GLEE

Don’t know how to start this professionally so I’ll just jump right in:

I think the stuff in the body-swap episode really pinpoints the stuff that I like about Glee. In fact, a lot of episodes this season did, but they become a blur to me. I feel like season two was a real mess in that it completely lost its direction due to its huge-hit status and so just started going slightly insane, burning through plotlines and story arcs like Ozai burning through the Earth Kingdom (can I get a ‘Yip Yip’?). Season 3 still had some of this, but much less so than that second season. So what I like most about Glee can be seen in most of the first season and a handful of the almost-over season three.

I know I don't like Finn, and that's bad because it prevented me from fully getting into and appreciating his story arc, because it really nails, once again, the stuff that I like about Glee. First I guess I should explain why I hate Finn. Cory Monteith (who's THIRTY by the way) played Charlie Tanner on Kyle XY. Charlie Tanner was a douche that cheated on the wonderful and dare-I-say perfect Amanda (Kirsten Prout). So I hate him/ I know that's stupid, but fuck you. Also, his original character on Glee--popular athlete with a hidden passion for singing--was a little too High School Musical for my taste. ANYway,

The prime example that was in this episode was Rachel’s little monologue in the car with Tina on her way to harass Whoopi Goldberg. Also, parts of Tina’s wonderful rant at the beginning of the episode. “Isn’t she the one who had a stutter?” 

What originally brought me to watch Glee was the review of the pilot episode at The AV Club. Also, I will admit, I am a fan of a good song and dance number. Let’s be real, everyone enjoys a good performance, there’s no denying. And some of those song and dances have been quite phenomenal (See season one’s finale, for example). But what I really liked was the inherent sadness that was a part of Glee. Will Scheuster (a character I’ve come to hate and only appreciate when he’s creepily smiling in the corner during a performance) was a man who had failed.  His dreams didn’t come true. That’s sad in itself, but it’s made more tragic by the fact that he went back to his high school, the place of his glory days, and tripped into a job as a Spanish teacher if only to be in that place and cling on to that dead and gone dream. Rachel was a girl, albeit obsessive and a little conceited (turned a lot conceited) and crazy, who was talented and whose talent was going unnoticed and unappreciated.  You had your bullied-gay-kid and kid-in-a-wheelchair, because Glee wanted to let you know from the very beginning that it wasn’t going to be subtle or put in any effort at all to be subtle.  

What I’m saying is you feel bad for these people. Or at least you were meant to.  And once season-one-Will’s arc (thankfully) became much more minor halfway through, after him ending it with his high-school-sweetheart-turned-assistant-manager-of-Sheets-N-things-crazy-with-fake-pregnancy-nonsense-wife (who I actually miss, btw), it got to what the show really became/is about: life as a teenager. 

When you’re a teenager everything is a big deal and blown out of proportion. It’s an earth-shattering moment when you get dumped by your boyfriend via text message or if you have a bad hair day. You feel like a king when you give a presentation without stuttering like season-one-Tina or when you’re made captain of your (insert sport here) team. Or when you jump up and cheer with the rest of your band/choir mates when your Superior rating is announced your sophomore year after getting a Fair when you were a freshman (Mr. Tedeschi surprisingly didn’t murder anyone, which I attribute to the wonder and magic of Disney World). These things matter; they’re big deals. 

It’s the over exaggerated, over dramatic highs and lows of something like picking out a prom dress that shows that being a teenager is filled with such high energy and excitement and confusion and chaos. I often call Glee nonsense and a confusing hot mess, but I continue to watch it. It’s because I know it’s a confusing hot mess because that’s what it’s like being a teenager and that’s what this show is about (Of course there are things about the show that I loathe, like their unnecessary PSA episodes, but I’ll talk about that another time, maybe). 

The second big thing Glee is about is dreaming. Most especially teenagers and their dreams. The best part about Glee is that it makes it clear that most dreams do not and will not come true. That’s something that other shows have dealt with, but Glee deals with it in the context of teenagers. And when you’re at an age where who you sit with at lunch is more important than who the president is, your dreams are the ultimate epitome (redundant, I know, but I want to get the point across) of a big freakin’ deal. 

I’ve liked season 3 because of its focus on being a senior and graduating, the most annoyingly stressful time in a young adult’s life, for sure.  Finn’s storyline during this time gets a bit iffy, but it encapsulates the reason I like the show. He doesn’t know what the fuck he wants to do (even though now he does, apparently, but it’s too convenient for me and doesn’t make sense, he wants to be an actor all of a sudden?) with his life. And although I think Will’s method in the Saturday Night Fever episode of him taking Santana, Mercedes, and Finn into a room and saying “FIGURE OUT WHAT YOU WANT TO DO WITH THE REST OF YOUR LIVES BY THE END OF THE WEEK. ALSO, a song and dance number on this floor Sue pulled out of her ass” is the most LUDACRIOUS thing ever, the scenes with Finn in that episode hit hard on the fact that sometimes, you’ve gotta accept that you’re a loser. Like Will. That maybe whatever dreams you may have will not come true. Because most of the time they don’t. That’s why I can put up with Rachel. She is the way she is because she wants her dreams to come true so badly, so painfully badly. She doesn’t want to accept the very real possibility of a failed dream. 

Finn not getting the football scholarship and thinking about giving up and working as a mechanic. Rachel choking at her audition and being completely devastated as her dreams walk out of the theater under Whoopi’s head-scarf. Quinn getting pregnant. All of these things happening in the swirling chaos that are the high school years are intense to say the least. And when those things happened to those characters, and they don’t know what to do next, that’s it. It’s that emotion they are able to capture at those times, the feeling of what it is to not know what comes next, that’s why I watch Glee.

Because that’s the feeling you get, and all you high school seniors will know what I mean. It’s May. You all have got about a month left. Many of you may know what you’re doing next fall. I’m sure some of you don’t. I’m sure there a many of you who are going to a college with no idea of a major, no idea of what you actually want to do with your life. Or no idea of how to fulfill the dreams you have. Or you know what you want to do, how to fulfill your dreams, but have no plan for if and when an obstacle comes in your way and throws you completely off course.

That brings me all the way back to that body-swapping episode.  What Rachel says in the car to Tina. She’s terrified that her dreams won’t come true (and she doesn’t have a backup plan). To paraphrase what she says: Think of most of the adults you know. Things may have used to go there way (in high school, perhaps? winkwink) and now have jobs that they hate and/or live lives that they don’t even recognize. ( I was about to recommend sitting down with your parents and asking them what their dreams were when they were in high school, but I feel like that could lead to a real bummer of a conversation, and in an extreme case a potential divorce.) So she’s terrified that she will have to give up. Or settle. Settling may be worse than giving up. She’s TERRIFIED of that. Having to live a life like season-one-Will. Settling for what’s just good enough to get by. And I don’t mean get by in economic terms. Settling for what’s good enough, just good enough, to not want to kill yourself. And that sounds depressing. Because it is. 

It’s not everyone. But it’s most people. Most people will settle. Most people are, like Tina, in the background (a better example would be those kids who play the instruments for the Glee club, they are SUPER in the background). There are far more people dreaming about being in movies than there are people who dream about being an assistant regional manager at a second-rate paper company. But there are far more not-famous people than there are famous people. There are far more people sitting in a cubicle than there are Nobel Prize winners or astronauts. 

And I like Glee for showing those moments and being able to say those things; I really appreciate the fact that they do make it clear that most dreams don’t come true. I’m not saying I enjoy depressing, sad, and borderline macabre type things, I’m saying I appreciate that Glee treats these as real and important parts of life. There’re as integral to the human experience as happiness is. Not everything is all sunshine and rainbows. There will be sunshine and rainbows. But there will be rain and clouds just as often.  There will be show-stopping performances. There will be those four years of high school that feel like they’ll never end. Those friendships, those people you care so much about, those people you love.  But the curtain will always close. You’re gonna wake up, seniors, one day soon. It might not be in June or July or even in a year from now. But you’re gonna wake up. And they won’t be there anymore. Sure, you’ve got Facebook and cell phones. But that won’t stop it. Trust me. The train doesn’t stop. The curtain closes. Fade to black. And then whatever comes next.

I don’t mean for this to be depressing. I could try to be optimistic and say “The curtain will close, so end on a high note!” or something like that. But that won’t solve anything. Just look at Will Schuester. You end on too high of a note, and you’ll never want that note to end. You could end up lost in a life you don’t recognize, living in desperation of your lost dreams, living in painful nostalgia. 

Okay, I’m getting super depressing. But I’m saying all that because, once again, that’s why I like Glee. I’m definitely writing about Community soon, and that will have much more positive messages and such. Don’t think I’m a super depressing person. It’s just that I want to explain why I like Glee. I like it because of its inherent depression. Sadness is just as important as happiness. You need the sorrowful and the joyful. That’s the message here. I’m not trying to be too philosophical or come off as pretentious, but if I do, so be it.