Food and Glee

[kappamaki33]

One Glee thought

Comments

[falafel_musings]

Certainly if they'd be competing for the role of Effie White then Mercedes would have the advantage over Rachel. But then if we were looking at the entire scope of female musical roles there are vastly more Maria-type roles than Effie type roles. Whenever Glee does a Rachel Vs Mercedes rivalry story they always claim it's just about who is the better singer. Glee canon always claims that Mercedes is just as good as Rachel, but then as time goes on Rachel will continue to get the leads far more than Mercedes. The Glee writers never get so bold as to confront the real issue here - that being, does being a skinny white girl just have a major advantage over being a fat black girl? Because the majority of musical leading lady roles are written for skinny white girls

[crown_of_weeds]

"The Glee writers never get so bold as to confront the real issue here - that being, does being a skinny white girl just have a major advantage over being a fat black girl? Because the majority of musical leading lady roles are written for skinny white girls. "

Really?

Because I saw that happen.

Everything Rachel said about winning by default...

I don't know, it seemed really obvious to me that Rachel and Mercedes' rivalry has nothing to do with who is a "better" singer and everything to do with who is and isn't the default. I like the richness there.

[kappamaki33]

I've kind of thought they were going there throughout the play casting. The dream sequence was cool in and of itself, and as an expression of how Mercedes felt, but I thought it was a way of saying, yep, she has star-quality, too, because look at her go here. Glee club has been preaching that being different is good and makes you special, but it's not that simple, even in creative realms.

I don't know. I guess if my high school choir director had had a group as talented as this, there's no way she would've picked West Side Story, with only two big singing female roles. That's one you save for a year where you don't have much of a bench for singers, but somehow do in terms of dancers. This is the year you pull out something crazily multi-lead like RENT. Well, maybe not RENT for Rocky Horror-esque appropriate high school content reasons, but like that in the lots of chances to shine department.

[crown_of_weeds]

...Rachel picked the musical? That's news to me.

[kappamaki33]

Yes, she did. At the end of The Purple Piano Project, she makes the announcement that she went ahead and secured the rights to a more traditional musical than last year's: West Side Story, and then talked a bit about her connection to Maria.

[crown_of_weeds]

Ah! Thank you. I must have missed the line--I don't think I saw that one with subtitles.

That's...really interesting to know. She's talked about WSS a lot S1, I think.

[lls_mutant]

Heh. This is an excellent point. I mean, on some levels WSS makes a lot of sense, because IIRC, it's a very popular musical for high schools to do. But yeah- Rachel does fit the main role a lot better than Mercedes does- it was her part to lose.

I really wasn't upset with Mercedes this episode. Her attitude sucked, but it has been building for a while, and aside from the "lazy" thing (which I wish they'd left out and I'm guessing they put in mainly for the It's All Over thing), I get why she's upset. (And while I don't expect that Glee will address it, I don't blame her for being jealous of Rachel. Rachel doesn't just get the solos and the parts, but there's got to be a part of Mercedes that feels like Rachel also stole her best friend.) I'm assuming that there must have been a discussion with a couple of other titles tossed around at some point that we just didn't see, but still.

[kappamaki33]

Ooh, I hadn't even thought of the Kurt angle, but you're absolutely right. But yeah, I read it as nobody coming out awful and nobody coming out smelling like a rose. Both Mercedes and Rachel could have handled things better, but I get where both of them are coming from.