1. Can we talk about gender in this, please please please? Has no one pinged on the Sadie Hawkin's dance thing and how Blaine took it upon himself to ask another dude? I'm still turning this over in my head.
2. OMG, prom song choice. I've known I was going to need to write a long thing about it for ages, now it's just finding the time.
3. Blaine is such the little fake-adult. He mimics all the right thigns so well, and sometimes they are awesome, and sometimes.... god. It was like so so so the characterization I'm working with in my fic and I was so so so pleased.
You know, I've been chewing on the Sadie Hawkins thing, too. I'm just not sure *what* it is I'm getting at yet. That Blaine sees himself as the one who should expect to be asked? That if the gender dichot and norms are being tossed out enough for girls to asks boys to a dance that he's probably a little safer? I'm so interested in what you have to say.
You know, we spend so much time, as a fandom, i think talking about Kurt's gender identity and performance and sense of self as related to gender, that we just sort of ignore Blaine's deal. Like, he's an attractive dude who can totally pass for straight but doesn't really try one way or another on that score, that we're necessarily aware of. But I think he's been shoved into this heteronormatively male role by the audience and maybe the characters within the show itself just because he's standing next to Kurt. Maybe that shit is not how he sees himself or interacts with desire. Hell, maybe that's why it took him so long to realize he was into Kurt, because the dynamic there isn't the one he usually fantasized about for himself. When he says to Kurt, "I'm crazy about you" there's a real note of disbelief there -- part of it is hey, has has someone and gets to be happy, that's new! but I think part of it is just how unexpected it is for him that it's someone like Kurt. I think the Sadie Hawkins thing in the clue.
Oh wow, yeah, it really does make an awful lot of sense re: Blaine taking a while to realize his feelings about Kurt.
I've long thought that Blaine performance of masculinity was just that--performance. He switches his "gayness" (in a stereotypical sense, not in an actual sense) on and off a lot through his inflection, what he talks about, etc. where he is much more pronouncedly stereotypically "effeminate" (again, as a stereotype he's playing) in the safety of, say, the Hudson-Hummel house, or the scene with Kurt and Mercedes in Breadstix. It would line up well with what little bit we got about his father's trying to "man" him up with the car thing. How that would shape his views of maleness and masculinity and "doing" gender.
I think that a lot of what we saw last night was playing against that. We got all the Vogue stuff very early on, but then it went dead. And the way Blaine held himself on the sofa, his remarks about his clothes, his response re Tony Orlando - oh look, there it is back again. Coupled with the Sadie Hawkins stuff - yeah, very interesting.
2. OMG, prom song choice. I've known I was going to need to write a long thing about it for ages, now it's just finding the time.
3. Blaine is such the little fake-adult. He mimics all the right thigns so well, and sometimes they are awesome, and sometimes.... god. It was like so so so the characterization I'm working with in my fic and I was so so so pleased.
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I've long thought that Blaine performance of masculinity was just that--performance. He switches his "gayness" (in a stereotypical sense, not in an actual sense) on and off a lot through his inflection, what he talks about, etc. where he is much more pronouncedly stereotypically "effeminate" (again, as a stereotype he's playing) in the safety of, say, the Hudson-Hummel house, or the scene with Kurt and Mercedes in Breadstix. It would line up well with what little bit we got about his father's trying to "man" him up with the car thing. How that would shape his views of maleness and masculinity and "doing" gender.
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