OMGlee, WHY ME?
I didn't know when I sat down to watch an episode of Fox's Glee what I was getting into. I thought, "I keep hearing good stuff, I should check it out." -- I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW IT WAS A SHOW-SHOW. XD I thought it was a reality show about a mean-spirited group of kids who wanted to make it big in the "ultimate glee club" -- like a mix of So You Think You Can Dance and American Idol on speed, thus, was uninterested in watching perfect talent be wasted on a contest of elimination.
YEAH. THAT'S HOW DUMB I WAS.
Glee is indeed a show-show: a high school musical comedy-drama. It has PHENOMENAL singing, SEXY dancing, and a great story that is acted out well. I HAVE NO OPTION BUT TO LOVE THIS SHOW. I so wish I had been gifted with the "triple threat;" every watching of this show just makes me miss the stage and wish I had confidence in my singing. When I'm alone, I can hit high notes and slip a slight vibrato in there...but with a piano accompanist, I miss my entrance cues (I can't count under pressure apparently) and I strain my notes. [ASIDE] As I was writing this, I was messaging a fellow student in the "musical singing" class I took last year and the other person told me they secretly felt envious of me when I sang "I Enjoy Being a Girl" because of how natural I was with it. I chose the song because my introduction piece was such a horrible failure ("Part of Your World") with rhythm I couldn't get and cues I wasn't sure about that I chose the most outrageous song I could think of to get me out of my "I'm scared" shell (I started my introduction with "My name is Leila and I can't sing at all. Just a terrible, terrible singer. The piece I'll be performing today is..."). I busted out with this insane song knowing they weren't expecting much from me and tapped into what I'm somewhat good at: acting. So I played confident and sultry even though all I could think was, "This is horrible. I'm not ready for this song. I'm out of league in this class." Even if my singing is sub-par (right after that class, one of the girls ended up on American Idol, just to demonstrate the disparate ranges in the class), I wanted to pass muster on my PERFORMANCE (I even dressed up for that class in a "costume"). So even if what they said was a lie, it still makes me kinda happy that someone remembered I did that song and said they really liked it. [/aside] Dancing-wise, well, I don't think I'll ever be doing backflips into splits, but standard dance fare, I can do just fine as long as I'm taught the moves.
I jumped in at just the right time. The episode was "Wheels" (#9) where the heart-soaring "Defying Gravity" was performed outstandingly. Had I come in at any other episode (excepting the pilot), I'm not sure I would have fallen in love with the series. It's BECAUSE of that song and how goddamn well it was performed that I instantly loved it. Having gone back and watched everything up to the current ep, I must say I didn't expect to continue to love it. I love it. I do. It has everything I love.
Will Shuester is a Spanish teacher who takes over the school's glee club (ie: show choir) and tries to recruit students who want nothing to do with a club that's considered the lowest in the caste system. Despite being hitched to a neurotic schemer and being an overall dorky nice guy, this man can SING ANY STYLE (from stage to pop to rap) and can FLIPPIN' DANCE TO ANYTHING. My god, he can do urban dance and a little breakdancing (with a one-handed freeze) just as well as swing and jazz. Despite his curly-haired whiteness, he makes "The Thong Song" entirely plausible with a sexy drawl, down on his knees, gesturing at the pelvic region of the school guidance counselor in a Princess Di wedding dress. Crazy talented.
Rachel Berry (*) is the obvious star of the glee club. Her audition is a heartbreaking (and STUNNING) version of "On My Own" from Les Mis, which highlights her lonliness as the most hated girl in the school (with the voice of an angel). She is seen as irritating, annoying, overly ambitious, and self-centered. She is sort of all these things, but I find her so adorable, she is one of my favorite characters in the show. She knows who she is and embraces what she loves, even if it makes her unpopular. I am entirely baffled at the idea that her "annoyingness" renders her "ugly" or undateable: in my opinion, she is the hottest girl on the show. Yeah, the cheerleader is "prettier," but that doesn't make her hotter. Rachel is HOT - and the cougar-nizing, slight dickhead football player Puck put it best when he said, "She was a hot Jew and the good lord wanted me to get into her pants."
With all her faults, her heart is so endearing: she loves everything intensely, passionately, crazily, and stands up for people, even when she knows they would never do the same for her. Her at-first innocent crush on Finn, the quarterback with a charming voice, blossoms beautifully as she gets a male lead to match her on the stage. Finn isn't very bright, but he's got a great heart even if he's not always confident enough to act on it. He's dating the head cheerleader, but Rachel might be the first person to cultivate and encourage (and love) the part of him that loves being a part of Glee Club. He struggles with his feelings for her because their social statuses are so different (and he's taken!), but she's the only one who wants him to be himself and not who everyone else wants him to be.
Can you tell I love her? :D
Normally, a character like Finn would bore or annoy me. OMG, this guy is adorable. He's not bland like I expected...the way he struggles between the two women is entirely gripping and brings me to the brink of tears. His sense of duty and "rightness" is the misery pill he swallows chivalrously, even if you can see it's not what he wants. You desperately want him to be happy. And he's GORGEOUS. Not like, super-pretty face, but he's fricken HUGE. All 6'3" of him is hulking around the stage, dancing (or in the beginning, trying to), and he's just GIGANTIC compared to the adorable Rachel who stands at 5'2". They are just SO PLEASING to the eye together XD I love his size. I've always loved big guys (mostly because I love the idea that I can't take them down), and Finn is just a lovely speciman of BIG, TOUGH, NICE GUY. XD
The side characters are all great. Watch it. Watch them.
My love of music makes me squeal in pleasure at the musical numbers. Their renditions are at times jaw-droppingly awesome. "Alone" "Leaving on a Jet Plane" "Can't Fight this Feeling" "Defying Gravity" "On My Own" "Don't Stop Believing" -- and fun mash-ups like "It's My Life/Confessions II" and "Don't Stand So Close to Me/Young Girl." (as performances or recorded songs)
I tried to figure out why I like Rachel so much and why I want her to win...she's a lead and it's kind of rare for me to really get into lead characters, especially ones deemed "annoying" and "admittedly high-maintenance." Then I figured it out: I relate to her. Not that I'm very pretty or have a voice, but I GET her intensity and how what everyone else sees as crazy is a powerful and entirely earnest feeling for her. I understand that look in her eye when her mind is zooming and everyone else is backing away in fear. I'm the Rachel Berry (*) without the talent. And thinking about how disliked she is by everyone, it's kinda depressing to me. I want her to win. I want her to be with someone who will be nice to her for once. (She also pairs well with someone WAY hotter than Finn, but Finn is the guy who will cherish her difference because he likes who he is when he's around her.)
I am pre-ordering the DVDs and when I get them, you better believe I am going to start recruiting people to watch it. Tho, I'm happy that when I started playing a song at work, not fifteen seconds into it, my boss asked, "Is that the Glee version?" -- ah ha. One person I can talk about this series with. There shall be more.
YEAH. THAT'S HOW DUMB I WAS.
Glee is indeed a show-show: a high school musical comedy-drama. It has PHENOMENAL singing, SEXY dancing, and a great story that is acted out well. I HAVE NO OPTION BUT TO LOVE THIS SHOW. I so wish I had been gifted with the "triple threat;" every watching of this show just makes me miss the stage and wish I had confidence in my singing. When I'm alone, I can hit high notes and slip a slight vibrato in there...but with a piano accompanist, I miss my entrance cues (I can't count under pressure apparently) and I strain my notes. [ASIDE] As I was writing this, I was messaging a fellow student in the "musical singing" class I took last year and the other person told me they secretly felt envious of me when I sang "I Enjoy Being a Girl" because of how natural I was with it. I chose the song because my introduction piece was such a horrible failure ("Part of Your World") with rhythm I couldn't get and cues I wasn't sure about that I chose the most outrageous song I could think of to get me out of my "I'm scared" shell (I started my introduction with "My name is Leila and I can't sing at all. Just a terrible, terrible singer. The piece I'll be performing today is..."). I busted out with this insane song knowing they weren't expecting much from me and tapped into what I'm somewhat good at: acting. So I played confident and sultry even though all I could think was, "This is horrible. I'm not ready for this song. I'm out of league in this class." Even if my singing is sub-par (right after that class, one of the girls ended up on American Idol, just to demonstrate the disparate ranges in the class), I wanted to pass muster on my PERFORMANCE (I even dressed up for that class in a "costume"). So even if what they said was a lie, it still makes me kinda happy that someone remembered I did that song and said they really liked it. [/aside] Dancing-wise, well, I don't think I'll ever be doing backflips into splits, but standard dance fare, I can do just fine as long as I'm taught the moves.
I jumped in at just the right time. The episode was "Wheels" (#9) where the heart-soaring "Defying Gravity" was performed outstandingly. Had I come in at any other episode (excepting the pilot), I'm not sure I would have fallen in love with the series. It's BECAUSE of that song and how goddamn well it was performed that I instantly loved it. Having gone back and watched everything up to the current ep, I must say I didn't expect to continue to love it. I love it. I do. It has everything I love.
Will Shuester is a Spanish teacher who takes over the school's glee club (ie: show choir) and tries to recruit students who want nothing to do with a club that's considered the lowest in the caste system. Despite being hitched to a neurotic schemer and being an overall dorky nice guy, this man can SING ANY STYLE (from stage to pop to rap) and can FLIPPIN' DANCE TO ANYTHING. My god, he can do urban dance and a little breakdancing (with a one-handed freeze) just as well as swing and jazz. Despite his curly-haired whiteness, he makes "The Thong Song" entirely plausible with a sexy drawl, down on his knees, gesturing at the pelvic region of the school guidance counselor in a Princess Di wedding dress. Crazy talented.
Rachel Berry (*) is the obvious star of the glee club. Her audition is a heartbreaking (and STUNNING) version of "On My Own" from Les Mis, which highlights her lonliness as the most hated girl in the school (with the voice of an angel). She is seen as irritating, annoying, overly ambitious, and self-centered. She is sort of all these things, but I find her so adorable, she is one of my favorite characters in the show. She knows who she is and embraces what she loves, even if it makes her unpopular. I am entirely baffled at the idea that her "annoyingness" renders her "ugly" or undateable: in my opinion, she is the hottest girl on the show. Yeah, the cheerleader is "prettier," but that doesn't make her hotter. Rachel is HOT - and the cougar-nizing, slight dickhead football player Puck put it best when he said, "She was a hot Jew and the good lord wanted me to get into her pants."
With all her faults, her heart is so endearing: she loves everything intensely, passionately, crazily, and stands up for people, even when she knows they would never do the same for her. Her at-first innocent crush on Finn, the quarterback with a charming voice, blossoms beautifully as she gets a male lead to match her on the stage. Finn isn't very bright, but he's got a great heart even if he's not always confident enough to act on it. He's dating the head cheerleader, but Rachel might be the first person to cultivate and encourage (and love) the part of him that loves being a part of Glee Club. He struggles with his feelings for her because their social statuses are so different (and he's taken!), but she's the only one who wants him to be himself and not who everyone else wants him to be.
Can you tell I love her? :D
Normally, a character like Finn would bore or annoy me. OMG, this guy is adorable. He's not bland like I expected...the way he struggles between the two women is entirely gripping and brings me to the brink of tears. His sense of duty and "rightness" is the misery pill he swallows chivalrously, even if you can see it's not what he wants. You desperately want him to be happy. And he's GORGEOUS. Not like, super-pretty face, but he's fricken HUGE. All 6'3" of him is hulking around the stage, dancing (or in the beginning, trying to), and he's just GIGANTIC compared to the adorable Rachel who stands at 5'2". They are just SO PLEASING to the eye together XD I love his size. I've always loved big guys (mostly because I love the idea that I can't take them down), and Finn is just a lovely speciman of BIG, TOUGH, NICE GUY. XD
The side characters are all great. Watch it. Watch them.
My love of music makes me squeal in pleasure at the musical numbers. Their renditions are at times jaw-droppingly awesome. "Alone" "Leaving on a Jet Plane" "Can't Fight this Feeling" "Defying Gravity" "On My Own" "Don't Stop Believing" -- and fun mash-ups like "It's My Life/Confessions II" and "Don't Stand So Close to Me/Young Girl." (as performances or recorded songs)
I tried to figure out why I like Rachel so much and why I want her to win...she's a lead and it's kind of rare for me to really get into lead characters, especially ones deemed "annoying" and "admittedly high-maintenance." Then I figured it out: I relate to her. Not that I'm very pretty or have a voice, but I GET her intensity and how what everyone else sees as crazy is a powerful and entirely earnest feeling for her. I understand that look in her eye when her mind is zooming and everyone else is backing away in fear. I'm the Rachel Berry (*) without the talent. And thinking about how disliked she is by everyone, it's kinda depressing to me. I want her to win. I want her to be with someone who will be nice to her for once. (She also pairs well with someone WAY hotter than Finn, but Finn is the guy who will cherish her difference because he likes who he is when he's around her.)
I am pre-ordering the DVDs and when I get them, you better believe I am going to start recruiting people to watch it. Tho, I'm happy that when I started playing a song at work, not fifteen seconds into it, my boss asked, "Is that the Glee version?" -- ah ha. One person I can talk about this series with. There shall be more.