#but bella is yet to rant to me about maths soooo

[tuiyla]

The whole Brittany is a math genius thing makes me so! mad! Because it plays into all the most wrong perceptions about my beloved mathematics. Even after the "genius twist", the narrative makes it pretty clear Birtt had never taken an interest in maths or studied it but tries to play it like she magically knew it. Mathematics cannot be mastered at any level without incredible dedication, and it builds on itself more than maybe any other subject. You can't just magically figure out stuff! And they have her get into MIT because she wrote down random numbers and it was a palindromic prime or something if I recall correctly. That's ridiculous! First of all, that's not impressive. That's the kind of stuff we write a program for and leave it running so we find a new example every few years. People prove theorems, computers do boring calculations. Maths has a lot less to do with numbers than people think frankly, and without justification results are not accepted. Let us look at the mathematician considered the most naturally gifted, Ramanujan. He grew up poor in India with little access to mathematical resources and due to this most of his work was rediscovery and he never really learned the mathematical rigour necessary to formalize proofs. He dedicated his life to mathematics and wrote letters filled with results he'd send to mathematicians trying to interest them in his work. For years he was dismissed as a crank because he was an unknown and lacked mathematical rigour, until GH Hardy took an interest in him and had him brought to Cambridge. Even if Britt had secretly dedicated her entire life to maths and had written a counterexample to the Riemann hypothesis (the most important problem in mathematics), she likely would have been dismissed. Though if they had written this at least it would fit in with the normal unbelievability of the show. They couldn't have called up 1 random mathematician and asked them what would be impressive? I know this is dumb and glee has plenty of worst stuff but this is still the one that makes me the most irrationally upset. I feel like Ryan Murphy personally took a dump on my life's work.

Hehe hi Anon so I know it's been nearly two months and tbh I'm not sure why I put off answering this for so long. Not like I have a ton to say because while I understand and appreciate your perspective, I also think... it's not that deep? And woah, I know that's very very rich coming from me when I monopolize the freaking Glee shovel but the genius storyline is largely a joke.

I personally like it because imo it adds much needed agency and dimension to Brittany's character and story, and that's a convo for another day, but it is a joke. The writers truly didn't think anything of it, much less really considered the actual reality of mathematics. Like, yes, it is ridiculous! It's played for laughs like much of Brittany's ch is. One of those instances of Glee being very aware of the nonsense and leaning into it.

But I also happen to personally believe that that doesn't matter. What matters is validating Brittany's unique point of view and her way of seeing the world, saying that hey, there are ways in which she's actually much smarter than most. Is it in any way plausible, no. But even I, notorious Glee too-seriously-taker, would advise you not to take Glee's disregard of how maths actually works personally. This is a big rant for something that doesn't matter too much, dramatically, in the series. The show leans into the ridiculousness of it all enough while also focusing on Britt's character more than the actual science of it all. And I can personally get behind that. I think the 4x22 scene with her and the MIT professors is hilarious. But I also left maths behind when I graduated high school so what do I know.