Ok, I admit it...I'm a Gleek. I really enjoy watching Glee. It is a guilty pleasure for me, because I disagree with lots of the behavior on the show, but I realize it's a farce. It is a farce, isn't it? I mean one school with so many, well, extreme characters...never mind, it's fun, it's not real and I really enjoy the music.
Except for this week. I was really uncomfortable, irritated, indignant - and it wasn't just the Lady Gaga stuff, even though I am not a fan. In fact the only reason I know anything at all about her is because I taped a replay of the Video Music Awards last year so I could see that silly thing Kanye West did over Taylor Swift's award.
I was really angry at the way they portrayed the situation between Kurt and Finn. (Yes, I know it is fiction, just for fun, but what we watch says something about how we think....) Kurt is one of my favorite characters. He is smart, funny, talented and struggling to be himself as a gay teen. I like Finn too. He's a jock, but not one of the arrogant bully types. He tries to do the right thing, like when he stood by his girlfriend, Quinn, when she got pregnant and told him he was the father even though he had respected her wishes not to have sex - but those determined little sperms swimming around in the hot tub, they were to blame! Finn is nice but a little clueless, and I did say the show is a bit of a farce. Finn has defended Kurt more than once and Kurt unfortunately has quite the crush on him. Unfortunately, because Finn is straight, straight, straight.
Kurt lives with his dad, who is doing a great job of supporting his son. Finn lives with his mom. Kurt manages to get the two parents together; they date for a little while and then decide to combine their families by moving in together (not by getting married, I might point out, but that is very out of style on tv.) And, of course, Kurt and Finn have to share a room. Finn gets a little bent out of shape, but Kurt's dad makes it all better by giving him $300 to remodel the room, which Kurt immediately snatches out of his hand, essentially saying that he will take care of it. When he presents the remodel to Finn, Finn loses it. He dumps all over Kurt, saying how he has to change in the bathroom and how uncomfortable he is with Kurt staring at him in the locker room...then he calls some of the decor "faggy" and that is when Kurt's dad comes in and comes down on Finn like a ton of bricks. He won't have that kind of talk about his son in his house. "Not in my house. Not in my house," he says.
What I want to know is, where is Finn's house then? He is still a kid, maybe 17 years old and his mother moves in with a guy who has a gay son who is hot for him. He is expected to share a room that has been decorated like a bordello with a guy who would really like to have a romantic, sexual relationship with him and isn't shy about making that known. Why is Finn made to look like the bad guy here? He did not ask for this situation! Let's say Finn was a girl and she knew Kurt was gay, but she saw this as an opportunity to get alone with Kurt and hope he would fall in love with her...or say Kurt was straight and in love with the female Finn - would these clueless parents force them to share a room and get mad at Finn for not being more understanding of Kurt?
This show just made me uncomfortable in so many ways but mostly about the way some parents don't think about how the people they bring into their kids lives and homes will affect them. And how we parents often expect way more maturity from our kids than is reasonable. And how the writers somehow think this episode made Kurt's situation more sympathetic?
And when Finn showed up at school in his bright red Lady Gaga dress I couldn't help feeling just like I did when Sandy in Grease dressed as a, well, less than virtuous woman so that she could hang on to Danny Zuko...
But the show is a farce, just for fun...it doesn't really mean anything, right?
Right....
---Katie
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