The Queer Issue: You're Doing It Wrong
'Glee'
It Was Fun to Watch Up to and Until the Moment Gay Kids Started Taking It Seriously
Glee was my first hot-to-cold experience as a big fat bona fide TV critic.
Like just about every other reviewer in the land (and like the fans who would eventually turn on Glee), I belted out my praise with the lung strength of Rachel Berry when the show debuted in 2009. I wasn't alone in putting the show up there with John Hughes, Square Pegs, Election, and all we held commonly dear, bestowing upon Ryan Murphy and his caterwauling imps an iconic, cultural juggernaut status. I also felt that Glee gave today's teenagers something to call their own, instead of watching The Breakfast Club again.
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Shit, I reviewed it twice—the first time to kvell about it, and the second time to jangle the faintest alarm about Glee's grating redundancies, its ejaculatory sense of plot pacing. This was around the time that Murphy and company were starting to accept accolades for Glee from the Official Gays (who love handing out plaques and other translucent objects too big to be sex toys yet too worthless to hock on a meth binge), giving the show a meaning and a social import that it wasn't even seeking.
It was around that time that a high school in Mississippi canceled the prom rather than let a teenage lesbian attend it with her date, which led to an Ellen-era culture skirmish and ended with the lesbian attending the school's hastily arranged short-bus prom with the usual—though not yet viral—good wishes of "It gets better, honey!" Meanwhile, the nefarious cool kids had their own secretly arranged prom. Oh, wasn't it just all so Glee-esque in theme and scope! Those goddamn jocks and cheerleaders—we'll show them. We'll sing "Don't Rain on My Parade," but we'll mash it up with some Gaga. Then they shall be vanquished.
Watching Glee in those headier times, I kept wondering what I might have done if a show like this had been on circa 1983, when I was in high school. What would it have done to me, for me?
Ruined me, probably.
This is what's insidiously wrong (and tiresome) about Glee and the gays: Its modest ambitions for a little provocative high-school camp were fun to watch up to and until the moment I realized that gay kids (and grown-ups) were taking it seriously.
The show does gay and other grandiloquent teenagers everywhere no great favors when it portrays the gleeks as talented. Like, really fucking talented. People say that's the charm of Glee—when Mr. Schuester's students break into song, an escapist make-believe takes hold, that familiar magic of movie-musical artifice that's as old as the MGM back lot. The piano, drums, and guitar become a fully mixed soundtrack. The voices soar. The choreography is perfect. It was always this way from the first episode of Glee, and probably will be until cancellation (in 2014, I predict). And I'd be fine with that if Glee didn't take itself and its message so seriously in the broader cultural realm. In public and across the media, Glee and its makers and stars conduct themselves as if they're saving the world. But if you're teaching marginal (and marginally talented) kids that they're going to be the next Katy Perry, then it makes my life harder, as someone who has to tell them they aren't.
If you watch Glee with disllusionment instead of boundless hope, you suddenly realize that all those musical numbers merely appear to be that perfect in the minds of the characters. No teenagers anywhere can sing and dance like that, unrehearsed. Glee never stops to underline that fact for the audience or make use of it. If Glee was in touch with the reality of being gay—which can have its dark side—it would make the cruelly honest decision to switch off the Auto-Tune and razzle-dazzle and show a bunch of kids in a choir room singing badly but believing they're great.
If the producers of Glee were interested in helping gay kids, the New Directions glee club would never make regionals; about 25 people would come to their concerts. Instead of reveling in Glee's musical numbers, adult viewers would enjoy the cringe of it all, while teenagers—already trained by YouTube to worship the cringe factor—would for once get a show that sincerely looks and acts as awkward as they are. Not pretend awkward, but the real hurt of mediocrity. The only sacrifice in this would be the loss of millions of iTunes downloads and ticket sales for the Glee Live! concert tour currently packing arenas.
Instead, Glee has become locked into the modern American delusion that anyone can sing, that we are all somehow stars, and all that Katy Perry "Firework" especially-you nonsense.
As we all know, everyday people aren't talented, and that goes special for everyday gay kids. How can fate be so cold, to deprive the one demographic that so desperately yearns for stardom on stage and screen of the voices, demeanors, and moves to achieve it? I get that, because, like a lot of teenage homo boys, the stage bug bit me, too. And like 99 percent of gay men (Neil Patrick Harris being the very rare exception), I had no business being onstage. I had no business auditioning for everything from Curly in Oklahoma! to Danny Zuko in Grease to Jesus in Godspell. No one was buying it. I had bad posture and used my hands too much when speaking; when it came time to sing, I summoned Robert Goulet and got Ethel Merman. I needed to be painting sets or picking the fonts for the posters and programs, while the director went to the athletic department to beg some real boys to try out. Still, I took to the audition stage each and every semester with the certainty that I was leading-man material, that my voice was strong and masculine (not cracking, not off-key), and that I could do this. Because in my mind, I could.
The reality was different. Onstage, no matter what sort of emotion the lyrics were meant to convey, I could only convey one thing, the thing conveyed by nearly every boy like me who joined drama clubs and glee clubs and show choirs: I am a gay teenager who can't sing or act, but really wants to, so work with me. A kid like that gives it everything he has and still the audience sits there thinking (subconsciously, if they are kind), That guy singing that duet with that pretty girl doesn't know yet that he's gay.
Glee has tried to circumvent this by being about 21st-century high-school kids like Kurt Hummel (the increasingly insufferable Chris Colfer), who was in the process of coming out to his friends and family, and would face down a menacing (closeted, self-loathing) bully and then transfer to some kind of imaginary prep school for boys where homophobia no longer exists and cute boyfriend potential awaits. And he's still singing like a cartoon bird.
The time approaches for America to see Kurt lose his virginity, something else I'm sure Glee will get almost right but also somehow wrong. I hope it's awkward and disappointing for him. I hope there aren't songs, except maybe Peggy Lee's "Is That All There Is?" And I hope, when it's over, that the cruel realities of sex will somehow open Kurt's eyes to his actual reality. At his next glee club competition, he will recognize the sour notes and bad harmonies of a bunch of kids trying way too hard and annoying the crap out of everyone around them. That is the delicious sound of being truly gay. That is the sound that leads real men—some of them gay—to become directors.
Or TV critics. 
Hank Stuever is the television critic for the Washington Post.
and yeah, I get that it's trying to be like every musical ever- but one of the things that the movie version of Chicago did so right was to make all the musical numbers the realm of the protagonist's imagination... giving the viewer the gritty realism of the story, while still keeping the glitz and camp that make musicals such a draw. I whole-heartedly agree that Glee fails by not following suit. Kudos to the author.
4
Hank, that was lovely. "still singing like a cartoon bird"...
if there were a program on TV about how Asians are super great at math - would we be ok with it, or would we feel it was racist?
That's how I feel about Glee.
"How the hell can anyone call this progressive?" I thought to myself, "It is the least gay gay show I've ever seen. It couldn't be farther from what life is actually like. It doesn't portray an accurate picture of homosexuality at all."
But of course I eventually realized that for it's time Will and Grace was a big step in the right direction. Was it entirely truthful and accurate? No. Is television ever? Don't get me wrong, I hold a lot of the same criticisms as Hank here on this particular program. But like previous shows that present Homosexuality in a brighter spot light, it is still a step in the right direction. Every once in a while I find myself very impressed with the depth of struggle in which some of the characters find themselves, such as Santanna and Brittany with their own identities.
Baby steps, ya know? go easy on em.
Merciful Zeus, does EVERYTHING have to have a message, it can't just be fun?
Remember 'Freaks & Geeks'? An incredibly well-written and well-acted show crammed with actors who have gone on to major careers, a show that has got to be the most honest depiction of high school ever seen on television, and it was canceled after 18 episodes because its ratings were rock-bottom.
'Glee' tackles issues that freak middle America out (not only homosexuality; there was an episode about atheism that was startlingly multi-layered) and yet is a top-rated show. Why? Because it's a glossy fantasy. It's the spoonful-of-sugar approach, and while it's not going to save the world...let's be honest, no television show is going to save the world. This one is having more socio-political impact than 99% of what's on television.
I can't stand 'Glee' most of the time, but I'm not so stupid as to slam one of the only shows making an effort to change ANYTHING.
Oops... sorry for the stupid ALL CAPS "voice" I wrote it in... but perhaps someone may get a snicker or snort reading it... or not. (and this isn't " @ " anyone so far looks to me everyone who's written something has very valid point(s)) Cheers!
16
21
It's a TV show. If you're a TV critic, how is it that you have never noticed that all TV shows have that suspension of disbelief quality to them. Real life problems that most families or people struggle with are solved in a half hour. On cop shows, they catch the bad guy before he kills again. On the rom coms, the awkward, but sweet guy gets the hot chick. And on Glee, the gay kid gets a little justice, the kind he doesn't always find in the real world.
It's to be taken as light entertainment, on those evenings when you're too drained to pick up a book. That's all.
If you really have a problem with people taking Glee seriously, you're problem isn't with Glee. You're problem is with the people.
24
I'm not naive, I know that people can't sing things that well on their first attempt. But it didn't occur to me to take a cynical view of it. I saw it as the kids hearing the way the song could potentially sound, and probably resembled after weeks or months of practice. It's a television show, it's not going to show us slowly better versions of a song over and over, it'll show us the polished version.
Rachel is virtually the only one who sings solos and is exceptional, and in the show she has been practicing singing and dancing since she could walk. Kurt is also quite talented and he too has a life-long passion for music.
And as for the music quality, Glee itself acknowledges that all the time. I remember in the episode "Hello", a string quartet starts backing a song sung in a bookstore and they actually show the quartet there. That was an honest and funny acknowledgement of the lack of realism in Glee's "spontaneous" scenes.
And remember, we're often reminded that Mr Schuester won Nationals (which the Glee club isn't even close to). And where is he? He's a divorced Spanish teacher at a pretty lousy high school in Ohio. Glee might sugar-coat a lot of things but not that.
As for the gay relationships and plotline, yes I do agree with you.
30
It is now more or less celebrating the thing that it initially stood against. These kids aren't the outcasts; they are the victors. They are the elite caste. They are, in fact, the oppressors. it's a very disheartening turnaround.
It's Afterschool Specials all the way down for them. Not even Jane Lynch can save them.
@25 That was intentional. I remember seeing one of the writers say so.
I'd have to agree with everyone who called you bitter. And I'd have to add that you seem as out of touch with high schoolers as you claim Murphy is.
And I think Glee is plenty awkward. In fact I cringe every time Kurt walks into a room.
Lady GaGa––not real. Tens of thousands of GaGa fans calling NYC senators and lobbying for same-sex marriage at her request––very real.
And obviously they just glorify being gay. You know, Kurt had so much fun being constantly bullied to the point of having to leave school.
Yeah, and what about those gay stereotypes? Like, obviously guys that are into fashion don't exist in the real world. But when you say that all gay kids were desperate to join theater, that's totally not stereotyping. And the fact that people like you couldn't be great enough to make it in theater means no one can, and even dreaming about it is stupid. Because giving depressed teenagers hope wouldn't do a thing, right? So, yes, let's show those gay kids that their life is going to suck. Because they're the only ones who will have horrible lives.
And oh right, Chris Colfer is insufferable. How dare he achieve great success in his still young career? Doesn't he know we're supposed to be spreading the message that life is going to suck?
So thank you. Thank you for this incredibly inoffensive article that has nothing to do with your own bitterness about life.
As for Lady Caca she's NOT for GLBT rights except for when it means getting more of us GLBT people to buy her music by only pretending to be.
She's not even actually bisexual and she's just a hetero woman using GLBT issues/our rights to get us to buy her music just like Madonna did.
this is what's so funny! all the talented actors,a nd then they get down to doing a hs showchoir number, and IT LOOKS LIKE JUST ANOTHER BAD HS SHOWCHOIR NUMBER!!
Like the halftime dancers in best little whorehouse (Thommie Walsh/Tommy Tune). I'm not a great fan of Glee, but their choreographer is a genius. As is their contumer.
Maybe this writer was a shit singer in high school, and all right, if all of his writing was as coherent and non-contradictory as this article, he probably wasn't much good there either, but kids--yes, even gay kids, even Asian kids, even kids in wheelchairs--even, god forbid, HIGH SCHOOLERS--are in fact sometimes good at things. They're none of these characters brilliant and many of them not terribly smart, none of them pro athletes and plenty of them kind of scrawny and clumsy. Let us not forget the lovely Miss Lauren Zizes, whose voice is most definitely nothing like stage-solo material, but who still sang her song. Some kids get through high school by concentrating on how they're really, really good at art--and yes, many of those kids will never be more than mediocre, but a lot of them are genuinely talented. Some bury themselves in grades and classes. And these kids sing.
There are two reasons the glee club is important. One, to quote Brittany, is that "we're a family." The other though, and equally as important, is that "this is the only chance we have to feel good about ourselves for something."
Sometimes teenagers are ACTUALLY GOOD AT THINGS. It is that which actually gets them through the otherwise unrelieved misery of high school. So yes, Hank Stuever, the kids on Glee are allowed to be good singers. More importantly, the kids on Glee--Kurt Hummel, who got sexually assaulted in a locker room, Brittany Pierce, who's slept with half the guys in school and been called "stupid" by every single one of them (and everybody else she knows), Santana Lopez, who doesn't even remember how not to be a bitch because she's just been scared for so long--and oh yeah, the straight kids too, the Asian ones and the kid in the wheelchair and even Rachel fucking Berry--are allowed to feel GOOD about themselves for being good singers.
And yeah, that is what I want our teenagers to learn from their TV's.
As for the realism or lack thereof, I think it's a great example of the use of Pararealism and Metarealism. The show never claimed to be realistic...on or off screen. What it does is introduce ideas and ideals to the world.
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