hotbed for masculine toxicity, the focus on such problems to the exclusion of female perspective can be just as problematic. It's as if some men are so desperate to retain dominion over traditionally male arenas that they're willing to monopolize such unattractive traits as...well...excluding others. Also, it's worth mentioning that, like the film (and its main character), the show isn't perfect. Some of the updated bits work better than others, as they try to incorporate not only new technologies and attitudes toward music fandom, but also modern day sentiments on topics such as believing women, gaslighting, gatekeeping, cultural misappropriation, queer culture, and social media. However, the best parts are when the show merely uses the original material as a jumping-off point. Like episode 5, in which a small segment of the book, which was filmed for the movie but was ultimately cut, is expanded into an episode-long event, showcasing the troubled gender dynamics which often plague cultures of connoisseurship. All this to say, I found in the show the opportunity to once again fall in love with the story of a self-obsessed record store owner, who is still capable of making the same mistakes, but who seems to be at least somewhat aware of her own subjectivity, if not her tendency for self-destruction. Even the show's tone - the editing, scoring, pacing - seems to do a better job of pointing out when a character is behaving unhealthily. And while the show may have sacrificed a bit of the honest realism found in the book, such as the believability of two selfish people getting back together even when they're obviously bad for each other, it does so in the service of leaving us with better lessons in love.