oh, glee, why do you taunt us?
okay, glee, we tried. we watched the whole first season. conclusions:
like five good episodes and a wonderful coming out story aside, the writing is really lazy and uneven. i could maybe overlook that because the songs are so gorgeous, but overall, it's just toxic. most of the time it's bad decisions by mean people: the musical! it's pretty, shiny, candy-coated poison. and i just don't have the energy for that.
what sucks is that there are so many things the show gets right. i LOVE curt's dad. i love that finn's mom reaches out for more for herself. i love the body image episode, and most of the lady gaga episode. but there are also so many things the show allllmost gets right - and then trips and gets wrong. finn's mom reaches for more - but then says that she and finn aren't a family, aren't complete, and finn doesn't realize that because he thinks what they have is "normal." ick. mercedes, the lone black woman, is totally ghettoized and she calls out the club for it - that she never gets a solo song but they always use her to bring it home at the end of a song; but it never changes. there's an episode about how the boys step all over the girls and don't listen (seriously, tina's BF tells her how to dress?!), which is great - but it's followed by an episode where the guys complain about how they only sing stuff that's girrrrrrrly and they feel so oppressed by it. OMG what about the menz? fuck off.
and there's plenty that flat pisses me off. oh, the uninterrogated stereotypes - the hot-blooded latina, the dumb blonde, the superstitious south asian. the two cheerleaders who make out with each other as an attention-getting tactic. i know people are shitty in high school, and the kids screw up a lot, but it's the grownups on the show who behave really execrably with far fewer excuses. and damn, does the show hate older women. every woman over 30 is characterized as either irretrievably broken and only fixable with MANLUV, or as outright evil. the "hysterical pregnancy." the blackmail. even Our Heroine, the romantic lead, agrees to marry someone who loves her but whom she's kind of ashamed of, doesn't actually like, and doesn't even allow to touch her - just so she can distract herself from loving someone unavailable. really? really?!?
so we're done. the songs are glorious and exhilarating, but i'm pretty sure that's what youtube is for.
like five good episodes and a wonderful coming out story aside, the writing is really lazy and uneven. i could maybe overlook that because the songs are so gorgeous, but overall, it's just toxic. most of the time it's bad decisions by mean people: the musical! it's pretty, shiny, candy-coated poison. and i just don't have the energy for that.
what sucks is that there are so many things the show gets right. i LOVE curt's dad. i love that finn's mom reaches out for more for herself. i love the body image episode, and most of the lady gaga episode. but there are also so many things the show allllmost gets right - and then trips and gets wrong. finn's mom reaches for more - but then says that she and finn aren't a family, aren't complete, and finn doesn't realize that because he thinks what they have is "normal." ick. mercedes, the lone black woman, is totally ghettoized and she calls out the club for it - that she never gets a solo song but they always use her to bring it home at the end of a song; but it never changes. there's an episode about how the boys step all over the girls and don't listen (seriously, tina's BF tells her how to dress?!), which is great - but it's followed by an episode where the guys complain about how they only sing stuff that's girrrrrrrly and they feel so oppressed by it. OMG what about the menz? fuck off.
and there's plenty that flat pisses me off. oh, the uninterrogated stereotypes - the hot-blooded latina, the dumb blonde, the superstitious south asian. the two cheerleaders who make out with each other as an attention-getting tactic. i know people are shitty in high school, and the kids screw up a lot, but it's the grownups on the show who behave really execrably with far fewer excuses. and damn, does the show hate older women. every woman over 30 is characterized as either irretrievably broken and only fixable with MANLUV, or as outright evil. the "hysterical pregnancy." the blackmail. even Our Heroine, the romantic lead, agrees to marry someone who loves her but whom she's kind of ashamed of, doesn't actually like, and doesn't even allow to touch her - just so she can distract herself from loving someone unavailable. really? really?!?
so we're done. the songs are glorious and exhilarating, but i'm pretty sure that's what youtube is for.