by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology
Well, I might as well out myself -- I watch Glee.
Look. I know, okay? It's a bunch of "teenagers" singing and dancing along to pop classics, which makes it thinly veiled karaoke, and it's hardly reinventing the hour-long drama wheel-- just halfway through the first season and we're already seen a teen pregnancy, a gay son struggling to find a way to tell his father, and an unrequited love rhombus or two. I'm not proud, but I'm not ashamed, either. At the close of the day, Glee is smart, relevant and grimly wholesome, with shiny production values and a cast full of double if not triple threats.
What brings me to this confession? It's not the season premiere or anything, but there are new episodes beginning to air April 13th after a long hiatus -- the result of a bizarre decision by Fox to chop the first season into two halves, airing months apart. Hey, whatever. That's Past Me's problem. The second half is almost here.
But it amazes me that no one has thought of the formula before. Take sunny versions of songs everyone knows, characters we grow to care about, musical number: rinse and repeat as necessary. Artists have been tripping over themselves to have their musical catalogues immortalized by the cast -- an upcoming episode is entirely centered on Madonna's music, and Billy Joel already gave his blessing to use anything in his repertoire.
Most likely trying to replicate said formula, many have rushed to attribute its success to the recent onslaught of tween super-franchises like High School Musical, that Rock Camp thing and anything that Miley Cyrus touches. It makes sense in a short-sighted way: they do both feature music. But I beg to differ. Sure, it deals with the same teenage problems that every teen drama does -- but I'll be damned if it doesn't find a way to make old cliches seem fresh. For instance, when Kurt, the barely closeted gay teen I mentioned earlier, finally does come out to his monster trucks and football father, it isn't met with the hostile homophobia you'd expect from a stock character: the father is not only wholly accepting of the boy, but he also admits he knew all along, all without betraying the macho sensibilities of his character. It's heartwarming, damn it. My heart was warmed!
In my experience, it isn't the kids who love Glee the most -- it's the twenty and thirty somethings who respond with the most ardent, well, glee: after all, at its heart, Glee is an acerbic little show about expressing yourself inside a bureaucratic world. There's the bureaucracy lurking about the edges of the club itself, from the rulebook that periodically pops up in reign in the fun, not to mention the machinations of Jane Lynch's malicious cheer-leading coach. But then there's the vicious pecking order of high school, filled with the absurditities that consume kids in that hormally fuelled epoch.
So what could explain why people who haven't seen the inside of a high school for the better part of a decade are devoting themselves to the small-scale dramas of singing kids in Ohio? Personally, I think it's the reminder that Glee doles out through its adult characters: no matter how mature or successful we think we are, we never really leave those safely neutered hallways in the end. The adult world is a high school with better cars, higher stakes, and credit cards.
Glee is just another in the long line of television offerings to pop up in the last few years that give me hope for the medium: quality programming that is clever without pandering and entertaining without being preachy. It's eye candy, sure, but it's not dumb. And it's original in the sense that it's tapping into something no else has
Personally, I've always been annoyed at so-called purists who will snidely claim they just don't watch television -- though on most days, it's actually true of my own watching habits. My own TV watching is targeting and strict, and doesn't amount to much more than your average DMV visit. But those who sniff they just can't find the time should lighten up; they're missing some downright chipper entertainment.
Well, I might as well out myself -- I watch Glee.
Look. I know, okay? It's a bunch of "teenagers" singing and dancing along to pop classics, which makes it thinly veiled karaoke, and it's hardly reinventing the hour-long drama wheel-- just halfway through the first season and we're already seen a teen pregnancy, a gay son struggling to find a way to tell his father, and an unrequited love rhombus or two. I'm not proud, but I'm not ashamed, either. At the close of the day, Glee is smart, relevant and grimly wholesome, with shiny production values and a cast full of double if not triple threats.
What brings me to this confession? It's not the season premiere or anything, but there are new episodes beginning to air April 13th after a long hiatus -- the result of a bizarre decision by Fox to chop the first season into two halves, airing months apart. Hey, whatever. That's Past Me's problem. The second half is almost here.
But it amazes me that no one has thought of the formula before. Take sunny versions of songs everyone knows, characters we grow to care about, musical number: rinse and repeat as necessary. Artists have been tripping over themselves to have their musical catalogues immortalized by the cast -- an upcoming episode is entirely centered on Madonna's music, and Billy Joel already gave his blessing to use anything in his repertoire.
Most likely trying to replicate said formula, many have rushed to attribute its success to the recent onslaught of tween super-franchises like High School Musical, that Rock Camp thing and anything that Miley Cyrus touches. It makes sense in a short-sighted way: they do both feature music. But I beg to differ. Sure, it deals with the same teenage problems that every teen drama does -- but I'll be damned if it doesn't find a way to make old cliches seem fresh. For instance, when Kurt, the barely closeted gay teen I mentioned earlier, finally does come out to his monster trucks and football father, it isn't met with the hostile homophobia you'd expect from a stock character: the father is not only wholly accepting of the boy, but he also admits he knew all along, all without betraying the macho sensibilities of his character. It's heartwarming, damn it. My heart was warmed!
In my experience, it isn't the kids who love Glee the most -- it's the twenty and thirty somethings who respond with the most ardent, well, glee: after all, at its heart, Glee is an acerbic little show about expressing yourself inside a bureaucratic world. There's the bureaucracy lurking about the edges of the club itself, from the rulebook that periodically pops up in reign in the fun, not to mention the machinations of Jane Lynch's malicious cheer-leading coach. But then there's the vicious pecking order of high school, filled with the absurditities that consume kids in that hormally fuelled epoch.
So what could explain why people who haven't seen the inside of a high school for the better part of a decade are devoting themselves to the small-scale dramas of singing kids in Ohio? Personally, I think it's the reminder that Glee doles out through its adult characters: no matter how mature or successful we think we are, we never really leave those safely neutered hallways in the end. The adult world is a high school with better cars, higher stakes, and credit cards.
*
Glee is just another in the long line of television offerings to pop up in the last few years that give me hope for the medium: quality programming that is clever without pandering and entertaining without being preachy. It's eye candy, sure, but it's not dumb. And it's original in the sense that it's tapping into something no else has
Personally, I've always been annoyed at so-called purists who will snidely claim they just don't watch television -- though on most days, it's actually true of my own watching habits. My own TV watching is targeting and strict, and doesn't amount to much more than your average DMV visit. But those who sniff they just can't find the time should lighten up; they're missing some downright chipper entertainment.
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