Dear Glee, You Make Me Sad

Show I don't think I can bring myself to watch again: Glee

It started with simple things; this season has been fraught with story lines that I do not care about at all (for starters), so I've mostly been tuning in for performances. Then, performances started getting lazy. There is no excuse for resting on your laurels, and I will lose my shit if I see Rachel Berry make another anguished face regardless of what she's singing about. But when performances got stale, the Puck/Original Elpheba storyline got kind of cute. Then she slept with him and I was like, well I could've done without that. You're a grown woman and I don't care if he is 18. You have a child to provide for and how are you supposed to do that when you lose your job for having an affair with a student. Tsk.

I will say, I've enjoyed the Brittany centric episodes. She's kind of a dingbat, but she's completely comfortable with who she is, and I love her singing voice. Other characters I wish they had given more screen time to: Mike Chang, Coach Beiste, and in particular Santana. And that's what I really want to talk about.

Her coming out episode, was awful.

I said it.

The entire episode is about other people telling her why she should come out, more importantly that she needs to, because it will make them feel better. They sing songs originally written and performed by women as if that's what finally makes a closeted homosexual realize that all of their fears and worries are ridiculous and everyone they know and love and admire will continue to see them the exact same way regardless of the secret they've finally found the strength to disclose. And maybe some have been moved by music, I don't doubt that for a second. But to be told that you have to come out? You are forcing a person out of the closet. You have staged an intervention. And while it might work for a drug addict to see how they're hurting the people they love, a homosexual is afraid that by being honest about who they are with the ones they love that it will drive them away, not heal the pain. The people "trying to help" are being selfish. They aren't doing this for her benefit. They're doing it for themselves. The entire episode is absurd.

And, to make it even more asinine and misogynistic, when Santana finally does come out to everyone, she sings Katy Perry's 'I Kissed a Girl.' Which isn't actually even about liking girls. It's about liking girls because it turns your boyfriend on.


Shame on you Glee. You have an audience that needs to know it's okay to come to things on your own terms. In your own time. In your own way. You need to hold yourself to a higher standard, or get off the air.


For more reference on Glee and their terrible handling of this story line and proof that I'm not alone on this (and for more feminist rants) see this enlightening article over at fempop. This woman knows what's up.