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Gays on Glee

Glee
I love Glee. Love love love. I download every episode as soon as I can wait patiently for each episode to air on Australian TV. I listen to the soundtrack so much it’s worn out my iPhone. I have a picture of the cast next to my desk at work. Et cetera.

However.

Something about Glee bothers me. This:

Glee
No, not by Chris Colfer. Chris Colfer is rad. I interviewed him when he and the rest of the cast were in Australia in September, and he seems like a lovely, sweet kid. (People have asked me if he talks the same way in real life that he does on TV. Yes, he does.)

I’m bothered by his Glee alter ego (his alter Gleego?), Kurt, the only (openly) gay character on the show. I don’t mind that he’s sensitive and soft-spoken. Plenty of guys are like that, gay or straight. I guess I can swallow the fact that Kurt is way into fashion. There are guys, gay and straight, who are way into fashion. But almost everything else about him is so screamingly stereotypically gay that I have a hard time resisting a full-body cringe when he prances onscreen.

In one episode where the Gleeks were split into male and female teams, Kurt tried to join the girls’ team (and later sided with them to sabotage the boys’ team). And in the latest episode, Kurt helped Finn (Cory Monteith) out solely in the hope of seducing him – as if gays only befriend straights as a shortcut to getting them into bed. (That’s only true some of the time!)

It’s a blot on an otherwise wonderful series – one which should be busting gay stereotypes, not wheeling them out dressed in fancy new outfits. Glee ought to do better, both as a show co-created by a gay man and as a show with such a strong gay following. More Kurt teaching the football team ‘Single Ladies’ and bonding with his macho dad, and less Kurt prancing about in two dimensions, please.

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 9:10 pm and is filed under TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • I have to kind of agree with you although for me I had a couple different issues. I guess because I have had gay friends that preferred to identify with the girls that one didn't occur to me so much as stereotypical, but what really bothered me was when Kurt purposely blew his singing audition against Rachel so that his dad wouldn't have to deal with the harassment that comes with having a gay son.

    I tried to come up with something positive from that, but all I could take from it was the message that if being who you are hurts your family's pride or causes them to put up with just a tiny fraction of the harassment you put up with every single day, just for being you, then you should refrain from reaching for any dreams that might make your family's suffering even worse. Because how they deal with who you are is more important than what you want out of life. That whole episode just left a bad taste in my mouth. I think they missed an opportunity to deal with harassment and discrimination in a much more head-on and positive way. The end kind of defeated Kurt's dad's storming into the school in his defense. Which I thought was fabulous.

    After Kurt's dad's great response to Kurt coming out. ("I know." - loved that!) I was disappointed with what they did this time. Great post!
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