Wow, I fuck up my LJ cuts all the time.
So I'm into Glee. I watch it on Hulu, sometimes. There was an episode focused around Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" song, where the glee teacher, Mr. Schuester, teaches the kids to accept themselves for who they are despite whatever personal issue they have that makes them feel less than awesome.
For those of you who don't watch Glee here's a major character rundown/summary the way the show depicts the kids:
Mr. Schuester: the glee teacher (a white guy)
Ms. Emma Pillsbury: the guidance counselor, who has OCD
Rachel: the Jewish girl
Quinn: The skinny pretty blonde girl
Finn: the white Everyman
Kurt: the stereotypical gay boy
Puck: the Jewish bad boy
Artie: the disabled geek (he uses a wheelchair)
Santana: the bitchy Latina
Brittany: The dumb blonde
Lauren: the fat girl
Tina: the Asian chick
Mercedes: the sassy black girl
There are, of course, some minor characters but I can't remember all of their names and they aren't important for making my point. Some of the characters get more exposition than others; I have ordered them from who I think gets the most screen time to the least. (It switches all the time - Santana was less important in the beginning and is getting a lot more screen time; Artie used to get a lot more and isn't anymore, but Rachel and Quinn reliably get complex storylines).
The catalyst for the episode within the story is that Finn is a bad dancer and he accidentally breaks Rachel's nose during a rehearsal. When she goes to the doctor (who is also Jewish), he insensitively suggests that she get a nose job. When she protests because it may change her voice, the doctor says that correcting her slightly deviated septum might actually make her breathe more deeply and thus be able to sing with more power. He then says that he got his two daughters nose jobs when they were 16 and they were just fine.
When Mr. Schuester hears about it he makes everyone in glee do an assignment where they have to sing a song that focuses on their insecurity. It being a one-hour episode there's only so many characters' storylines they could really focus on. These are the ones they choose:
1. Rachel and her insecurity about her large nose because she is Jewish
2. Finn and his inability to dance
3. Ms. Pillsbury's obsessive-compulsive disorder
4. Quinn and her history of being fat, awkward and brunette
5. Santana being a closeted lesbian...sort of
6. Tina disliking her eye color, or shape, but it ends up being color really
And when I say Tina disliking her eyes, I mean there are two references to it: once in the beginning of the episode, when she talks about loving oneself and Mike (the Asian boy who is her boyfriend) points out that she is wearing blue contacts; and once at the middle of the episode, when she talks about how she had an epiphany watching Rachel and decided that she likes herself just the way she is. That's it. No exposition, no song even, just an unseen transformation that happens in like 20 minutes on-screen.
At one ridiculous point during the episode, Rachel asks Quinn what it's like to be pretty.
Here's. a picture of Lea Michele, who is Rachel's actress. Here; she is in her role as Rachel Berry.
They didn't deal with Kurt's gayness because that’s been addressed in earlier episodes, and they didn’t really deal with Santana’s closeted lesbianism because she’s not ready to come out yet. Rachel and Quinn sing “Unpretty” together, Finn sings a song and dances with the kid in glee who can’t sing but joined the Glee club so he could dance. They made it seem like Finn’s inability to dance was on the same level as Tina's discomfort with the color and shape of her eyes, which was racially connected (and she makes it clear that it is when she talks about it earlier in the episode). They make a big side storyline out of Quinn's prior fatness while sort of brushing over Lauren's current fatness (they also dealt with this in the past, but come on). And they completely jump over Artie's disability (which was definitely a source of discomfort for him before the episode) and Mercedes's race, which they HAVE IGNORED COMPLETELY in the show.
Let me talk about Mercedes for a moment. She's the only major black character in the show. She's heavyset, and has a sassy, neck-snapping personality that she personally describes as being a diva. Sounds familiar? In a show that's all about tearing down stereotypes about certain types of people (and they have succeeded and failed a lot), Mercedes is a stereotype. She's never been as deeply examined as the other characters, and while most if not all of the other glee club major characters have had romantic entanglements, her one claim to fame is that she had a crush on the gay boy. She has not actually dated anyone in the course of the story.
I like the show but this makes me really upset, especially that in an episode that lightly touched on racial and ethnic issues they completely ignored the issue of Mercedes' race. In fact, you barely even saw her in the entire episode, not even when the entire glee club showed up at a mall to make Rachel feel better by doing a Barbara Streisand techno mix (Streisand is her idol). She has maybe three lines the entire show, one of which is to tell Mr. Schuester that she likes his nose. When Santana the bitch went around the room calling out everyone's insecurities (with the exception of Quinn's, because at that time no one knew she used to be fat), she completely skipped over Mercedes. We didn't even know what her insecurity was until the end of the episode, when she unveiled her shirt (all the kids made shirts about what they felt was wrong with them): "No Weave!"
No weave? What does that even mean? She has a problem with her weave? She was still wearing it in the ending sequence!
For those of you who don't watch Glee here's a major character rundown/summary the way the show depicts the kids:
Mr. Schuester: the glee teacher (a white guy)
Ms. Emma Pillsbury: the guidance counselor, who has OCD
Rachel: the Jewish girl
Quinn: The skinny pretty blonde girl
Finn: the white Everyman
Kurt: the stereotypical gay boy
Puck: the Jewish bad boy
Artie: the disabled geek (he uses a wheelchair)
Santana: the bitchy Latina
Brittany: The dumb blonde
Lauren: the fat girl
Tina: the Asian chick
Mercedes: the sassy black girl
There are, of course, some minor characters but I can't remember all of their names and they aren't important for making my point. Some of the characters get more exposition than others; I have ordered them from who I think gets the most screen time to the least. (It switches all the time - Santana was less important in the beginning and is getting a lot more screen time; Artie used to get a lot more and isn't anymore, but Rachel and Quinn reliably get complex storylines).
The catalyst for the episode within the story is that Finn is a bad dancer and he accidentally breaks Rachel's nose during a rehearsal. When she goes to the doctor (who is also Jewish), he insensitively suggests that she get a nose job. When she protests because it may change her voice, the doctor says that correcting her slightly deviated septum might actually make her breathe more deeply and thus be able to sing with more power. He then says that he got his two daughters nose jobs when they were 16 and they were just fine.
When Mr. Schuester hears about it he makes everyone in glee do an assignment where they have to sing a song that focuses on their insecurity. It being a one-hour episode there's only so many characters' storylines they could really focus on. These are the ones they choose:
1. Rachel and her insecurity about her large nose because she is Jewish
2. Finn and his inability to dance
3. Ms. Pillsbury's obsessive-compulsive disorder
4. Quinn and her history of being fat, awkward and brunette
5. Santana being a closeted lesbian...sort of
6. Tina disliking her eye color, or shape, but it ends up being color really
And when I say Tina disliking her eyes, I mean there are two references to it: once in the beginning of the episode, when she talks about loving oneself and Mike (the Asian boy who is her boyfriend) points out that she is wearing blue contacts; and once at the middle of the episode, when she talks about how she had an epiphany watching Rachel and decided that she likes herself just the way she is. That's it. No exposition, no song even, just an unseen transformation that happens in like 20 minutes on-screen.
At one ridiculous point during the episode, Rachel asks Quinn what it's like to be pretty.
Here's. a picture of Lea Michele, who is Rachel's actress. Here; she is in her role as Rachel Berry.
They didn't deal with Kurt's gayness because that’s been addressed in earlier episodes, and they didn’t really deal with Santana’s closeted lesbianism because she’s not ready to come out yet. Rachel and Quinn sing “Unpretty” together, Finn sings a song and dances with the kid in glee who can’t sing but joined the Glee club so he could dance. They made it seem like Finn’s inability to dance was on the same level as Tina's discomfort with the color and shape of her eyes, which was racially connected (and she makes it clear that it is when she talks about it earlier in the episode). They make a big side storyline out of Quinn's prior fatness while sort of brushing over Lauren's current fatness (they also dealt with this in the past, but come on). And they completely jump over Artie's disability (which was definitely a source of discomfort for him before the episode) and Mercedes's race, which they HAVE IGNORED COMPLETELY in the show.
Let me talk about Mercedes for a moment. She's the only major black character in the show. She's heavyset, and has a sassy, neck-snapping personality that she personally describes as being a diva. Sounds familiar? In a show that's all about tearing down stereotypes about certain types of people (and they have succeeded and failed a lot), Mercedes is a stereotype. She's never been as deeply examined as the other characters, and while most if not all of the other glee club major characters have had romantic entanglements, her one claim to fame is that she had a crush on the gay boy. She has not actually dated anyone in the course of the story.
I like the show but this makes me really upset, especially that in an episode that lightly touched on racial and ethnic issues they completely ignored the issue of Mercedes' race. In fact, you barely even saw her in the entire episode, not even when the entire glee club showed up at a mall to make Rachel feel better by doing a Barbara Streisand techno mix (Streisand is her idol). She has maybe three lines the entire show, one of which is to tell Mr. Schuester that she likes his nose. When Santana the bitch went around the room calling out everyone's insecurities (with the exception of Quinn's, because at that time no one knew she used to be fat), she completely skipped over Mercedes. We didn't even know what her insecurity was until the end of the episode, when she unveiled her shirt (all the kids made shirts about what they felt was wrong with them): "No Weave!"
No weave? What does that even mean? She has a problem with her weave? She was still wearing it in the ending sequence!