Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Coming out Party


I do not want to sweep gay rights in television under the rug; however, I find it more important to focus on the lesbian aspect of Glee since gay men have been moving forward in television since Will and Grace time, and not many mainstream shows feature a lesbian main character. Besides, Kurt's problems were so last season. Now the focus is Santana's coming out “party” which happened in the “I Kissed A Girl” episode. This episode does a lot in that it does not portray the girl on girl for sweeps week nor does it do the Buffy transition of Alyson Hannigan's character. This shows so much more. Finn to Santana states: “A few weeks ago some kid who made one of those 'It Gets Better' videos killed himself. All right you deal with your anxiety surrounding this stuff by attacking other people and some day that's not going to be enough for you and you might start attacking yourself” (14:57). An older study of television from 2001-2003 reveals that, “sexual content associated with nonheterosexuals was found in about 15% of programs overall; however, rates of occurrence within episodes were low...programs on commercial broadcast networks were less likely to have nonheterosexual content than those on cable networks” (Fisher, Hill, Grube & Gruber). Glee is pushing issues in our media out of the closet and bringing the message of acceptance along too. 
Video courtesy of GleeOnFox

http://www.fox.com/glee/full-episodes/4286679/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2000838/

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Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Dodgeball


New student, Rory Flanagan gets bullied by
some of the hockey team.
Photo courtesy of tvline.com

Glee is big on diversity and has shown many aspects of bullying since the pilot. The main characters of the show are actually bullied most, whether it be the nerds or the popular kids. This running theme of Glee is amazing because it really works to make viewers think twice about how they treat people in real life. In the episode “Pot O' Gold,” the new kid Rory Flanagan gets tortured by most of the school which leaves him friendless until the New Directions lets him join their ranks. Of course, this doesn't stop Rory from being mocked within the glee club, but he is mocked less so. However, probably the biggest episode on bullying since the Kurt Hummel debacle in season 2 would be the episode “Mash-off.” Santana Lopez's meanness runs wild in this episode especially when speaking to Finn Hudson: “At some point I must have liked that you look like a taco addict that's had one too many back alley liposuctions” (21:57). The thing is bullies rarely think of consequences, which is a main theme of this episode since Santana's constant verbal abuse of Finn leads to Finn outing her and in effect her being outed on a campaign video against Sue. Sue also claims some of the blame by throwing dirt herself in the same race. 

A podcast by Josh and Jen of Gleeful: A Glee Podcast had interesting opinions on the same talk between Santana and Finn. To get to the good stuff, skip to minute fifteen. 



Consequences, that is what this is about. A website on bullying states a similar belief, “bullies are people who have not learned the lesson of consequences, i.e. that if they behave well there are good consequences (reward), but if they behave badly there are bad consequences (restriction, sanction, punishment, etc). Since childhood, bullies have learnt that they can avoid the unpleasant consequences of bad behaviour through the instinctive response of denial, blame, and feigning victimhood” (bullyingonline.org). 

http://www.fox.com/glee/full-episodes/3556956/
http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/bully.htm


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Monday, December 12, 2011

Pregnant with Drama


Quinn Fabray walks through the halls of McKinley High showing
 off her new devil may care look.
Photo courtesy of aceshowbiz.com

A lot of television shows follow an outline with the same conflicts happening in different plots. One of these overly done conflicts happens to be the teen pregnancy. Whether it be a scare or an actual pregnancy many a drama television show has visited this conflict sometimes even several times over. While teen pregnancy has gone down in number since the 1950s, “the proportion of all teen births that are non marital has increased equally dramatically, from 13% in 1950 to 79% in 2000 (see chart)” (Boonstra).


Graph courtesy of guttmacher.org
Glee remains one of the only television shows to outline what happens after pregnancy to the new teen mother. Most drama TV shows let the audience forget that a character had a baby and gave it up or it died in earlier seasons. Glee dedicated at least eight episodes (and possible even more future episodes) to prolong a post pregnancy plot for Quinn Fabray two seasons after her baby's birth. Glee moves past just teen drama conflict to pull in viewers and onto issues surrounding teen pregnancy, Quinn season three says, “you think you can tell me what to do just because you signed a few papers? You're not her mom! I'm her mom!” (10:42). Read between the Glee lines: here is a problem that is happening, not just on most shows, most everywhere and there are actual consequences. Baby pacts, abortion, adoption and becoming a teen mother are never light matters or facts forgotten in passing years. Glee straddles a fine line between teen drama and social commentary, but most often finds a beneficial relationship.

http://www.fox.com/glee/full-episodes/3556956/






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Sunday, December 11, 2011

Out with the Arts!


Sue ripping out the innards of a purple piano in the season premiere.
This is a minute or so before her idea to stand against the arts.
Photo courtesy of tvfanatic.com

The third season of Glee started out with a bang. Antagonist, Sue Sylvester, running for congress platforms against the arts in public schools. Sue states: “People are angry, they want a candidate whose against something” (6:55). Later she goes on to say, “The arts are expensive, and we can’t afford it anymore…I will suspend all public school arts programs and reject all federal and state funding for the arts until every single student reads at or above grade level” (12.51). This is a point where Glee uses the character of Sue Sylvester to comment on the cutting of arts programs at schools that has been occurring especially due to financial issues within schools. The way in which Glee executes this social point also lays bare their social commentary on the matter. It would be one thing for the principal to cut the arts due to financial issues; however, having the antagonist cut the arts to try and win over American in a political scheme is a different story. With this plot, Glee seems to be saying that the arts are important and should be kept in schools. A similar opinion can be seen by Olivia Houck, “While the worry that art and music programs may put an added financial burden on schools, it has been shown that the reduction in arts costs schools money. Schools have to hire additional staff members to execute the disciplinary issues that are increasing among students” (Houck). It seems for all intents and purposes that budget cuts should not go out first to the arts. Glee actually uses Sue to advocate further upon the point of arts when she speaks on literacy. A study on music shows, “that music training, unlike listening, produces long-term modifications in underlying neural circuitry in regions not primarily concerned with music” (Shaw, Rauscher, Levine, Wright, Dennis & Newcomb 7). This means that music training improves brain function for different parts of the brain which can mean learning ability will increase too. Jill Williams says of her three year old daughter, "She has the gift of language and I can't help but believe it's because of rhythm and rhyming and the flow of music” (Harris).

http://childrensmusicworkshop.com/advocacy/canmusicmake.html
http://www.tvfanatic.com/gallery/sue-in-purple/

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More on Glee Season 3 premiere: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndIRjfOF04g
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Saturday, December 10, 2011

Gleeked out Intro

According to dictionary.com glee is a noun which can be defined as:
  1. open delight or pleasure; exultant joy; exultation
  2. an unaccompanied part song for three or more voices, popular especially in the 18th century.
More relevant in this case, would be urbandictonary.com's version of the word. The first definition states: “An intelligent musical comedy. It breaks down the established stereotypes of high school cliques in a feel good comedy drama, interspersed with catchy song covers and dances” (smalltownboy). So am I here to talk about exultant joy? Maybe. Singing? Most definitely. The television show Glee in its most current season? Yes indeed I am. 
Glee season 3 promo.
Video courtesy of youtube.com

I have a theory about Glee that actually works along the same lines of urbandictionary's definition.Glee's plots do what they do to comment on things happening in the media (much like the onion.com) and to promote social change for the better (think what Will and Grace did for gay men; Glee is doing for lesbians). Keep in mind spoilers are a given with this blog.

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