Glee's shallow stereotypes
November 18, 2009
THE RECENT review of Glee by Leela Yellesetty rightly pointed out the show's enjoyable points, but ignores some glaring problems with the writing overall. True, there are lots of fun, uplifting moments, and some aspects of teenage life (like pregnancy and sexuality) are handled smartly.
While the show appears to be interested in equal opportunity for everyone who is "different"--people of color, homosexuals, the handicapped--in reality, it sinks to the worst tokenism by keeping these characters on the margins, while all the real drama is solidly within the romances of the white, heterosexual, able-bodied roles. The show repackages stereotypes quite unapologetically even while being subtle or hilarious in other ways.
Besides the tried-and-true underdog story of a rag-tag group of misfits trying to compete in a state championship, the writing relies heavily on a very tired premise. Two love triangles frame the show, and they are very unimaginative in their obvious pairing of people who absolutely do not belong together, juxtaposed with people who are just right for them. And ridiculously, both have women who are so desperate to keep their men that they lie about pregnancies to trap them in dead-end relationships.
The two most prominent non-white characters, Asian Tina and African American Mercedes, are respectively timid and sassy. And the writers apparently thought just having Tina be docile wasn't enough--she has a speech impediment and rarely speaks at all. Mercedes, who obviously overflows with talent, is allowed to sing the hook or backup, but never has a solo or duet with one of the white male leads for a performance. As the glee club grows throughout the season, it becomes much more diverse, yet somehow, none of the Asian, Black or Latino students qualify for the lead.
Even Kurt, the gay character, who gets a lot of lines and even his own story line in one episode, is little more than that: The typical gay character. He obsesses about fashion and "product" for hair and face, has perfectly recognizable gay male diction, and absolutely no chance of a sexual relationship on the show. These characters provide some flavor for the background of the show, but the spotlight rarely falters off the stars.
When the show finally does directly confront the issue of racial disparity in the club, it's through the conniving machinations of sociopathic cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester, who is out to destroy Glee forever. Sue is played with brilliant viciousness by Jane Lynch (the creepy store manager from The 40-Year-Old Virgin), who by herself makes the show a joy to watch.
However, her ploy to divide and conquer Glee on racial lines by pretending to sympathize with the marginalized fails, not because the Glee coach recognizes his mistakes, but because the kids get sick of the adults' rivalry. In a particularly horrible speech, coach Will tells the reunited club, "You're all minorities. Because you're in Glee." It is an utterly disappointing piece of television.
The frustrating thing about Glee is what it pretends to be versus what it really is. This is especially true when so many shows on prime-time television either lack solid roles for people of color, or complex roles depicting LGBT folks, the disabled, etc., or simple write them out (or, in the case of Lost, kill them outright).
This isn't to say there is nothing of worth in Glee, or that it's not often fun to watch. But there's no reason to pretend along with the writers that the show actually understands or takes seriously issues that face students who are pushed to the margins by a deeply unequal society.
Amy Muldoon, New York City
November 18, 2009
THE RECENT review of Glee by Leela Yellesetty rightly pointed out the show's enjoyable points, but ignores some glaring problems with the writing overall. True, there are lots of fun, uplifting moments, and some aspects of teenage life (like pregnancy and sexuality) are handled smartly.
While the show appears to be interested in equal opportunity for everyone who is "different"--people of color, homosexuals, the handicapped--in reality, it sinks to the worst tokenism by keeping these characters on the margins, while all the real drama is solidly within the romances of the white, heterosexual, able-bodied roles. The show repackages stereotypes quite unapologetically even while being subtle or hilarious in other ways.
Besides the tried-and-true underdog story of a rag-tag group of misfits trying to compete in a state championship, the writing relies heavily on a very tired premise. Two love triangles frame the show, and they are very unimaginative in their obvious pairing of people who absolutely do not belong together, juxtaposed with people who are just right for them. And ridiculously, both have women who are so desperate to keep their men that they lie about pregnancies to trap them in dead-end relationships.
The two most prominent non-white characters, Asian Tina and African American Mercedes, are respectively timid and sassy. And the writers apparently thought just having Tina be docile wasn't enough--she has a speech impediment and rarely speaks at all. Mercedes, who obviously overflows with talent, is allowed to sing the hook or backup, but never has a solo or duet with one of the white male leads for a performance. As the glee club grows throughout the season, it becomes much more diverse, yet somehow, none of the Asian, Black or Latino students qualify for the lead.
Even Kurt, the gay character, who gets a lot of lines and even his own story line in one episode, is little more than that: The typical gay character. He obsesses about fashion and "product" for hair and face, has perfectly recognizable gay male diction, and absolutely no chance of a sexual relationship on the show. These characters provide some flavor for the background of the show, but the spotlight rarely falters off the stars.
When the show finally does directly confront the issue of racial disparity in the club, it's through the conniving machinations of sociopathic cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester, who is out to destroy Glee forever. Sue is played with brilliant viciousness by Jane Lynch (the creepy store manager from The 40-Year-Old Virgin), who by herself makes the show a joy to watch.
However, her ploy to divide and conquer Glee on racial lines by pretending to sympathize with the marginalized fails, not because the Glee coach recognizes his mistakes, but because the kids get sick of the adults' rivalry. In a particularly horrible speech, coach Will tells the reunited club, "You're all minorities. Because you're in Glee." It is an utterly disappointing piece of television.
The frustrating thing about Glee is what it pretends to be versus what it really is. This is especially true when so many shows on prime-time television either lack solid roles for people of color, or complex roles depicting LGBT folks, the disabled, etc., or simple write them out (or, in the case of Lost, kill them outright).
This isn't to say there is nothing of worth in Glee, or that it's not often fun to watch. But there's no reason to pretend along with the writers that the show actually understands or takes seriously issues that face students who are pushed to the margins by a deeply unequal society.
Amy Muldoon, New York City
Glee: In Praise of Stereotypes May 17, 2010 6:47 PM EDT
Yes, the show revels in stereotypes, particularly in the gay character, Kurt. But, Thaddeus Russell says, unabashed queens have transformed life for everyone, straight and gay.
I like to cross my legs, not with one ankle on top of the opposite knee, like the straight man I am supposed to be, but with my legs closed, like Kurt Hummel, the flamboyantly feminine gay character on Glee. Like Kurt, I cry often, far too often for a heterosexual man. I like flowers and dancing and care deeply about fashion–of course, so does Kurt.
Kurt Hummel is a stereotype. And he is my hero.
After enjoying a honeymoon with critics during the first half of its premiere season, Glee is now increasingly coming under attack for its presentation of standard images of minority groups, especially in the character of Kurt. He is “that oldest of clichés: the sensitive gay boy who really wants to be a girl,” writes Ramin Setoodeh at Newsweek.com. Kurt and other stereotypical gay characters are setting back the movement for “acceptance” by being “loud and proud” at a time “when standing apart seems particularly counterproductive.” Fearing that unabashed flamboyance will cause heterosexuals to more fiercely defend marriage and the military “against what they see as a radical alteration,” Setoodeh argues, “if you want to be invited to someone else’s party, sometimes you have to dress the part.”
For heterosexuals, the movement begun by unabashed queens and dykes transformed life in countless ways.
Chris Colfer, the actor who plays Kurt Hummel, recently acknowledged his fear of making the character aggressively gay. “I’ve been working really hard to have him not be a stereotype from the beginning,” he told Brett Berk at Vanity Fair. “I grew up in a conservative small town, and the gay characters I saw on TV and in movies when I was growing up were all flamboyant and obnoxious and sometimes kind of annoying. And they weren’t like anyone I knew. The gay people I knew in real life were soft spoken and didn’t want to call attention to themselves because they were terrified of exposing themselves, of people finding out that they’re gay.”
Colfer is a wonderful actor, but if his intention is to portray a boy afraid of exposing his sexuality, he is doing a miserable job. Several gay bloggers have complained that Kurt “is just too gay,” and Berk writes, “Kurt is so gay he is, as he says, ‘an honorary girl.’” Indeed, and for this we should be glad.
History tells us that those unafraid to be “too gay” won far more freedoms–for all of us–than those who dressed the part of straights.
The strategy of hiding stereotypical characteristics was undertaken by the first gay rights organizations in the United States–the Mattachine Society, the Daughters of Bilitis, and the Janus Society, which were founded in the 1950s. Members of the groups were required to wear business suits and conservative dresses. Drag queens, “bull dykes,” “swishing,” and “limp wrists and lisping” were explicitly barred from their meetings and demonstrations. The Mattachine Society instructed gays to avoid “any direct, aggressive action” for civil rights and
attacked the “swishy type of homosexual who brought contempt and derision on the majority of homosexuals.” The Janus Society urged “all homosexuals to adopt a behavior code which would be beyond criticism and which would eliminate many of the barriers to integration with the heterosexual world.” The groups even avoided using the term “gay.” Instead, they called themselves “homophiles.”
Many have argued that the “politics of respectability” was necessary in the conservative era of the 1950s and early 1960s. But it was a total failure. Police raids on gay bars actually increased, no civil rights were won, and by eliminating the most powerful form of sexual dissent in American culture, the homophiles’ strategy actually contributed to the sexual conservatism of the time.
All that changed on June 28, 1969, when a group of flamingly stereotypical and self-proclaimed “faggots” and “dykes” refused to be arrested during a police raid at the Stonewall Inn in New York City. A newspaper reported that “Wrists were limp, hair was primped,” as drag queens in high heels and butch lesbians wearing crew cuts and leather jackets threw bricks and bottles at cops and set fire to the building. Several of the male rioters confronted the police with an impromptu chorus-girl kick line, singing, “We are the Stonewall girls/ We wear our hair in curls/ We don't wear underwear/ We show our pubic hairs.”
That night, and in the years that followed, the aggressive presentation of stereotypes broke open ideas of what it meant to be a man or a woman and widened the sexual possibilities for a generation of Americans—gay and straight.
Yes, the show revels in stereotypes, particularly in the gay character, Kurt. But, Thaddeus Russell says, unabashed queens have transformed life for everyone, straight and gay.
I like to cross my legs, not with one ankle on top of the opposite knee, like the straight man I am supposed to be, but with my legs closed, like Kurt Hummel, the flamboyantly feminine gay character on Glee. Like Kurt, I cry often, far too often for a heterosexual man. I like flowers and dancing and care deeply about fashion–of course, so does Kurt.
Kurt Hummel is a stereotype. And he is my hero.
After enjoying a honeymoon with critics during the first half of its premiere season, Glee is now increasingly coming under attack for its presentation of standard images of minority groups, especially in the character of Kurt. He is “that oldest of clichés: the sensitive gay boy who really wants to be a girl,” writes Ramin Setoodeh at Newsweek.com. Kurt and other stereotypical gay characters are setting back the movement for “acceptance” by being “loud and proud” at a time “when standing apart seems particularly counterproductive.” Fearing that unabashed flamboyance will cause heterosexuals to more fiercely defend marriage and the military “against what they see as a radical alteration,” Setoodeh argues, “if you want to be invited to someone else’s party, sometimes you have to dress the part.”
For heterosexuals, the movement begun by unabashed queens and dykes transformed life in countless ways.
Chris Colfer, the actor who plays Kurt Hummel, recently acknowledged his fear of making the character aggressively gay. “I’ve been working really hard to have him not be a stereotype from the beginning,” he told Brett Berk at Vanity Fair. “I grew up in a conservative small town, and the gay characters I saw on TV and in movies when I was growing up were all flamboyant and obnoxious and sometimes kind of annoying. And they weren’t like anyone I knew. The gay people I knew in real life were soft spoken and didn’t want to call attention to themselves because they were terrified of exposing themselves, of people finding out that they’re gay.”
Colfer is a wonderful actor, but if his intention is to portray a boy afraid of exposing his sexuality, he is doing a miserable job. Several gay bloggers have complained that Kurt “is just too gay,” and Berk writes, “Kurt is so gay he is, as he says, ‘an honorary girl.’” Indeed, and for this we should be glad.
History tells us that those unafraid to be “too gay” won far more freedoms–for all of us–than those who dressed the part of straights.
The strategy of hiding stereotypical characteristics was undertaken by the first gay rights organizations in the United States–the Mattachine Society, the Daughters of Bilitis, and the Janus Society, which were founded in the 1950s. Members of the groups were required to wear business suits and conservative dresses. Drag queens, “bull dykes,” “swishing,” and “limp wrists and lisping” were explicitly barred from their meetings and demonstrations. The Mattachine Society instructed gays to avoid “any direct, aggressive action” for civil rights and
attacked the “swishy type of homosexual who brought contempt and derision on the majority of homosexuals.” The Janus Society urged “all homosexuals to adopt a behavior code which would be beyond criticism and which would eliminate many of the barriers to integration with the heterosexual world.” The groups even avoided using the term “gay.” Instead, they called themselves “homophiles.”
Many have argued that the “politics of respectability” was necessary in the conservative era of the 1950s and early 1960s. But it was a total failure. Police raids on gay bars actually increased, no civil rights were won, and by eliminating the most powerful form of sexual dissent in American culture, the homophiles’ strategy actually contributed to the sexual conservatism of the time.
All that changed on June 28, 1969, when a group of flamingly stereotypical and self-proclaimed “faggots” and “dykes” refused to be arrested during a police raid at the Stonewall Inn in New York City. A newspaper reported that “Wrists were limp, hair was primped,” as drag queens in high heels and butch lesbians wearing crew cuts and leather jackets threw bricks and bottles at cops and set fire to the building. Several of the male rioters confronted the police with an impromptu chorus-girl kick line, singing, “We are the Stonewall girls/ We wear our hair in curls/ We don't wear underwear/ We show our pubic hairs.”
That night, and in the years that followed, the aggressive presentation of stereotypes broke open ideas of what it meant to be a man or a woman and widened the sexual possibilities for a generation of Americans—gay and straight.