All Gleed Out
I loved the pilot episode of Glee. I think I actually could have been characterized as “giddy” after watching it. Excitedly, I asked my partner to watch it with me, but really I just wanted to see it all over again. Sure sure, there was singing, very good singing, but like the best of musical theatre (didja catch the British spelling?), the singing just erupted out of the storylines, the actors were just called to move up another electron shell of excitement and sing about their emotions to us.
Glee turned out to be like reefer. I’ve been chasing that first hit this whole time, and rarely has it seemed as great as that first episode. (I am not, for the record, saying I smoke pot. It’s a metaphor, people.)
In the pilot, I didn’t know these characters a whit. It was as if I’d walked into a random high school in the U.S. and watched from the corner as everything unfolded. I could pay attention to archetypes, or at least, the illusion of them. Who doesn’t love a good high school trope, come on.
I made sure my DVR would record the history of this show, and I figured it wouldn’t last a whole season. How could a musical hour-long comedy about high school—High School Musical’s success aside—last on prime time TV? It was absurdist to boot!
A full season and a commitment to two more seasons later, and I clearly misunderestimated people’s affection for this show. For me, however, the bloom is off the rose.
I let it go when Mercedes’ closest thing to actual romance was her straight-colored glasses crush on Kurt, who is as gay as Oscar Wilde skipping through a field of daisies and whistling Tiny Tim. I gave it another chance when the tokenized paraplegic and the stuttering Asian student were well, tokenized, episode after episode, in favor of telling us the stories of the four attractive straight kids and their relationships. Jane Lynch as Sue Sylvester can be so distracting, after all.
Several episodes into the first season, the absurdity of the story arcs began to sputter like an engine running out of fuel. Sometimes it was more than Will Schuster playing straight man to everyone else. Wait a minute, this isn’t how this genre of writing is supposed to go. And I thought the problem was me, not the show. Oh, what a tangled web you wove, Glee. You’d pulled the musical wool right over my eyes.
I began to realize that there was a certain kind of masculinity on the show that I didn’t care for, that made me uncomfortable. When Will found out his wife’s pregnancy was all in her head and her fake baby bump, I was not prepared for his very violent reaction. Yelling at her full bore, getting up in her face, inches from her thin line of skin, he growled and stormed, and waved his heavy fists. Backing her into a corner of their kitchen I was actually scared for her, thinking yes, she sucks for lying, sure, she’s done a lot of covering up, but this is a Bad Reaction. I didn’t like what I’d let into my living room. And apart from the violence and threat of violence, there was this absence: not one iota of mercy or forgiveness.
I think I paused the DVR after watching that, and my partner and I caught our collective breath. We talked about how awful that was, how completely uncalled for. I’m not saying couples can’t fight, but this was an exchange in which Will made his male power over Terri abundantly clear, lording his strength over her, one word from her and her head might no longer be attached to her baby-less body.
The rest of the episode was very strange, with all of the emphasis placed on Terri’s betrayal (how dare she not actually be pregnant) and a reinforcement of Will’s pain and value as a (potential, now that he’s gone on the market) partner. Where did the cheery, singing show go? Into a morass of twisted gender ideals? What the hell were we watching?
It’s occurred to my partner and me that there are a couple of concepts on Glee headed on a collision course: a “new” kind of masculinity that pretends at being more emotionally available, and old-school expectations for social positioning, especially around the margins of culture. This clash pops up, mostly unexpectedly, and often, because on the surface, Glee presents a lot of kinds of characters in the hallowed halls of school: jocks, cheerleaders, brainiacs, and everyone else from The Breakfast Club except Judd Nelson. While these tropes don’t necessarily get along with each other, the “new” man is a diplomat, a person who can see someone else’s value and reason for being in the mix of characters. He still doesn’t see things from that person’s point of view, but I’ll get to that in a second. He thinks he sees it from their perspective, that’s the point.
When Kurt, the aforementioned gay butterfly, sees his butch of a hunting buddy dad, Burt, connecting with his own crush, Finn, the high school quarterback, he instantly becomes jealous, although it’s not immediately clear if he’s upset that he doesn’t have a manly relationship with his father, or if Dad is getting too much of his friend’s attention. Kurt wants to be in this equation somewhere. Glee doesn’t delve into the nuances between this sort of triad so much as act as a vehicle for our new masculinity; when Kurt toughens up and dresses like Mellencamp’s love child, it is the very white, very straight Burt who tells him he loves his son for who he is. See, tough men still can be open and emotionally accessible! Aw! But when Burt hears Finn calling Kurt’s decor in their shared bedroom (long story) “faggy,” Burt yells and yells and yells. Albeit with less kinetic violence, his diatribe about what men mean when they use the f-word is notable for its lack of compassion even as it’s calling out someone else for similar behavior. In fact, Burt tells Finn he has to move out. Wow, one slip-up in this house and you’ll make a kid homeless? That’s harsh!
(As an aside, it was also a fascinating moment because it basically hierarchized epithets, which is a little like a photo negative the Oppression Olympics.)
So these men are more emotionally available, I suppose. However, 95 percent of that emotion is anger, at least according to the two men who’ve expressed the most intense emotions. I’m not sure moving masculinity forward only to offer a foundation for male anger is really an improvement. While I agree, once again, that it’s good for parents to protect gay children in theory—who doesn’t want to cry along with the dad who laments, “I love my dead gay son!” in Heathers—I don’t like seeing the unbridled anger from men on a regular basis. And I’m not sure why this is the messaging we’re getting on a happy musical show. Where the hell is Busby Berkeley?
Great post. I have to say yesterday’s episode really left me unsettled. I understand what they’re trying to do, but when these male characters get angry it’s over the top and leaves me really uncomfortable. You’ve managed to write exactly what it was that I was trying to verbalize after these episodes.
I have not connected to Glee, I’ve only seen about 4 episodes total, even though it seemed like a recipe for my pleasure, but I’m so curious about why I am keeping it at arm’s length and why I don’t trust it. Reading your recap helped me put my finger on a few things. I was so nervous about the ‘hysterical pregnancy’ and how she would get demonized for that, and didn’t know about the anger scene you described. I never understood why they were married in the first place, they pretty much set that couple up to be terrible to watch from the first scene, and that makes me feel yucky to see them end their storyline like that.
p.s. you have actually revealed yourself to NOT be a pothead because it actually hardly does anything the first hit — it gets better later with practice. now, cocaine and meth is another matter — that’s some dragon chasing……
@JenS: and now that I think of it, I can’t remember a single episode in which a male character DIDN’T express his anger. I’m not asking men to bottle it up, but do we really need another show about male anger and/or violence? I’ve already got my detective shows! I hope you find more soothing television!
@Raymond: I know, when I first heard about this show I thought, squee! singing! high school! glee club! And then there was all the tension with Terri. And all the wrong kinds of romance between the football coach and Emma. And I don’t like seeing things play out this way.
As for the reefer, I do know about the reverse tolerance. I guess I confused it with my ex-cigarette addiction, because the first puff was always the best. Must have been all that acid I did in college screwing with my memory banks.
Ah, I guess if you mean it in terms of the the first puff of the day, then I’d say THC is pretty similar to nicotine and caffeine that way, the first intake of the day/week is often the most delectable. I was more reading it in terms of the first time getting high. (This is all medical marijuana in legalized states that I’m referring to, of course.)
Whenever people post song numbers on facebook from glee, I almost always watch them! It’s the talking parts that get dicey. (Though also I love Jane Lynch and I’m happy for her success.)
I love Jane Lynch too! She’s such a great actress and I’m thrilled she’s enjoying wider appeal and acclaim. Glee did not even pique my interest because I knew that Ryan Murphy could not do justice to the material. Having cut my teeth on Nip/Tuck and also watching a few episodes of Mad Men, which while not being produced by Murphy is produced by another gay male who seems to have similar notions about “new masculinity” as described here and it’s often mostly centered around anger and the oppression of marginalized folks in service of “protecting” the fragile. That’s paternalism; nothing “new” about that.
Brilliant analysis. Hopefully, this gives folks some pause or at least stops them from framing the lack of Glee in my life as some kind of terrible tragedy.
@evmaroon; too much LDS at Berkeley can have that effect. Personally, I blame Reagan. I don’t think I have 1 coherent memory of the Reagan years that is not concert-related or crush-related.
ON topic: I am glad to find out that I’m not alone in not liking Glee. I will get sucked into it for a few minutes, then WHAM, I’m hit with some bullshit that makes me remember why it is I don’t watch tv anymore. But there it is, everyone pointing at token characters and claiming that Glee’s diverse, or at how it escapes stereotypes, when all I see it doing is avoiding the WORST Spike-TV-type fare.
I have not seen a single episode of Glee. It just didn’t appeal to me. I tend to stay away from CW/UPN/WB etc. shows. I don’t watch much network TV anyway and I can’t be arsed to stay faithful from week to week. When I started hearing all the criticism I was glad I hadn’t bothered to watch it.
Irish Up, agreed. I think it takes a lot of cheek for a person to claim to subvert tropes which haven’t been used to marginalize them.
I’ll agree that the “new masculinity” here isn’t going anywhere particularly new, but I thought that one part of Burt’s rant at Finn actually addressed some of that, which I appreciated. He said something about (and I’m so sorry I can’t remember or find the exact words) that he thought Finn was a different kind of guy, someone who knew from an early age things that it took Burt years to learn, but that he isn’t afterall.
It certainly doesn’t make everything better, but it at least points to some acknowledgment that these characters don’t completely live up to the men we want them to be, and the kind of masculinity we’d like them to represent.
@Snarky’s: Paternalism, yes, that’s exactly what it is. But it boils my blood when people disingenuously or ignorantly act like they’re interested in who those marginalized people are. Instead the stutterer is a fake, the paraplegic always cries about not being able to walk, the “other Asian” doesn’t get a name, and the black girl never gets a real boyfriend. Great.
@Irishup: I’m so over tokenism. Seriously.
Ev – I wrote this over at bitch (in response to a comment) regarding the depiction of black and white homophobia:
“For starters, white homophobia and black homophobia is not “read” the same way in society. White homophobes are individuals, with NAMES. Black homophobes are not depicted this way. RE: Prop 8. Unless one lives under a rock, it’s pretty hard to make that statement. Black folks being painted as more homophobic than whites serves two purposes: it stigmatizes an already stigmatized group of folks and more importantly it ERASES our own queer folks.”
I think one of the key problems with Glee is it tends to operate as though by wishing things would be different they in fact could be. I find that extremely dangerous.
I’m just confused as to how another show about straight white lives can be considered a breakthru – even in these times of reality programming – and how folks have really deluded themselves into believing we’re witnessing some kind of renaissance of television. This is just Welcome, Back Kotter or Head of the Class with some Madonna songs and singing. Actually, those shows were better since they weren’t under the impression they had something important to say.
Look, people can consume whatever pop culture they wish; I firmly believe that. However, one must acknowledge the costs of doing so and realized folks might judge a person for of it. While consuming problematic content doesn’t make you a bad person in and of itself, it’s the decision to ignore its issues because you like the product, which tends to be really annoying.
It’s why I avoid critique stuff I don’t consume. I have my hands full unpacking the potential fail in stuff I like and I really don’t want to be a person who always finds some reason for another person’s favorite to be fucked up, yet somehow never mine.
@lanehat:
Yes, and I did appreciate that sentiment, specifically with regard to the kind of past Burt referred to that is scant in quantity these days. I don’t buy, necessarily, that we’ve advanced to a better place just because we’re no longer calling people gay and queer. But wait a minute, we are. I hear from my 14-year-old niece that it still happening. There may be fewer acceptable spaces for it, but I’m pretty sure the football locker room is a strong holdout for the practice. The other thing I noticed during Burt’s—we’ll call it a soliloquy—is how much more nuanced Glee is on the gay male liberatory politic than any other. Just the idea that a man can “get” his gay son while not knowing what it means to be gay nor understanding how to always talk about it is way, way more in depth on that identity than we’ve seen with any other character, save perhaps with Sue’s affection for her developmentally disabled sister, and those have been very fleeting moments.
I think if we’re going to count Finn as a “new kind of guy,” then he needs to seriously unpack his white male butch privilege, because he throws it all over the place. And if I were to call him out on it, I wouldn’t make him homeless in the process. So I kind of lost the beauty of Burt’s protectionism in the torrent that was his delivery.
@Snarkys: agreed on the racialization of homophobia! I remember going to a gay student conference when I was in college, and how there was an exclusive panel on being of color and gay. I was in the room next door. apparently it got so heated that it ended early, but the students reconvened on the campus quad to continue the discussion. years later, at new year’s eve 2006 in DC, I went to a club party with a good friend, a middle class African-American gay man from atlanta. I was one of the only white people there, and there were hundreds and hundreds of queers dancing and laughing and celebrating. I saw tears in his eyes and asked what was up. and this guy had such a thick skin on him, he was really hard to access. he just wiped his eyes and said he never thought he’d see so many gay people of color in one place. I know I can’t even grasp at how that must have felt. and that’s a pop culture touchpoint we never, never see.
By the way, Snarky, I love that you quoted Vonnegut.
Here’s the wonky thing about Glee – if it hadn’t positioned itself as “transgressive” I wouldn’t expect so much from it. It’s unfair, but there it is. I mean with a show like Head of the Class, they were just a classroom filled with dorky kids being taught by Johnny Fever. Yet somehow it did feel transgressive! Two different kinds of black female characters on one show! Okay, so they were stratified by skin tone and clearly there was some colorism at work, but it hadn’t set out to be important so while it’s interesting to examine those issues, I don’t find them as grating as in the case of Glee.
I tuned in to Glee last night because I was curious to see what they’d do with Lady Gaga songs. After the scene with Kurt/his dad/Finn, I wasn’t really sure why I felt so unsettled. This has really helped me articulate what was bothering me. And male anger issues aside, while I was glad to see a dad stand up for his child, it sort of bothered me that we didn’t get to see Kurt defend himself somehow.
On another note, did anyone else thing the mother/daughter duet to “Poker Face” was kind of inappropriate? I mean the title/chorus was apt enough, and I guess they had to use a Gaga song to fit in with the theme and all, but still…
According to everyone that I know who watches Glee, plus most of my vocal students, I would totally love this show. But I just can’t seem to get into it. Ignoring all of the inherent FAILS that I’ve picked up on, I just can’t get behind anything where the music is so over-produced and perfect. I like my music to have a little bit of…nast… to it. From what I’ve seen, everyone sings too pretty. Of course, I’m sure that whenever the Sassy Black Sista (SBS) gets to sing something, it’s very melismatic and stereotypical of “Black” singing, so they sure are PROGRESSIVE! and ALL-ENCOMPASSING! and whatever.
Glee looks like the worst of the worst out there, but, again, I haven’t seen an episode. And based on all of the negatives I’ve heard, I don’t plan to.
I do love me some Jane Lynch, though.
@erin78: Kurt was so good at standing up for himself at other parts of the episode, it made his lack of self-defense in this scene more obvious to me. And honestly, he was over-gazing at Finn, wasn’t he? The show was making no mystery of his crush at many other points this season, so Finn is correct that he’s being watched in his own bedroom from someone who desires him. My questions about this are: 1.) why do we have this setup of the gay gaze impinging on a straight man in the first place, and 2.) why are we supposed to be okay with anyone’s space being invaded? No, I don’t agree with Finn devolving into slurs, but there was a kernel of truth in his assessment. In a way, the voyeuristic invasion of Finn’s space mirrors the physical space Will invaded in the kitchen scene with Terri. And in both cases, viewers are asked to be complicit with the invader, and in fact justify the invasion. I’m not cool with that.
And yes, the Poker Face number was inappropriate. I guess that’s the limitation of branding the songs in a given episode, rather than picking the music that will support the story. Since there are, yanno, a lot of mother-daughter songs out there. Maybe Lady Gaga will write more broadly in future so that Glee can have a wider variety of themes from which to pick.
@eieioj:
This is exactly why I started out really liking the singing, because it was rough around the edges and spontaneous. I understand that as they keep rehearsing they get better and more polished, but they’re supposed to be the underdogs here, right? Where the hell did the guys get that Kiss stage? Why when there’s an unscripted number do I hear a string section in the background?
And hello, I was in my high school’s chorus. We sang the same damn vapid shit for weeks on end. To this day I cringe if I hear Louie, Louie.
To this day I cringe if I hear Louie, Louie
I was in band in middle and high school. I have the same reaction to the same song. That, and the “We Will Rock You/Another One Bites The Dust” medley that we played 3 years in a row.
The first song clip from Glee that I saw was of “Gives You Hell” by The All-American Rejects. And I had the same reaction to the (over)instrumentation.
I really, really do not like this show. Yes, Jane Lynch is amazing, but I think she’s wasted on the material, which, putting aside how super problematic most of it is, is just flat out lazy, flabby, uninspired writing.
Glee was supposed to be transgressive?
Eeek.
Since I didn’t know that, I had very low expectations of it when I started watching, and it has been making me increasingly uncomfortable of late. That scene you discuss with Will and his wife–ugh. ESPECIALLY because I found myself justifying his behavior to myself midway through to feel more comfortable (e.g., oh, but she behaved terribly, yadda yadda yadda, and other such baloney).
I didn’t really have a problem with the scene with Burt, though. I agree that Kurt HAD been overly invasive, and there were some legitimate grievances there—but if a parent of either gender heard someone yelling like that at their son? They’d better yell, and they’d better kick the offender out of the house.*** Anger isn’t always bad….
On the subject of him being “homeless”–I assumed Burt would be asking his mother and he to move back into their old house, which they own–not kicking him out alone. Or at least, his mother would probably go with him/support him.
***especially since we already saw Finn hit Kurt once, earlier in the episode. I know he just smacked his hand, but it was a very uncomfortable moment to watch–it seemed like it could escalate easily. Kurt *wasn’t* trying to touch him sexually, and Finn *hit* him, *because he was gay.* That would be gay-bashing.
Thinky thought because I am procrastinating:
So, leaving aside what I think about the 1st level of the scene, there is something to the idea that Burt embodies this paternalism on a meta level in the same way Will embodies it as a *potential* father earlier in the season.
So not only do we see masculinity expressed via anger and a kind of loose “paternalism” meta theme, we literally see the two adult men who are paternal figures express their anger most clearly.
Now, Will is not actually a fully developed paternal figure–his attempt to become a father/paternal member of society was thwarted by Terry. I think Glee tells us that thwarting that desire has the potential to be a Very Dangerous Thing with his reaction. You could also argue that Will takes on the “marginalized” Glee club members as surrogate children, in another instance of white male paternalism. He protects them, nurtures their dreams of fame, goes to see the prinipal with them, and acts as diciplinarian/daddy figure.
On the other side, you have Burt, the fully developed paternal figure. The show clearly means him to be a kind of ideal figure, if a struggling one. Still, there are constant references to how hampered he is by the lack of a woman (Kurt’s mother), and the main way he protects his son is through masculine anger (there is a scene earlier in the series where he yells at someone on the phone, I believe).
All of which is to say, I think you are very much on to something with this paternalism idea. Sorry for the book!
@chava22: no worries about comment length; I appreciate any well thought out response! I agree that a lot of this male anger is paternalistic—it also seems to be about control and expectations and I despise that it’s presented as a justifiable way men can vent their frustration on the show. I like how you unpack the potential and developed paternal figures among the characters, and you’ve made me ask some questions about ownership and relationships.
And just for kicks, how about the fact that Quinn’s screen time has plummeted now that the drama over discovering her pregnancy is over? For a show with so much paternalism, it shows its true colors with regard to women who are carrying fetuses.
@chava22: I didn’t see your first comment initially, oops.
I’m not saying anger is always bad. Anger can help a person realize inequalities, respond to critical situations, etc., but Glee, at least for me, isn’t portraying anger in this way. I’m not seeing characters stepping back, saying, “I’m really angry,” I’m seeing yelling and threatening behavior and intimidation, yet I’m as a viewer expected to be okay with this when it happens, as these are “the good guys.” I’m not okay with it.
I don’t get the living arrangement with Finn and his mom, and I don’t really know what the show expected us to think. Kurt had been vying to get Finn to move in for several episodes, there was never any mention of where Finn’s stuff was—though apparently he had at least one pair of clean underwear—nor any attempt to accommodate it into the decor, and if I were a teenager of either gender I’d find that pretty creepy and intimidating as a space to live in. As far as absurdism it wasn’t written nor executed that way, so I’d like some believability with that development, please. But instead I’m supposed to believe that Finn’s Mom’s house is just sitting there, waiting for them to move back in at a moment’s notice? That’s not moving, that’s camping out across town. I would not in a million years make that assumption.
As for Finn slapping away Kurt’s hand, well, that’s what people are entitled to do when someone invades their physical space. I certainly wouldn’t characterize it as gay-bashing, especially as Finn chose to leave the space rather than escalate the situation. He wasn’t right to use the words he used, he made a lot of assumptions about what Kurt wanted, and neither of them were listening to each other, but I peg the writers as having created some nonsense for us with the relationship between these two, which looks mostly to me as a classic love-hate dysfunctional dynamic. I want Kurt’s father to protect him, but it would also be great if he’d had said, “I don’t think they should move in,” having just seen his son, three episodes earlier, struggling with his relationships to them both. It would obviously be a big stressor.