Glee's uber-fail on gay bullying and more on Stewart's rally

[greenie_breizh]

One of these days I will have the time to write something about what's going on in my life, but for now I'll stick to more food for thought:

- Glee's Gay Suicide PSA: It got worse: This article perfectly summarizes why the episode left me with a very bitter taste. Ironically, Allie and I came home to watch that episode right after I'd given a

Comments

[greenie_breizh]

I know, it was amazing to read! It came out just a few days before I did that lecture so I printed it out for my students and passed it around in class. Hopefully they enjoyed it as well. :)

[fan_elune]

That post on Glee is so true. And yet I can't wholly condemn that episode - yeah, they screwed it all up, oh yeah, and then some, the way only Glee can, and made me once again wonder why I was still watching - but Teenage Dream brought tears to my eyes. I did not even fully realise why until I read Tom and Lorenzo's review of the episode. They put it better than I could.

I don't always agree with them, but about that number? Oh, man, do I. And I'm bisexual. All the straight images I've grown up with do work for me. There's only "half" (I still hate quantifying it, but let's for the sake of an easy sentence) of me that never got the validation in media I would've needed. So I can only imagine how much it would mean to gay kids, when it made me, a grown-up bisexual in a "straight" marriage, tear up.

But yeah, they screwed that episode up. That said, I expected nothing less of Glee. GET BETTER SHOWRUNNERS, DUDES.

[greenie_breizh]

While I think Teenage Dream (and the symbol that came with it) was the one aspect that was heartening about this Glee episode, it totally failed to warm my heart the way that portrayals of gay teens being lovely and in love and everything usually does. I think that's partly a failure of the narrative - Glee tends to do a poor job of making me care for the characters; the fact that Teenage Dream happened five seconds after we met Blaine, instead of after he'd been given a chance to be more of his lovely self to Kurt and a crush had been given 4 seconds to develop, I think the song would have been way more powerful. So there's the fact that Teenage Dream didn't do its job very well for me, but that's only part of the story

[greenie_breizh]

Like, this week's episode, Kurt and Blaine were being way cuter, in a way, I thought. Of course the show frames it as being ridiculous, through Mercedes' eyes, and does little in the way of acknowledging how beautiful and important these conversations about LGBT rights can be, but I can rescue that moment and how lovely Blaine and Kurt were there, in a way that Teenage Dream didn't really do for me, especially in the context of that episode.

[lounalune]

I'm happy you mention and give links about the ableism in the title of that rally. When I run into an instance of ableism (or another -ism, but I seem to run into ableism so much more often these days), I often have a moment of feeling out of energy, of wondering whether I should take the strength to call the person out, to risk a conflict, to feel frustrated... But with you, I knew it would be worth it because you'd be understanding and willing to learn and to spread the word.

[greenie_breizh]

I really, really appreciate this comment - I know first-hand how tiring and frustrating it is to confront this kind of deep-seated attitude, especially since people's first reaction is often to defend themselves (I'm not racist!) or challenge the validity of your claim (it's just a joke!).

So anyway, I'm glad that you felt that it was productive to mention it to me, and that you felt you could do it. I'm sorry I put you in this position - obviously the onus is on me to learn more and be better, not on you to educate me - and I'm grateful for the opportunity to confront my own thoughtless (and sometimes, I'm sure, unfortunately not so thoughtless) moments of ableism.