what do you think santana’s coming out would have been like if she hadn’t been outed?
Oh man that's a question and a half. I was legit so thrown off by that. Not in a bad way! Always appreciate Santana questions, always. I just spend so much time being mad about what actually happened and being absolutely appalled by Glee dropping the ball this badly, it's hard to even approach the topic without that in mind. Even while thinking about this I caught myself wanting to curse the canon events out multiple times. But I'll show restraint and pretend, for a few blissful minutes, that season 3 doesn't exist the way it does. This post is going to be more of what I would have liked to see instead of what realistically could have happened because Glee lost out on my willingness to care about their established boundaries when they vomited The Outing scene onto my screen.
In my ideal world, Santana would have been allowed the baby steps she deserved. Sure, she was way deep in the closet in season 2 but by the end we see progress. She's so clearly isn't ready yet and that's fine, in this timeline we're not pressuring her in any way. It's early season 3 and she and Brittany are officially together but only they know it. It's a bit of an open secret in the Glee Club, too, but everyone, and I mean everyone knows better than to think it's any of their business. Around the time of one of the the Troubletones rehearsals Mercedes catches Brittana making out and Santana freaks out, initially. Brittany reassures her that Mercedes is their friend and it's fine and later we get a Sancedes scene. Santana at first tries to deflect but Mercedes lets her know that she isn't there to judge or anything, she just gives the advice that Santana would be happier if she embraced herself and all that usual Glee speech. After the Troubletones WRONGFULLY lose Sectionals and Quinn gets the girls back and Santana sees how ND welcomes them with open arms, she makes a decision.
It feels safer to make a public Glee announcement first. They sing a duet with Brittany and Britt does the talking because Santana is more comfortable letting the song (Melissa Etheridge's Come to My Window, maybe?) speak for her. No one is shocked but they're all supportive, especially the people who matter (*cough* the girls and Klaine *cough*). Will tries to make a speech, blah blah, it's just a wholesome scene. Ideally a Kurtana scene follows because this is my headcanon I do what I want.
Now people who already sort of knew are in the clear but it's limited to the Glee Club and none of them blabber to other students, particularly not in the hallway because they're good people who love and support Santana. Based on Santana's heartbreaking "I haven't even told my parents yet" I'm going to choose to infer that she was thinking about it. She's terrified and needs a Pierce family dinner, together with a supportive Whitney and Pierce Pierce to convince her she's ready for this. We get to see the actual scene, around Christmas time, with Gloria Estefan and Dr. Lopez and it's emotional but cathartic. They're with Santana, no matter what, though her dad does have an ominous line about Alma. Not in a rude way but in a way when a parent fears what might await their kid. Santana staunchly refuses the subject of Abuela and asks her parents not to say anything to anyone.
The school year goes on. Valentine's Day comes around and following some homophobic shenanigans at McKinley and Figgins revealing the same double standard as he did in Heart, somehow, Santana decides to take a stand. She kisses Brittany very publicly in school one day and maybe we do get a slightly altered version of the Heart God Squad storyline. Except she gets to beat up Joe because I said so. All is relatively well. Santana and Brittany are now practically out to the school and Santana shows concern every now and then, but she feels lighter. This timeline actually deals with the fact that she wouldn't suddenly have no fears about being out and jerks exist, but it's easier that she did it on her own terms and not through a political ad.
Regionals rolls around and Dave is outed. I'm sorry David in this timeline your fate is unfortunately still the same. We get the attempt but thankfully Dave survives and recovers. Santana visits him in the hospital, they have a conversation and it makes her realize that life's too short to be terrified of who she is. The final puzzle piece in this portion of her coming out story? Abuela Alma. And so Santana goes to her grandmother, tells her about having had time to reflect and the coming out goes much the same as it did in the only valid IKAG scene. And Alma rejects her much the same, breaking Santana's heart and causing her to lash out at the people who have been supporting her these past few months. After the initial shock of just having been disowned, she picks herself up and thinks about Dave and how she can't let others' opinions of her define her life. Santana's clearly shaken from the experience and it gets brought up time and again but she marches on.
Santana starts college and decides she's going to be upfront from the first moment on. She tells people about her girlfriend, how proud of her she is, how much she loves Brittany. When they break up, the strength fades as Santana already wasn't feeling the whole Louisville vibe. Canon events ensue, and when she moves to New York she gets to truly just be herself and live her sexuality for the first time. That doesn't just mean sleeping around, thought some of that too. When she gets together with Dani and meets her cool queer friends, Santana feels at peace. It took a minute, but she's fine with casually dropping the word lesbian and introducing herself as, well, herself.
I know that last bit wasn't necessary for the coming out journey itself but it's good for my soul to think about. I can't say what I've written is tremendously exciting but imo it's what she damn well deserved. This didn't actually answer your question in that I don't think this is what would have happened; Glee demonstrated that they had no desire to follow through on Santana's story with the care it deserved. But it is what I'd like to think.
And I walk around so mad at the world, but I'm really just fighting with myself. I don't want to fight anymore. I'm just too tired. I have to just be me.
Ryan Murphy posted a deleted scene dubbed the “Santana Coming Out Scene” to his YouTube channel.
The scene featured Naya Rivera as Santana Lopez, Heather Morris as Brittany S. Pierce, Lauren Potter as Becky Jackson, Jane Lynch as Sue Sylvester, and the Cheerios, and was cut from Glee season 3, episode 7 “I Kissed A Girl”.
Will Schuester can kick rocks, but a big difference between him and Finn is that at least the show makes a point to call Will out a lot. 93% of the time we're not meant to agree with him. He either admits he's wrong and apologizes (early seasons) or he's so cartoonishly antagonistic that there's nothing to even defend (later seasons).
Meanwhile the show bends over backwards to make Finn the victim in situations where he's absolutely not
okay same anon from this morning I’m back from rereading chapter 1!!
I love that Regina is already repressing her attraction to Janis before she even gets hit by a bus lmao girlie never had a chance. I swear if she wouldn’t have had a redemption arc they still would’ve ended up hate fucking at a graduation party or something
She's been repressing that attraction since 6th grade lmao It'd be unrealistic if I didn't include any thirst from the very beginning
no but you're a genius,,they definitely would have hate fucked and it would've caused a cataclysmic spiral in both of them
Finn. Finn. Fuck you Finn. Idgaf what she said to you that was uncalled for and out of fucking line. Yeah she's mean yeah she's a bitch but wow you can't fucking do that.
just rewatched ‘i kissed a girl’ and it reminded me of how much I hate this episode, so here’s my alternate, wishful version of that episode:
It basically starts the same, with finn forcing santana to participate, despite being the one who outed her. But it is clearly framed as him being the bad guy in the situation. He kicks it off with his stupid cover and santana basically reacts the way she reacted to klaine’s number in the actual episode, but additionally pointing out that he outed her
britanny realises how unhappy santana is with the situation and they have a private talk where britanny points out that the glee club does genuinely care for her and then she sings to santana a la a reversed ‘songbird’ number
next klaine sing to her (something better than ‘perfect’ 🙄) and this time santana is a little more open to it. afterwards, the two couples meet up and discuss how being queer impacts them (especially living in ohio and being around a bunch of otherwise straight people) and santana seems to finally make peace with the situation, despite the circumstances that led to them
cue the scene leading up to ‘i kissed a girl’ but it leads into a britanna duet instead. the sequence ends the same, with santana coming out to her abuela and it ending badly. maybe this is followed by a pep talk from britanny
episode ends with a santana solo (also generally more focus on santana’s emotions throughout the episode)
Actually wait I’m not finished. Finn Hudson is objectively an emotionally abusive bigot and I’m done giving the people who defend him the benefit of the doubt, any adult who sticks up for him at this point I’m just going to assume you support his behaviour
there's a spanish-language version of lmfao's hit song i'm sexy and i know it and it was on glee and it was sung by ricky martin and WHAT was the context
love that they change it to soy sexy y lo sabes (i'm sexy and you know it)
I might not have done a proper Santanalysis in months but I am writing about Leighton’s coming out arc so I still consider that to be a win for funky little lesbians everywhere