Life Lessons Learned

[speaks]

So, My family is filled with Glee fans. The show can be a little adult for our 8 year old and sometimes even the 12 year old. I personally think its good that our kids get exposed to such things, and often when things get intense on the show we end up pausing the program and having a little discussion about what just happened

Comments

[pleroma]

I agree. I actually watched that episode online (haven't seen any others) and almost applauded the father for his comments

[speaks]

Kurt is ON the football team.

he's a place kicker.

Presumably Kurt is showering with the rest of the team. I am pretty sure there have been scenes of Kurt in a bathrobe while Finn is wearing a towel.

[lightbearer]

Actually, Kurt left the football team a while back, not that it was on-screen. He apparently quit while in the shower at the time, or perhaps immediately after, causing no some degree of uproar among the team. It was in a brief snippit of conversation between Kurt & Finn in ... "Ballad," I think.

I'm more unsure as to whether or not he's still a cheerleader. I suspect he more or less left when Mercedes did, as he hasn't been wearing his Cheerios uniform since then, but no one's mentioned yet. It's sort of like the now-solved mystery over where Quinn was staying after sectionals. :)

Just as some total trivial notes. :)

[elsewhere7]

I have not been discussing Glee on my LJ. After this past episode, I've been trying not to breathe a word about the show in public on or offline.

The reaction to that scene in at least one other place online seems to have become 'Bad Kurt, look what You Made Finn Say.' If Finn had hit Kurt, they would have said 'Kurt, you made Finn Hit you.' It's that bad. It's not my opinion; it's what I picked up from ther fans. The opinions I heard were 'What Finn said was wrong BUT-' Or 'no, I'm not anti-gay, but-!' More 'buts' than a Sir Mix-A-Lot video. It got worse when Kurt was referred to with a few new words. 'Stalker. Harasser. Molester.'

I had to restrain myself from throwing in a lot of words that end in '-phobe' or 'privilege.'

[speaks]

I do not in any way justify what Finn said. The explanation for what Finn said is that Kurt pushed him and that Finn has poor communication skills.

As a Public Defender friend of mine says "That's an explanation, not an excuse."

REMEMBER I suspect that most of the people watching Glee are High School kids. (Anyone got demographics?) And loud annoying comments rise to the top on the internet.

Kurt *IS* out of line with his behavior towards Finn. He's bordering Stalker behavior. Really he's just being boorish though

[chapel_of_words]

The difference between a stalker, a harrassar, a bigot, a racist and an adolescent,is the adolescent may yet learn and mature out of it.

Finn may or may not be a bigot 10 years from now, but as a teenager, he's having to learn (sometimes through painful yet needed reminders) what that means.

Kurt may grow into a smooth romancer, but as a confused teenager he's bordering on stalking. He won't learn it's wrong until, well, he learns it's wrong.

You ask about sympathy and critique, they are not mutually exclusive in my mind to this situation. We can be sympathetic to the challenges of adolescence and what both teens are going through, however I think it's also important to be critical, even if knowledge of those challenges to attempt to lay out what is right and wrong. It's the division (not being a parent yet) that I'm not sure how I would do at - the internal voice that recognizes the challenge and the external voice that lays down the right and wrong, and why - without betraying the inner voice.

Tim C.

[puzzleoflight]

I'm with you on this one. It was a tense situation all around, where neither of them was right. Finn definitely needed to realign his thinking and empathy, but the best argument against Kurt's behavior I've seen so far is that, had the situation been between two opposite sex teenagers, it would have been more obvious that his behavior was unacceptable.

[jonsan]

I thought Kurt and Finn both displayed an adolescent lack of empathy for one another. I also think it is wildly unreasonable for Finn's mom to plan that move and expect Finn to start sharing a room.