G(ay)LEE

I was pretty late jumping on the Glee bandwagon. When the pilot first aired in 2009 my mom and I were watching TV and she flipped to the channel, suggesting I might like to see what Glee was all about. I’ve been involved in music extra-curricularly my whole life, but I only made it through the first 10 minutes before returning to my Gilmore Girls DVD.

Cut to this past summer, when I was bored and decided to give Glee a second chance. What piqued my interest was probably witnessing my peers proclaiming the Glory of Glee all over Facebook and the blogosphere for months…not to mention, in particular, some tantalizing hints I’d read about Brittana. I persevered, and have now watched every episode that’s ever been aired.

But, let’s get something straight: I am not a Gleek. I could care less about the majority of Glee’s subplots (e.g. Finn & Rachel, Mr. Schuester, the survival of the Glee Club). I will even admit to fast-forwarding through a lot of the musical numbers the Glee Club performs (especially if it’s a Finn & Rachel ballad). In fact, initially I would only half-watch the episodes while, say, cooking or reading.

So what held my interest, through 32 episodes? In a word, Kurt. Kurt Hummel, Glee’s token gay. Through those two seasons I gaped at Kurt’s amazing voice [he is the only character whose songs I never skip], cried when he came out to his father, looked on helplessly as he was bullied, and beamed when he watched the Dalton Academy Warblers perform for the first time.

Despite having never experienced some of the awful things Kurt went through, I found that his character still very much resonated with me and, I would imagine, with queer kids everywhere. Queer kids who have been bullied, who have struggled with being the only “out” person in their community, who have worried about coming out to their parents, who have mourned the lack of queer peers. Here was this flamboyant, courageous young man living our lives on the small screen.

I must confess, I intended at first to write a good ol’ “you’re doing it all wrong!” roast regarding Ryan Murphy and co.’s treatment of Kurt’s character on Glee. However, as I thought more about Kurt and Glee, my take on the matter changed. Perhaps Glee has put me in a musical mood (hey, it could happen!), but whenever I think about it now, Hairspray’s, “Come So Far (Got So Far To Go)” enters my head.

The fact that a wildly popular, primetime TV show has shown the struggles of a gay teenager in a not-necessarily-outright-homophobic-but-still-uncaring school system at all is fantastic. The team behind Glee surprised – and impressed – me with the Karofsky [Kurt’s bully] plot twist. Showing a seemingly straight, extremely macho football player who is so terrified of harbouring same-sex tendencies that he bullies the only gay kid as a way of distancing himself from all that is homosexual? I was not expecting such depth from Ryan Murphy and the Glee team. This: the “come so far.”

A more detailed exploration of the Karofsky storyline would be too much to hope for, considering he is such a minor character, but I feel the Glee team could have explored more of the Kurt-as-being-gay one. For a number of episodes, it was so refreshing to be able to witness a gay kid facing – and overcoming – some of the struggles that are faced by queer youth each and every day, around the country. But, I understand that the storylines had run their course. Glee is not a show about gay kids; it’s a show about the Glee Club (which apparently justifies incessantly repetitive storylines revolving around the Glee Club being cancelled…but I digress).

Yet, Glee is also about misfits. And the sad reality is that many LGBTQ youth are misfits. We are bullied at school, rejected by our parents, experience loneliness and isolation due to a lack of role models. We are essentially invisible in popular media. Which is why, even if I am not a Gleek, I am 100,000% Team Kurt. You keep Kurt on Glee and I am a (relatively) happy camper. Because exposure, at least, is something. Exposing even a few of an LGBTQ youth’s harsh realities is a step in the right direction.

But we’ve still got so far to go.

Ignorance is Bliss

As I was pondering life in the shower (as I am wont to do), I realized that - despite the fact that I am nearing the onset of a Death Week - my productivity is tanking. Tanking. Yesterday was a very full day (events-wise and thoughts-wise) starting at 7:45am, and when I got home at 7ishPM all I wanted to do was make some dinner & watch TV. So I did - I made some awesome, suuuper easy guacamole and watched Parenthood online. And then I..what. I don't even know. Read archive posts from www.hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com. Messed about on the interwebs. Did everything except follow the Plan of Action I'd created for my Psych of Women paper that's due on Monday. Eventually I realized that I Was Procrastinating, that I didn't feel like working at all, and that I should just go to bed in the hopes of catching up on my work en route to school.

And then today I got home from volunteering at 8:30ish, had some dinner and dealt with yet another mini-crisis for my Nutty French Project. Did some group work over MSN while reading more Hyperbole and a Half. Read all the way to the first entry. Went looking on Facebook for more distractions, and came across a friend's Tumblr. She's in Geneva on exchange, so I read through all her entries and, yet again, regretted my Exchange Cop-out. Realized that it was after 11:00 and that I should be doing work because I'm already behind in my essay Plan of Action. Decided to shower, then start. But then I felt the urge to blog, so here I am. I gave myself 30min but pretty sure that's already passed. Whatever. I can go to bed as late as 2:30 tonight (wake up tomorrow at 10, leave at 10:45...get home close to midnight, probably. Urrgh.)

Anyway, while I was in the shower I tried to figure out why I was procrastinating. And concluded that it's because I'm scared. Scared of starting work on my paper and realizing that it's horrible and that I'll have SO MUCH more work to do than I'd previously anticipated. It's so much easier to just mess around, clicking on random Internet things, and blissfully not know that my essay is horrible.

I try to remind myself that these are manageable steps I've broken the essay process into, that it won't actually take that long, that I still have plenty of time to fix it if it's horrible. But then I click on a link and, the next time I glance at my laptop clock, an hour has passed and the essay has yet to be touched.

I think I'm also feeling a little disenchanted with school because I've been getting not-ideal grades on a bunch of things I've turned in feeling good about them - feeling like I definitely got the A. One of these things was an essay I started a week early, planned out beautifully, wrote gradually, got Laura to edit, edited again myself, and was proud of. And now that I've set out a similar process (gradual writing & revising) Monday's paper, I guess I am wondering what the point of all this preparation is if I'm not going to get a good grade on it anyway! It's frustrating!!

(I was about to go into a tangent/rant about everything about school I've been disenchanted with, but I simply don't have time for that.)

Well, I haven't resolved anything. My temporary solution is just to soldier on and deal with my apprehensions later. So here's what I'mma do: publish this post, close my computer, make myself some hot chocolate, put on another sweater, and settle into my little Study Nook. In other words, get 'er done! T-2hours until bedtime.

P.S. In case you're wondering about the photo, I don't yet have any taken of my Study Nook [though you can see my purple desk lamp peeking over the headboard] so I posted one of my bed [or, actually, nearly my entire room], where I am currently perched (on the right side, leaning against the blue pillow). Obv it is not light out anymore.

(Edit: I just added a photo of one of the quotes from my Inspirational Board - it says "It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging your responsibilities" - Sir Josiah Stamp.