#Glee Meta

[backslashdelta]

I like to imagine that Kurt has that photo of Blaine in his locker the moment after they meet because Blaine is just pretentious enough to give it to Kurt unprompted, and Kurt is just enough of a freak to think that's normal behaviour

[mymanyfandomramblings]

Best Season For Each Glee Character (In My Opinion) And Their Best Episode In Said Season

Note: I'm picking which episode in the season I picked is their best, not overall

Rachel: Season One. Early Rachel is truly one of THE characters of all times, and she's hilarious, and I think they had the formula down the best for her insanity. Best Episode: Either Pilot or Bad Reputation

Finn: Also Season One. I love his arc in the first season, and you get such a good feeling for his character, and you get such a good feel for both his strengths and weaknesses. The other three seasons he's in are also good for him, and he has one of the most consistent arcs and developments, but he's making less Horrible Decisions in Season One. Best Episode: Ballad (no questions asked)--

Kurt: Season Two. Yes, he suffers in Season Two, but he also meets Blaine, and he gets actual storylines that are seperate from Rachel's, and aren't just reducing him to his sexuality or his ability to deliver cutting remarks. Best Episode: Grilled Cheesus, Never Been Kissed or Born This Way

Mercedes: This is rare but Season Five is truly the season where Mercedes shines brightest. She gets to be more than Rachel's competition for solos for the first time, and they actually take time to explore the way her faith informs her decisions. She truly feels like such a realized character in S5. Best Episode: Tested

Santana: Season 2 or 4. Season Two because she's living her best evil life, as well as having some chances to really show her vulnerable side, Season Four, because she's actually being a pretty nice person most of the time, albeit in the most chaotic way possible. I could do a whole analysis of why those are her best seasons, but this is not the time. Best Episodes: Silly Love Songs or Sexy (S2), Girls (And Boys) On Film or Feud (S4)

Quinn: Season One. They seemed to have gotten the right balance here of Quinn being character who suffers a lot, but is also not a very nice person in Season One, and they are never quite able to regain that again. My second pick would actually be Season Three, where she gets to have a lot of good conversations and growth. Best Episode: Throwdown or (what else) Funk

Puck: Season Two. Two words: Lauren Zizes. Also they seemed to have actually figured out what they wanted to do with him in that season. Like Quinn, Season Three was going to be my second pick for him, because I really like his arc in Choke, but alas, the Puck x Shelby thing drags S3 down for him. Best Episode: Never Been Kissed or Original Song

Tina: Season Three or Five. She gets a fair bit to do in Season Three--she's in quite a few songs, and she isn't yet at corruption-arc status, although she's no longer dressing goth, which is a shame. That said, Season Five is also a fun season for her--she's past the worst of her villain arc, and she gets to participate in the stupidity that is Blamtina. Best Episodes: Hold Onto Sixteen or Props (S3) and Trio (S5)

Artie: Season One. He gets some storylines in S1 which aren't just him fumbling girls (and as Artie's no.1 fan, I am here for him getting storylines), and they hadn't completely flanderized his occasional sexist comments into his whole personality yet. Best Episode: Dream On, by a mile.

Brittany: I'm conflicted here. Season One was the only season where she was written with any consistency, however she barely does anything in S1, so it seems unfair. However, she does have some great moments in Season Two. Best Episode: Sexy or Britney/Brittany

Mike: Season Three. He actually gets things to do in Season Three. Best Episode: Asian 'F' (surprisingly)

Sam: Season Two. It took a moment, but once they figured out what to do with Sam Evans, he truly became one of The characters of Glee. Season Three is also good, but he's out-of-focus a lot Best Episode: Rumours

Blaine: Season Four. I know everyone loves Dalton era!Blaine, but I don't care about the Warblers, and although I do like Klaine, I honestly think that it was so good to see Blaine minus Kurt for a season or so, because previously, it had been so obvious that he was a Designated Love Interest character, and Season Four was so important in developing his personality outside of Kurt. Best Episode: Dynamic Duets

[fallevs]

Remember when in 3x11 Burt went to the school in person to look his son in the eye as he handed him the NYADA letter? And the speech he gave him once Kurt, crying and smiling, told him he was a finalist?

You beat them all. They threw everything at you. They tried to beat you down. But you know what? You are unstoppable, Kurt. I am so proud to be your dad. They can never take this away from you. Right now, in this moment, on this day, you won.

It's so sad to think that Kurt, at this point of his life, was so convinced, so excited that he was really going to make it. That he would finally get his revenge and because he deserved it! Because of him and him alone, because of his talent, not because of some stupid subterfuge! I bet his first thought that last day must have been "I'm so sorry I let you down, dad."

I will never get over it. I will never get over it.

[therealvinelle]

I smell a glee meta about quinn fabray coming soon…. Hopefully on why she's a pit of despair??

Anon, she gets pregnant in high school and gets kicked out by her parents. She has to live with a classmate she barely knows because no family will take her, all the while her Glee club leader's wife is preying on her to get her baby. She has to live with the guilt of this only happening because she cheated on her boyfriend, I can't even blame her for saying it was Finn's- she's a teenager and Puck is the least suitable father in the world, Quinn was in survival mode.

Oh, and she loses her popularity at school and place in the Cheerios (which could have gotten her a scholarship) over this, yes she... more or less gets it back but that doesn't take away the fact that everything crumbled at once for her.

Wanting to do right by the child she gives her baby up to Rachel's mom, only to later regret this decision because her life is such a pit of despair that the baby is the sole shining beacon in her life. There is a baby theft attempt.

The girl is a mess.

And the world of Glee is a strange world where the rules are written by the Rachel Berrys of the world, and so Quinn continues to be treated like Regina George even when she's at her lowest points. Take her prom queen dream for an example, she wanted this one thing for herself, something she was embarrassed for even caring about because it was so silly, but damnit she wanted to be prom queen. Or the time we found out she used to be ugly, but she went under the knife and lost weight, and the message seems to be that she's shallow.

In a sentence, the show keeps trying to gaslight me into thinking Quinn Fabray needs to redeem herself of the sin known as being blonde and pretty. And that leads to her being the show's constant, relentless, punching bag.

[wowbright]

Kind of bummed that this post got no traction because I think my new headcanon about Dreams Come True, in which the story of a surrogacy is a practical joke that rachel, jesse, kurt, and blaine are playing on their high school friends (and they are really bewildered that she is at 7 or 8 months pregnant with her and Jesse's offspring now and none of the friends have caught on yet) pretty much solves all my problems with that episode while still being technically compatible with canon.

[von-frappe]

have i posted consistently in a year? no. but i've had a thought about the show glee (2009-15) and nowhere else to share it so to the old tumblr blog it goes.

In season 6 we're introduced to 2 new characters; spencer and mason.

Spencer is a post modern gay teen™ he's not like the other gays he loves football (❤️🏈) and hates lady gaga (🤢🤮) and whilst theres nothing wrong with having those opinions, spencer is placed in a position of superiority because he has those opinions.

Things stereotypically liked by feminine people = bad

Things stereotypically liked by masculine people = good

The character clearly has internalised homophobia and toxic masculinity and even the itself series depicts him as being negatively affected by these issues, when he feels as though he can't join glee club because he'll be judged.

Spencer says that he needs to keep in line with a more stereotypically masculine presentation because being gay is already seen a mark against him, he's pressured into being one thing

The show acknowledges spencers harmful mindset a little but they dont deconstruct it enough, so a lot of the audience still see it as a positive one simply because its not stereotypical.

Then we have Mason, he's a cheerleader who doesn't have the same pressures or worry over judgement that spencer has, despite being a straight man who is part of a cheerleading squad and enthusiatically joins the glee club because he wants to.

He rejects the stereotypes associated with his sexual orientation and has a freedom and joy that spencer doesn't have.

yet we're led to believe that spencer despite all the baggage he has around doing anything that could possibly be percieved as feminine is the the more liberated one

[thesubtextmachine]

In my penultimate article in my Glee series, I talk about the ways Glee could/should have ended. I’m so fucking curious you guys. From the gleek perspective, what’s the ideal configuration? I’m personally on team “Just Can’t Get Enough” because im an indulgent gleek 😇

[sopheadraws]

When it comes to Brittany S. Pierce, people’s interpretations are all over the place. It ranges anywhere from <3 innocent babie <3, to severely cognitively impaired, to manipulative liar who pretends to be stupid so others obey their will (which I’ll later accuse her mother of, but that’s neither here nor there). Anyways, I’m adding my opinion into the cacophony because, despite the indecisive fanbase, thorough Brittany meta is lacking in quantity. Also, I tend to think my opinion is best, as is human nature.

This analysis is rooted in autistic!Brittany, and while its unnecessary since I’ll go through many of her autistic characteristics, here’s a post detailing the headcanon and a medical article describing the diagnostic criteria in simple terms if you’re unfamiliar with the disorder. I understand that not everybody considers Britt neurodivergent, and that’s totally fine - I’m always up for a healthy conversation/debate! - but please give me a heads up if you plan to respond critically because a lot of this is based on my own experiences as an autistic teenage girl, so unmentioned critiques can feel personal fast. Now without further ado:

A Deep Dive Into Brittany S. Pierce <3

Auditory Processing Disorder “APD” is a subdivision of Sensory Processing Disorder “SPD” which is a quintessential element of an autism diagnosis. APD is pretty much exactly what it sounds (haha pun) like: despite somebody’s hearing abilities, the brain fails to process auditory input properly. The APD trait I hear discussed most in autism spaces is the inability to filter out background noises, but Britt seems to struggle most with interpreting meaning from words. Sometimes when people talk to me (“dolphins are just gay sharks”), even though they’re speaking clearly and I’m very literate in English, it sounds like jumbled nonsense (“dulfanz-our-goost-gae-shorcks”). This accounts for what I’m calling Brittany’s “so close you can taste it” lines. Think of her claim that Christopher Cross discovered America or that O is the capital of Ohio; a man named Christopher C. is indeed credited with discovering America and O is the only capital letter in Ohio. As a whole, they often misunderstand things told to them directly, and it seems a lot less foolish if she only understood half of what was being said via APD.

I’m calling the category of Brittany lines that can’t usually be rationalized as possible by anybody over seven (e.g. Rory the leprechaun, storks delivering babies, and anything with Lord Tubbington) the “stranger than fanfiction lines.” Now, I could take these at face value and say she’s tapping into a magical dimension, but I have my own set of autism driven realism issues, so, without a pre-existing fantasy world, I’m using my significant brainpower to twist Brittany into plausibility =D I ultimately think the best explanation for the stranger than fanfiction lines is echolalia. Echolalia is the repetition of words or phrases, and it’s usually associated with autism. Autistic people often reuse other people’s words, and since we usually think in pictures and have various social communication problems, it’s easier than formulating new sentences. Or we just like the tongue movements/sound a word makes. Personally, I quote songs a lot - if you say something loosely related to a Taylor Swift, musical, or Glee lyric, chances are I’ll sing it - and dipsomaniacal is a new fave to say randomly. There’s some evidence for Britt doing this in canon, unrelated to the stranger than fanfiction lines. While Brittany is known for calling him Blaine Warbler, it actually originated from Rachel and the infamous spin the bottle kiss. They also repeat ‘uber weird after Blaine in the That’s So Rachel reading, and the last line of that scene is them talking in time with Blaine, a behavior seen in S1 with Santana. However, it interests me most that she calls Artie a robot, as we see her dad call Stephen Hawkin, another wheelchair user, a robot in S6.

Basically, I blame the Pierces for how terribly adjusted their child is <3 (Mostly Whitney. Assuming Pierce actually has an IQ of 40, he’s disabled too and deserves some slack in terms of spreading misinformation.) In her admittedly limited screen time, Whitney manages to do two positive things: be an LGBTQ+ ally and let her younger daughter do soccer, I guess. Otherwise, she kept the truth about Stephen Hawking from Brittany for 20 years, cheated on her husband on their honeymoon for claiming infertility, crapped in random barns, insulted her husband’s intelligence, publicly insulted her husband’s appearance, and arguably restricted her daughter’s intellectual growth. To be honest, I realize Whitney isn’t that deep and I don’t actually hate her, but if people can hate Brittany for being a comedic character from the 2010s, I’ll do the same thing to their mother in defense of Brittany. Fight stop the violence with violence, baby! Anyways, I don’t think echolalia alone can explain the stranger than fanfiction lines. At least, not without a source. And that’s usually where upbringing comes in.

I’m ruling out nature automatically because there aren’t chromosomes telling people to believe in unicorns. Well, some people - including autistic people (hehe see what I’m doing here?) - are more inclined to believe falsehoods, but falsehoods have to be fed by someone else. With autism, the reckless believing tendencies come from literal thinking in part. Also, since SPD makes processing the outside world difficult, we often can’t recognize “obvious” truths in the first place. My extended family hated watching movies with me because I used to ask questions every five seconds lol. Setting Pierce aside because he seems to follow Whitney blindly; Brittany’s unnamed sister, Sue, and Whitney are the remaining suspects.

I assume Brittany’s sister is significantly younger than Britt because she played soccer with a seven-year-old in S1 (technically she could���ve been the coach, but that throws off my theory that the Klaine/Brittana wedding was child free), and children aren’t clever or mean enough to throw off anybody’s world view so badly :) Sue does seem the obvious answer, but she didn’t meet Brittany until they started high school, and she’s consistently baffled by Britt’s behavior despite encouraging her own eccentricities in the other Cheerios. And that leaves Whitney as the perpetrator, blaming her Scientology and gambling addiction on a cat.

Finally, I do think there’s a few times when Brittany intended for her jokes to be jokes. I don’t think it happens as much as you might expect, but there’s a scene in S3 when JBI is interviewing Brittany about her class president candidacy, and she tells him she’s voting for Rick “The Stick” Nelson before turning to Santana and laughing that clued me in. I think the mentality behind these lines (the “pun intended” category) is best explained with an anecdote from my own childhood.

When I was little - maybe six or seven - I really wanted to be funny. Well, I wanted to be liked, and since I didn’t understand social cues, my solution was humor because I knew my dad told jokes which made me laugh, which made him likable! Unfortunately, as a literal thinking child, I had no idea how to do this, which meant I parroted the only joke I knew (“What time is it when an elephant sits on the table?” “Time to get a new table!”) in hopes of chuckles. This went about as badly as you would expect. After a while, my parents got rightfully fed up with this joke and got me a joke book. I had no sense which of these jokes were funny, which wasn’t helped by most of the book being about taxes, bad marriages, and other stuff aimed at adults.

It wasn’t until a routine walk to the convenient store that my comedy dreams were fulfilled. My dad, little sister, and I used to walk to the “snack store” to buy a drink each and share a candy bar. While we had some routine favorites, we also tried out new candies together. However, there were a few bars my dad refused to buy because he’d disliked them prior to our snack store outings. Most infamous of these forbidden fruits was the Zero Bar. We tended to reference the Zero Bar when picking our next treat, and on this fateful day I said, “It’s called the Zero Bar because zero people like it.”

And my dad laughed. He laughed because of something I’d said. I was elated!

The only catch up was I hadn’t actually intended it as a joke. After all my attempts to be funny, the only thing that apparently worked was speaking my mind. This singular incident didn��t rewire my understanding of humor - I attempted the parroting tactic with the Zero Bar joke after all - but it’s the most pivotal moment in my mind. To this day, I play up my neurodivergent thought process to make others laugh. I reference Glee at seemly unrelated times with mock enthusiasm to callback times I’ve mentioned Glee with real enthusiasm or talk about my other interests in forced monotones.

There isn’t any actual evidence that Brittany has the same weird complex about humor, but some of their interactions regarding stupidity parallel it. In general, when they’re away from Santana, Brittany appears fairly insecure about her neurodivergence. I might even go as far as to say that she doesn’t joke without Santana around. Now, I don’t think Britt knows what her atypicalities are until they’re presumably diagnosed at M.I.T., but every neurodivergent person I know knew something was wrong before being diagnosed. (I want to talk about how Blaine’s diagnosed autism is a foil for Brittany’s undiagnosed autism at some point, but you didn’t sign up for autistic!Blaine, so now isn’t the time.)

Anddd, that’d pretty much it for now :) I intend to write more in depth Brittany meta in the future, but this is a decent overview for the time being. I hope this made you think, and I’d love to hear your thoughts if it did!

[framboises-supremacy]

unpopular opinion perhaps but Blaine in glee annoys me sooo much

[petrolandchlorine]

meta i wrote earlier this year is on the glee fanlore wiki and i literally just found out about it today

(mine's the brittany one btw)

i haven't written glee meta in a minute lol i should get onto that

[backslashdelta]

Going a bit insane right now about how much it would have broken Kurt if Blaine had been dating Sebastian instead of Dave in season 6.

Like in both the season 4 breakup and when he finds out Blaine is dating someone in season 6, Kurt's immediate reaction is to think it's Sebastian. It's been YEARS, the boy helped Blaine propose to Kurt, and Kurt is still so scared that it's Sebastian.

Anyway if that happened I don't know how Kurt would come back from that. Like we see him break down about Blaine and Dave in the bathroom but I think that's more about Blaine moving on than it's about Blaine moving on with Dave. But if he were with Sebastian? I just think it would wreck him. It would be so much worse.

I wonder if Blaine still would have told him the same way. Would he have had Sebastian meet them there, without warning? At Scandals, the place that Sebastian introduced them to? The last time they were there together Sebastian was trying to steal his boyfriend and now he HAS and I just–

I don't know how he would have handled that. But I am so obsessed with the idea I cannot get it out of my head.

[ramblingaboutglee]

Getting pissed off by Glee IKAG years on

 Am I late to the party? I feel like I am. Oh well I’m here, I’m gonna vent, sit down and pour yourself a drink and let’s get to it. I guess I’m doing this. 

Basically, this is me trying to take this episode, look at the justifications, and comprehensively complain provide a thorough, reasoned critique so that I never have to think about it again. 

Trigger warnings for discussion of homophobia, outing, and brief mentions of attempted suicide

Season 3 is my favourite season of Glee, just to set the context. I’d say that’s a controversial opinion, but from what I can gather Glee fandom doesn’t actually agree on anything, so hey. Every character gets something to do beyond sit in the background, there’s a lot of good arcs, good ship content, fantastic songs, better jokes, stronger pathos, better ongoing storylines... 

And then Santana gets outed. The one saving grace is that it just lasts for an episode, so you can grit your teeth and not need to deal with a long-term mess. But yeah, here we are. 

The Beginning

So let’s set the stage. Santana is, admittedly, harsh to Finn for an episode, and he retaliates by outing her. I’ve seen some commentary trying to downplay this and... eh, no. “Everyone already knew,” clearly isn’t the case when there were actual, direct consequences to Finn yelling that in the hallway. So, that happens. 

I... don’t hate the idea of that storyline, but there’s context, and that context is that it’s 2022. I watched Glee this year, not when it was first on. I’m existing in a time where if I want to watch a show with queer characters, I have options. So tackling a more serious, dramatic topic is not outside of Glee’s wheelhouse, and nowadays that being dealt with as a plot, and not put out of reach, feels reasonable. 

But at the time? I cannot comment on that, just by my perspective, but having one of the biggest, and only, lesbian characters on a mainstream show outed feels like it carries significantly more weight that I simply cannot grasp. It goes from being ‘one story of many’ to ‘the story.’ 

So, we’re on dicey ground to begin with, though ground that will inevitably lack the same impact to me. 

The Problem of Finn Hudson

So, Finn outs Santana. A lot of what I’ve seen indicates this made the character irredeemable in a lot of people’s eyes. I want to try and slowly untangle this. 

So, in a vacuum... okay, he messes up here, but so does every character in Glee. This is the same season where Quinn tried to steal a baby. If it was just this, maybe in a better-handled episode, would people react the same way to Finn, or would he be forgiven in the same way Santana seems mostly to be forgiven for threatening to out Karofsky in season 2? Brushed off as ‘They matured’ or ‘Glee continuity is a mess and I do not acknowledge the bits that interfere with my enjoyment of the characters.’ 

Maybe, maybe not, that’s going to be personal. For me, like I said I inevitably lack the level of reaction to the plot that original viewers would have had. So, sure, for the purposes of this essay, let’s say I could forgive Finn if it was just this. 

It’s not just this. And that’s where one problem really begins to rear its head. 

In season 1, Finn hurls a slur at Kurt. And sure, Kurt wasn’t exactly coming off great before this, but it sets the tone. When Finn’s angry, he’ll cross lines there’s no need to cross - he could have yelled any number of insults, called Kurt a creep, but no, he went for a homophobic slur. But okay, jock teenager in a small town, it’s a mistake that can be made without active malevolence. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. A week later and he could have learned.

First of all, context. In season 1, Burt chews out Finn for this. In season 2,  Burt walks it back and brings up Kurt’s dubious behaviour, as though that somehow implies ‘Yeah, he got mad, used a slur, it happens.’ And in season 5, rather than not bring it up at all, it’s mentioned again as ‘oh, no, Finn was completely in the right to act like that.’ We’ll get back to this in a second. 

In season 3, Finn outs Santana - he gets angry, and uses her sexuality as a weapon against her. He says the one thing he knows could hurt her, and it does. 

Which sets this in stone as not a one-off ‘mistake,’ but a pattern of behaviour from Finn. 

Finn faces no consequences, not in-universe, or in the narrative. When Finn messes up, the narrative will bring up said mistakes and walk them back, treat them as less of a big deal - some of this, I imagine, is dealing with fan reaction as Glee was clearly aware of its fanbase. Kurt comes off unsympathetic in S1? Okay, call that out. That’s good, so what happens when Finn messes up? 

In season 4, Santana calls up Finn to help deal with concerns regarding Rachel’s boyfriend. (Also Finn assaults a sex worker, smooth. Yes there’s context, I don’t care I’m being petty right now). This would be a good time to have Santana maybe be wary, a quiet “Look, I still have issues,” a follow-up in the same vein as Burt walking back his comments on Finn’s slur-usage. But nope, nothing, Santana and Finn are friends apparently. No complication, no drama, no acknowledgement of fan outcry. 

Finn messes up, does something awful, and the narrative refuses to call him out on it, and yet it will acknowledge other fan complaints if it means Finn gets to look better. 

So, yeah. I was pissed off even with all my context thrown in. I cannot imagine what this must have been like at the time. 

There’s a clear double standard here, and it’s a problem. It’s hard to really engage with the plot without noticing a major disconnect between not just how the characters react vs how they ought to, but between how each character involved is treated by the narrative. Santana deserved and deserves so much better than she gets here. 

The end result, even if we ignore the character favouritism, is a lack of closure - and while that may not be inherently a bad thing, in this case I feel it very much is. It feels unintended, and it feels like anyone frustrated or angered by this decision goes ignored because with no consequences and no resolution, there’s nowhere for that anger to go. 

And for the final cherry on top of context, I Kissed A Girl is episode 7 of season 3, in which a character gets outed. Seven episodes later, episode 14 of season 3, is On My Way, in which Karofsky deals with the consequences of being outed with significantly more gravity. Yeah. Not something you can just brush off, Glee. 

It’s Not About You

I Kissed A Girl, the episode tackling the fall-out of Santana being forced out of the closet, is not about Santana Lopez. 

That’s baked into the episode from the get-go, and it means it’s dead on arrival as a compelling story. I wish I knew what the heck they were thinking. But yeah, that’s where we are, so let’s look at it.

The titular storyline is one of several in the episode. We have the student council storyline continuing, more of Puck and Shelby, and then we have the Glee club facing up to what happens. And it’s Finn insisting everyone sing a song to cheer Santana up, despite her evident discomfort, so 10/10 there for ignoring her boundaries twice over. 

But yeah, it’s about Finn. Everyone comforts Santana, and we get none of her reaction, none of her thoughts, just her eventually accepting the comfort - naturally, Finn’s comfort - and happy ending? Somehow? 

Santana’s subject to homophobic harassment, and we get the title song sung by the Glee club, and it’s one where Rachel headlines because it’s about the club’s reaction to having a lesbian member. Yeah, the lead up isn’t even Santana getting a biting remark, it’s the Glee club banding about her. It’s not about Santana’s reaction to living with this, it’s about how good everyone else is to help her. 

There’s not really any denying that Glee is heavily inspired by the kind of inspiration porn rep of, for example, disabled characters in other media - that kind of thing runs throughout all of Artie’s story and the initial depiction of Becky, and there was a Rachel episode in season one, etc. It’s one of the throughlines, and it’s hard to not see the similarities here - when a character departs from the ‘typical,’ the plot isn’t about their life, it’s about how everyone around them reacts and deals with having them as a friend. Glee has rep, and in a lot of ways it is groundbreaking rep especially for the time and honestly, to a degree, even nowadays. But that comes packaged with the fact it’s representation from an outside perspective. 

This isn’t about the outed lesbian, it’s inspiration porn for the people around her, convincing them all to come together. The parallels stick out to me. Rather than give her a story, she’s used for the benefit of others, from Finn, to the rest of the club. 

And it’s a genre that has been rightfully criticised time and again as ultimately just using the people it professes to lift up. 

Okay sure, let’s talk about song choice

Glee recontextualises songs all the time. One of the highlights of season 1 is Kurt’s rendition of Rose’s Turn, a song from a musical whose title is a slur and isn’t that just on-brand for Glee at this point? In the musical, it’s sung by an overbearing mother whose daughter’s basically had enough of her. In Glee, it’s sung by a gay kid scared he’s not enough for his dad. Totally different context, and meaning... and it works. 

So taking Katy Perry’s ‘I Kissed A Girl,’ a song about kissing girls for the attention of boys, surely this is something Glee could put in a new context? The lead-in to the song is the Glee girls defending Santana, and responding with “We don’t care if you think we’re gay, that’s not a bad thing,” and the show at least is conscious enough to keep the ‘Hope my boyfriend doesn’t mind’ lines out of Santana’s mouth (and in Rachel’s which is. unintentionally hilarious but hey). So that’s that, right?

God, I wish. For starters, it just feeds more into the issue of ‘the episode is not about Santana.’ The focus is so completely on the rest of the club and how they deal with being friends with an out lesbian and, y’know, not the lesbian herself. And even without that not-so-minor detail... Yeah, this song has way too much baggage in the queer community to ever use in this context, god no. 

I don’t know what was happening behind the scenes. I want to say it was the network pushing them to include a massive pop song with a sapphic title, there’s definitely a lot of points where the network clearly pushed for a chart-topper, but I can’t say for sure. 

This is not a song Santana should ever have sung. 

And it’s not even my least favourite in the episode. For that, let’s check in again with one Mr Hudson. 

I can mount a half-hearted, not-remotely-sufficient defence of the thought process behind I Kissed A Girl. I cannot even begin to fathom how ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ not only made it into the episode, but got treated somehow as an emotional moment, or even somehow Finn’s apology. Full props to all the actors involved for somehow staying in character. 

(Tangent: props to Blaine and Kurt. Perfect both fills the role of being a comfort-song, and “Welcome to my silly life,” is a great lyric for the situation). 

But no, it’s this song that somehow has Santana feel touched, somehow? The song that offers no comfort, has no relevance, and if you try to make it relevant it just comes off as Santana just being belittled for several minutes straight. ‘Having fun’ is not the turn of phrase to use. 

Which exposes the flaw of the episode all over again - Finn shouldn’t be the one to reach her. People talk about Brittany needing more of a role, and yes that as well, but Blaine and Kurt feel like a good choice as well. Kurt left the school because of the homophobia, he’s maybe not going to know exactly Santana’s experiences, but he’d be in her corner. There’s a lot of people it could be. But no, it’s Finn, the one that outed her, because it’s his story - it’s his ‘redemption’ arc, with Santana as a mere step on the way. 

I guess, for completeness’ sake, I should talk about Constant Craving. It’s a fantastic cover, and I know some people object to it being juxtaposed with Shelby, but my take is more than it’s Santana’s midway point. I think it’s easy to view her as still not completely sure or comfortable yet - she’s had a heck of an awful episode, being forced out the closet isn’t going to make anyone comfy, and ‘craving’ isn’t necessarily the word one goes for when one is totally confident and content with one’s own desires. From that perspective, I have no issues with it. I just wish Santana got a follow-up. Plus, y’know, an episode of her own. 

The saving grace isn’t so good

As I said at the start, the saving grace is that this is only there for one episode. You can forget it ever happened easily enough. In the long run, this isn’t even the arc that bothers me the most in the show - because it’s one episode. Bingewatching, as I did, it occupies such a small amount of my overall time with the show. 

As an episode, there’s plenty of stuff that isn’t dealing with the mishandled plot, good song covers, fun character beats for everyone else. It’s just that none of it has anything to do with Santana. As an episode, on its own merits, it isn’t my least favourite of the show at all - but that storyline, and how it’s handled, is undeniably one of the nadirs of Glee. 

Which for me, is kind of the whole problem. I like this season, and part of the reason I do is that the worst parts, for me, occupy so little time. And at the same time, part of what makes the worst parts as bad as they are, is precisely because they occupy way too little time for the show to do them justice. 

You can forget it ever happened, if you want. That’s the honest truth. Glee, as a show, often does use its heightened nature to get away with ‘Don’t necessarily take this literally.’ If you did, I’m pretty sure every character ought to be in prison. There’s a wealth of things that don’t get treated with the seriousness they really ought to be - let’s not forget Sue threatening to pull out Artie’s teeth at prom, that happened. The show will take physical violence seriously sometimes, and not at all others, and that’s just part of Glee. So if thee’s a scene or stretch that genuinely makes you feel uncomfortable, Glee brings with it the easy option to just deny it and file it away with the crack houses and sex tapes and supervillain cats. 

If you treat the episode as nothing but a bad taste Tina dream sequence, absolutely nothing about the rest of Glee is affected. 

That’s what makes S3 still bearable, to me. And it’s also the biggest condemnation you can give it - this isn’t a one-off joke, this is a major point in Santana’s arc, a topic Glee itself acknowledges later can be life-ruining especially in a town like Lima, and it’s brushed over. Forgotten about. There’s no closure for viewers that identified with Santana, no sign of this being acknowledged as the big deal it was, and ultimately it gets treated with as much significance as that time Blaine made a sentient puppet. 

Santana can be cruel, and she was to Finn. The worst thing she said, he’d likely forget about by the end of the day. The thng he did in response could get her killed - something Glee itself acknowledges several days later. 

Blithely forgetting and moving past this is not something that should be expected. And yet it’s what the show does. 

So that’s my IKAG rant to join what I imagine is a long tradition of similar vents. 

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Glee Master Post

Quinn Fabray

Thoughts on Quinn

Crossovers

What if the Cullens from Twilight Were in Glee?

What if the Cullens from Twilight Were at Mckinley and Rachel Smelled Delicious?

[little-escapist]

Tell us those Blaine + Santana thoughts

Hi!

This is in relation to me tagging a gifset of them with "I have thoughts"

Honestly, they are more like half-formed ideas than full thoughts, so that's my disclaimer. But.

I think the two of them could kind of be two sides of the same coin, a little bit? Blaine being the happy sunshine side and Santana being the mean, snarky side. But they both had some trouble at home regarding their sexuality (even though Santana's is wayyy more explicitly told in canon and Blaine only gets a throwaway line about his dad) and they both feel things very deeply even though they express themselves in pretty opposite ways. They are guarded people, Santana hiding behind her tongue and Blaine behind his kindness and adaptability. They are both protective of the people they care about. So despite the clear differences between them, I feel like there's this mutual understanding of the other there. They might not be super close, but they can see where the other is coming from.

I don't know if that makes any sense whatsoever since this isn't fully formed, just some odd beginnings of thoughts.

[jin-zixun]

well if it isn't the 15th anniversary of the glee episode where rachel and kurt have a diva-off and kurt throws the high note because his father is being harassed.

Literally in tears at this episode tonight because ffs knowing how Kurt's story ends there is nothing to call this other than tragic. This isn't the diamond placed under tragic circumstance he will need to overcome. This is the tragic flaw that will lead to his inevitable downfall.

Kurt is accommodating, Kurt is compromising. Kurt sacrifices his dream, what he's fought for, the thing that actually got him excited, for someone else's sake. And it's for the sake of his father, the same person he got involved with the football team for. He wasn't excited over football! He was excited over his father seeing him play football! Because he's selfless and he cares about people!

But it's also... Not great? Kind of toxic? If he's always giving of himself and sacrificing for others?

What Kurt's arc should be is to learn how to be able to put himself first, at least some of the time. Like an opposite situation to Rachel who wants what she wants and stops at nothing to get it and complains when she doesn't.

Also about being truly seen as he is, and getting the support he needs from the people around him (which have been set up as issues for him since the pilot).

Kurt needs to be acknowledged and to be given the space to self-actualize, to know that it's okay to want things, that support isn't one way (from him to everyone else).

So... He ends up with a love interest who is like a male version of Rachel if she were more manipulative and selfish, who tells him he needs to blend in, places limits on him, and treats him as a support for himself, taking and taking to the point where he tries to force himself on Kurt to improve his performance and then twisting it around on him until Kurt apologizes.

Who ends up cheating on him because Kurt dares to take time away from being his full time cheerleader to pursue his own dreams. Who sees him as competition, and therefore someone who will always have to step aside for him, because that's the person Kurt is.

Someone who is custom built to take advantage of Kurt's better nature rather than to build him up and help him to grow. Someone who purposefully hurts his growth because it's more convenient to manipulate a guy who never puts himself first, who sees it as unmitigated good to sacrifice for others. Someone who thinks it's fine and good that Kurt be the support and that's all he'll ever be.

And it's not like this isn't the direction the story is taking for Kurt! Because that's exactly the direction Kurt's story goes in regards to his relationship with his father. Kurt ends up backsliding into pleasing his father when he decides he needs to be straight, which leads to a series of choices that is a complete sacrifice, and honestly, betrayal of himself. Something he is able to overcome by the end of that episode, because he sings Rose's Turn and has a talk with Burt where Burt finally seems to be offering him the support he so desperately needs.

Then there's the confrontation between Finn and Burt in Theatricality. Burt is finally the one standing up for his son, sacrificing for him by telling Finn he can't be there treating Kurt the way he is, that it might cost him his relationship with Carole, but his son comes first.

And he even spells it out so kindly to Kurt and to the audience. Kurt assumes the best in people. Including in Burt himself, let's be clear. Burt *has* been dropping the ball. He's gone through his own arc parallel to Kurt's in this! Because he needs to be the Father Kurt needs.

Kurt is forgiving, Kurt is willing to let things slide because they're only things being done to him and he can take it, he's fine. He can sacrifice, he doesn't need to feel safe or be free from harassment in his own home. That doesn't matter. But it does to Burt, as it should! Because Kurt is his son, who he loves, that's his priority. And Finn has to make it up to Kurt too, as he should! And he does.

Everything's coming up Hummel!

(But it doesn't.)

(Finn even tells Kurt he should try harder at blending in in Theatricality, but it's different when Blaine does it. Dalton doesn't have a 'bullying problem' but yeah the outcome is the same. Actually it's not, because in Theatricality, Kurt (and eventually Finn) could stand up to the bullies. Nobody stands up to Blaine because *he's* not a bully, of course not, he's just *looking out* for Kurt. Because, well. It's just not done.)

[holisticfansstuff]

Glee: Klaine—Not So Effing Perfect After All | so thinky