I admit, I haven't seen even a snippet of Glee buuuut...
The Lone Guy (Who Is Secretly An Unlikely Hero) Rolls Into Town And Calls Out The Majority On Their Bullshit, Despite Being Totally Outnumbered and Getting Kicked Around, And Eventually Wins Because He Is Brave and Badass and Insanely Determined is a HUGE trope in the U.S. It shows up all over the place, especially in our older stuff and our Westerns.
Our more recent obsession with Massively Overblown Powers For The Good (We Swear!) (Ex. All of the Avengers vs. Lonesome Loki) is weird and counter intuitive to our sensibilities and possibly a reaction to our previous obsession with the underpowered guy who rolls into town, kicks major ass, wins all the girls, and rolls out of town, sans any of the girls, to continue his one man war against injustice.
So yeah, realistically, not always a good idea. But, culturally, it taps straight into our psyches.
(I'm trying to think of a distinctly English/British trope that might be an analog to it, but I'm coming up all Farthingwood and Wolves of Willoughby Chase and that's not it at all.
I might have to go with Arthur Dent and Bilbo Baggins as 'small' and very ordinary people who are capable of working well with others and make a huge difference in the world (but without shooting up most of the town or first having to be motivated by a meaningful death) and move on, even though that's not quite right either. Mostly because of the lack of gleeful bloodlust and brooding.)
...Kurt is gay? And not dating Rachel? Fandom has misled me!
(...I read a few fics because Fandom. And now I am shocked! Shocked! ...And amused, to tell the truth.)
It depends on where you are in the U.S. (and who's teaching the class) as to what level of sex ed the students get... and what year it's given. But yeah, teenage pregnancies and STDs are a huge issue in the U.S. At one university that I attended, every one in four students had chlamydia. The stats for General STDs in the total uni population was MUCH higher. It used to drive me nuts that regardless of what I went in for and when my last period was (or if I was having it right then) they would give me a blood test for pregnancy against my will, because apparently a lot of my peer group had problems spotting that condition in themselves. A group of us ovaries-having people got together and threw a fit about bodily integrity and why are you making us pay out of pocket for excess tests that we know we don't want or need. It didn't work. The ignorance surrounding pregnancy was apparently too great to be overcome by mere Mouthy Boffins With Opinions And Time.
You don't have to have seen Glee! Especially when you help me understand it, because obvs American culture is super-pervasive but I've been startled by how often I've felt sort of at sea because of Glee's Midwest-America-ness.
And yeah. I mean underdogs winning the day, I get that. It's not like British media is over-respectful of victims, although we do traditionally prefer the losers to the winners. But that demand that Lone You Can (And Should) Fight Injustice just strikes me as so incredibly harsh.
Possibly it's like... both Arthur and Bilbo don't do much fighting or lone-heroing, if they do it at all. I think maybe it's that we do more ensemble/inspiring heroes than lone ones. Like, Ordinary Bloke Inspires Workers type stuff. Clearly your heroes need a union movement. (This reminds me of this fantastic meta on the impossibility of socialism in a Joseph Campbell world: basically if you have a lone hero story, mass movements against injustice become narratively impossible.)
Our more recent obsession with Massively Overblown Powers For The Good (We Swear!) (Ex. All of the Avengers vs. Lonesome Loki) is weird and counter intuitive to our sensibilities
Haha, it makes perfect sense to me. Fits right in with America's behaviour/image in the world, once slightly cleaned-up for a home audience.
(Random Wolves of Willoughby Chase and Hitchhiker squee!)
...Kurt is gay? And not dating Rachel? Fandom has misled me!
OMG, are you serious??? Ahahaha! Awesome. Nope, they're BFFs I think but up to the point I'm at, Kurt's not Rachel's type and also very vocally gay and not bi at all. :)
Um. Wow. That's terrifying. The UK also has a massive issue with those things - we're pretty much the worst in Europe. 1 in 12 young people (16-24) have chlamydia and condom use is less than automatic, to put it mildly. (Even though our super-religious population is tiny compared to yours.) But WOW.
Also I am struck again by how ridiculous and evil the US medical system is, in both the violation of bodily integrity (!!!) and the cost. Eeeeeek. The NHS has its problems, but... eeek. *clings to welfare state*
The Lone Guy (Who Is Secretly An Unlikely Hero) Rolls Into Town And Calls Out The Majority On Their Bullshit, Despite Being Totally Outnumbered and Getting Kicked Around, And Eventually Wins Because He Is Brave and Badass and Insanely Determined is a HUGE trope in the U.S. It shows up all over the place, especially in our older stuff and our Westerns.
Our more recent obsession with Massively Overblown Powers For The Good (We Swear!) (Ex. All of the Avengers vs. Lonesome Loki) is weird and counter intuitive to our sensibilities and possibly a reaction to our previous obsession with the underpowered guy who rolls into town, kicks major ass, wins all the girls, and rolls out of town, sans any of the girls, to continue his one man war against injustice.
So yeah, realistically, not always a good idea. But, culturally, it taps straight into our psyches.
(I'm trying to think of a distinctly English/British trope that might be an analog to it, but I'm coming up all Farthingwood and Wolves of Willoughby Chase and that's not it at all.
I might have to go with Arthur Dent and Bilbo Baggins as 'small' and very ordinary people who are capable of working well with others and make a huge difference in the world (but without shooting up most of the town or first having to be motivated by a meaningful death) and move on, even though that's not quite right either. Mostly because of the lack of gleeful bloodlust and brooding.)
...Kurt is gay? And not dating Rachel? Fandom has misled me!
(...I read a few fics because Fandom. And now I am shocked! Shocked! ...And amused, to tell the truth.)
It depends on where you are in the U.S. (and who's teaching the class) as to what level of sex ed the students get... and what year it's given. But yeah, teenage pregnancies and STDs are a huge issue in the U.S. At one university that I attended, every one in four students had chlamydia. The stats for General STDs in the total uni population was MUCH higher. It used to drive me nuts that regardless of what I went in for and when my last period was (or if I was having it right then) they would give me a blood test for pregnancy against my will, because apparently a lot of my peer group had problems spotting that condition in themselves. A group of us ovaries-having people got together and threw a fit about bodily integrity and why are you making us pay out of pocket for excess tests that we know we don't want or need. It didn't work. The ignorance surrounding pregnancy was apparently too great to be overcome by mere Mouthy Boffins With Opinions And Time.
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And yeah. I mean underdogs winning the day, I get that. It's not like British media is over-respectful of victims, although we do traditionally prefer the losers to the winners. But that demand that Lone You Can (And Should) Fight Injustice just strikes me as so incredibly harsh.
Possibly it's like... both Arthur and Bilbo don't do much fighting or lone-heroing, if they do it at all. I think maybe it's that we do more ensemble/inspiring heroes than lone ones. Like, Ordinary Bloke Inspires Workers type stuff. Clearly your heroes need a union movement. (This reminds me of this fantastic meta on the impossibility of socialism in a Joseph Campbell world: basically if you have a lone hero story, mass movements against injustice become narratively impossible.)
Our more recent obsession with Massively Overblown Powers For The Good (We Swear!) (Ex. All of the Avengers vs. Lonesome Loki) is weird and counter intuitive to our sensibilities
Haha, it makes perfect sense to me. Fits right in with America's behaviour/image in the world, once slightly cleaned-up for a home audience.
(Random Wolves of Willoughby Chase and Hitchhiker squee!)
...Kurt is gay? And not dating Rachel? Fandom has misled me!
OMG, are you serious??? Ahahaha! Awesome. Nope, they're BFFs I think but up to the point I'm at, Kurt's not Rachel's type and also very vocally gay and not bi at all. :)
Um. Wow. That's terrifying. The UK also has a massive issue with those things - we're pretty much the worst in Europe. 1 in 12 young people (16-24) have chlamydia and condom use is less than automatic, to put it mildly. (Even though our super-religious population is tiny compared to yours.) But WOW.
Also I am struck again by how ridiculous and evil the US medical system is, in both the violation of bodily integrity (!!!) and the cost. Eeeeeek. The NHS has its problems, but... eeek. *clings to welfare state*
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