A Meditation on Mr. Shu

I rarely focus on just one character for a post, usually feeling some sort of responsibility to cover larger storylines and themes from the whole episode.  But last night’s Glee is forcing me to this.  Will Shuster is a terrible guy!  First, in a fit of immaturity, he convinces the Glee kids to retaliate against Vocal Adreneline’s tp’ing of the choir room, resulting in Puck and Finn slashing their tires (their matching Range Rovers were pretty funny, though).  Then, despite the plan being largely his fault, he doesn’t bail the kids out, but instead lets them take on crappy jobs to get themselves out of trouble.  In fact, this progression of events was so strange I was left wondering if something had gone wrong in the editing process of putting the final show together.

And We Have a Jumper

If there’s one thing I learned tonight – and it’s not that we’re all freaks and need to express ourselves as such – it’s that Lady Gaga is so much more than the sum of her costumes.  Let me preface this analysis by saying that I heart Gaga.  I think she’s a genius – not only because of her reinvention, but also because her music is so damn catchy on numerous levels while also having surprisingly creative lyrics.  Most of all, though, I love her because she plays with identity in ways that force me to think deeply about the relationship between gender, sexuality, self-expression, violence and power.  She can’t be written off.  She’s not Britney.  Dare I say it, she’s not even Madonna circa 1989-1994 (i.e. Madonna at her very very best and, yes, I included Bedtime Stories in that spread on purpose).  She’s something so radically new I don’t yet know what to do with her.  What I do know is that she can’t be copied, even by the amazingly talented Glee kids…they just looked silly.  They didn’t have the personas or attitude to back up their costumes (except for Rachel’s short time in the teddy bear jumper costume-that required little hutzpah).  Whereas Lady Gaga creates a series of characters, the Glee kids looked like they were playing dress-up.

When the Dream Becomes a Lie

Let me start by saying how much I love both Joss Whedon and Neil Patrick Harris.  I’m a burgeoning Whedonite, having just finished the first season of Dollhouse, but I’m gonna say he really knocked last night’s Glee out of the park.  And more importantly, he showed us that if we scale back a little on the musical numbers, the numbers themselves are a) able to be more quality and b) the show itself can incorporate more minor character development.  And it’s a great trade off!  We were 18 minutes in before we had a musical number, and even then it was a sing-along to a jukebox in a bar…understated but still fabulous – in large part because it was NPH doing it!  And now on to NPH…

Finding Your Voice

I’m a feminist…that much is probably clear from many of these posts. And when I got married 5 years ago, I got it into my head that it was sexist to be walked down the aisle by my father and handed to my husband (which to be fair, it is – in essence, it’s a patriarchal passing on of goods. The only thing missing is the goat dowry). And so I told my dad that we were cutting that part out of the wedding ceremony. At first he tried to hide his disappointment, to accept my decision, but it quickly became clear that he was devastated. Eventually he admitted that he had dreamed of walking me down the aisle since I was a baby – that that’s just something that dads of daughters dream of and look forward to. In my haste to embrace what I believed to be right – the mores of my own particular time and place – I forgot to pay attention to the world that I had grown out of; the world I had come from.

You’re a Slut, Will

Way to go, Emma!  I was so pleased to finally see Emma taking strides toward her own self-expression and healing.  She’s right – if her and Shu are to have a future, they need to start seeing each other for who they really are.  But she also needs to stand up for herself and communicate her feelings.  How strange, though, that this insight and advice would come from Sue, the school’s new counselor.  Sure, she was trying to humiliate Shu, but her advice was sound and it worked.  Of all the characters, Sue is becoming the most complex and interesting to me.

Not Just a Puff Piece

It’s official – 3 episodes in a row, Glee is legitimately awesome again, in no small part because they brought back Kristin Chenoweth.  Holy crap, is there anyone on this planet who sings like KC?!  She blows my mind.  Usually I would refuse to even acknowledge something as stupid as an all-white cast version of The Wiz, but as she said it I found myself wanting to book a flight to NYC to watch her reprise Diana Ross’ Dorothy.  And April was back, as she said, as ‘full time fancy,’ finding a way to cash in on a dead dude, announce inappropriate sex dreams to a room of roller skaters, be the loudest house-guest ever, and finally go 45 minutes without a drink.  Perhaps her most poignant scene occurred in the bed with Shu, though.  I’m not sure if that was intended to reference last week’s tri-fantasy bedroom scene, but thinking of it in relation to those images gave us a glimpse at what each bedroom scene really sought but failed to gain: intimacy and connection in the midst of desperate situations.  Strangely, sweetly and a little awkwardly, Shu and April got that intimacy in bed tonight simply through the presence of a warm body on the pillow next door rather than through the sex every character on this show thinks they want.

Just Madge-ical!

Amazing episode!  Finally, Glee has truly found itself again, taking me back to the glory of the “Single Ladies” episode!  We had real emotion and even some complexity of character development (Shu realizing what a dick he was last week, sinking even lower into dick-dom and then crawling his way back out, Jesse’s seeming true love for Rachel, Emma working through real issues and Sue – oh my goodness, Sue – continuing the layers of broken little girl trapped in giant crazy lady body!) and, most importantly, phenomenal musical numbers!  But what I really loved last night was the further admission of the show that it is supposed to be ludicrous, not realistic – Sue’s admission that Madonna makes her feel powerful “even in voiceover” draws attention to the show’s form; Finn’s pregnancy appears and disappears depending on the musical number; and where, oh where, did they get that full choir to help them with Like a Prayer at the end (which, argh, my dvr cut off because Idol had gone over but, thank God, I managed to get on Hulu this morning!).  In the first half of the season, they would try to explain inconsistencies, make the fact that kids were singing in the hallway make sense, but now they’ve embraced not only the form of the musical, but also an almost absurdist style that actually makes the show much better!

Did You Know That Dolphins Are Just Gay Sharks?

Ok, I’ll admit it – I just downloaded Glee’s version of Lionel Ritchie’s “Hello” to listen to while writing this.  For any of my friends reading this post who have had to sit through a dinner party where my husband insists on playing Lionel Ritchie on repeat, you know how much we love the guy!  But this was a great cover!!  In fact, I wasn’t really enjoying the return of Glee all that much before Jesse St. James showed up…but he is definitely the boost the show needs.  He’s talented.  He’s got charisma.  He’s got heart – performing impromptu concerts for the homeless.  And he out Rachels Rachel with all the power of a spotlight that requires sunblock.  Sure, he can’t pull of a v-neck black t-shirt with red belt to save his life…and he looks about 30 years old.  But he’s my new favourite for sure.

Bless the Woman, Bless the Child

Dear Natalie,

In the midst of our various TV conversations this fall, we’ve drawn comparisons and connections between many of the women characters on these several shows. In this season, replete with womanly virtues and meta-narratives, it seems a ripe time to try our hands at our own meta-reflections on the various visions of womanhood offered to us in this present moment of televised fiction.

You’re Gonna Love Me

OK, so I know I’ve griped about aspects of this show off and on all season. I’ve worried that the show’s schizophrenic desires to be a straight serial plot-drive show and a quirky musical parody-comedy have kept it from doing either well, or consistently. But last night, during the fall finale, I feel in love all over again. The show finally seemed to grab both parts of its identity in its choreographed jazz hands and create a quirky, feel good, plot driven musical comedy-drama. And that makes for a good hour of broadcast television.