I fully expect this post to get me forever kicked out of the Showtunes Geek Club. Even though I met 99% of the requirements, I can’t write this post and stay a member in good standing. Sure I’ve sung the entire Andrew Lloyd Weber/Tim Rice repertoire into a knitting-needle faux mic. Of course I made the pilgrimage to the West End. Yes, I had one of those wonderful souveneir mugs from Phantom of the Opera where the mask appears when filled to the brim with hot liquid. And of course I can name pretty much any musical to have played on Broadway during the years 1935 to 1991.
But I don’t think Glee is all that. I’ve made it through the first three episodes; three more await, green-dotted in the TiVo queue for that day when I can again deal with lipsynced hip-hop and low-flying freak flags.
I first saw the Pilot back when it aired in June. It felt fresh and funny and different. Then I saw it a couple more times when it was replayed as often as that one guy’s 90-yard run for the touchdown during the Superbowl. That’s when I started to fall out of love. Why? Because every fresh, fun “It’s great to be different and to be good at something” moment is followed by a lot of mean-spirited and cruel jabs at “normal”. There isn’t a traditional marriage that isn’t played for snide laughs. The glee-club director’s wife is a nagging, self-centered gold digger. His mother is an overweight booze floozy. His sister-in-law is a nag stuck with a hen-pecked milquetoast. The only other married couple we’ve glimpsed are the gay fathers of the lead chorine. They’re not mocked, because it’s apparently not cool to run down gay marriage yet.
Abstinence is derided as an impossibility; the abstinence club is portrayed as a joke. Christians are shown as using Jesus for manipulation and further gold-digging. Lupus is–as in 30 Rock–treated as a punchline; a hypochondriacal excuse for getting out of real work. Apparently we can only Not Stop Believing if the thing we are believing in is that the very best thing in the world is bad lipsyncing to hip hop songs that treat women as vile objects to be avoided for every purpose except sexual release. Tonight’s shows treated me to the ideas that a woman who wants child support is a gold digger, that a woman who wants love from a man is poison, that a woman is good only if she pushes it real good and lets you sex her up.
Here’s the thing. I dig non-traditional. I live in a largely non-traditional universe. In this wild side that is my life I’ve often encountered the school of thought that says it’s okay to mock traditionalists because they’ve mocked the rest of us for years. That strikes me as a really immature “he hit me first” way of thinking and I don’t like it. I also don’t like how often misogyny shows up as the flip side of that coin. I don’t know if it’s because of Phyllis Schlafly or because you can’t have straight marriage without a wife or because a lot of people don’t get along with their moms. But honestly. Everyone–no matter who you are–has times when they feel inadequate. When they feel lonely and scared. The decent way to treat people is the way you WANT to be treated, not the way you FEAR to be treated. That’s why I just can’t get behind Glee as the best idea for a fun TV evening.
I’m a total choir geek and wanted very badly to love Glee. I didn’t like the pilot and didn’t make it through the one other episode I tried to watch. I think it’s all the kinds of wrong you described and then some. The musical numbers aren’t even good, and isn’t that what’s supposed to set the show apart? It’s rancid cheese, through and through.
The show’s target is hypocrisy and bad behavior. The celibacy club is ripe for skewering because they play lewd heavy petting games and generate “rules call” sexual behavior rather than fostering respectful chastity. Abstinence itself is acknowledged to be difficult and possible, even rewarding — but getting it on in the celibacy club isn’t the way to find that out. Marriages that are vehicle to gain possessions or status (Will’s crazy wife) or selfish wish fulfillment (Will) instead of offering a mature love that sustains both partners are also fair game. The problem is not the institution, but the people in them.
There are odd moments of grace and dignity and truth that I like. Overall, though, it’s meant to be a Romantic view of human behavior that’s most likely to appeal to high school and college kids.
That was indeed a very polite way of telling me I’m too old for this sh….ow. š
You are right of course. But that doesn’t trouble me much less, that the romantic notion of life on offer serves up so few examples of positive femininity.
Yeah, I too wanted to like this show, and I did at first. I mean, what’s not to like about a show that includes showtunes?? But… yeah, we’re not getting the showtunes. And the kids sing and dance well. And the quirky and trying-to-be-subtle over-the-topness is kinda cute. But its preachiness (about what exactly? … I’m not sure … if it’s not the things that Kat named [good job, Kat!]) is getting old and tired. Fast.
I think I’d rather have an updated version of the show Fame… Kids who are in a school in which being in performing arts is normal and is serious business!