Category: queer

While pondering the latest entry in the decline and fall of the Warblers, which is something I don’t think I’m going to comment on until after I see what “Whistle” looks like in 4.08 and how it intersects with Hunter’s introduction as “not even a little bit bi-curious” (which may not mean what you think it means), I started thinking about danger and desire on Glee, and how that linkage isn’t universal, but instead centered on the queer characters both as givers and receivers of risk, threat, and damage.

That’s not to say that desire doesn’t have big scary consequences for everyone on Glee. Even without being anything resembling the teen morality play the show often seems to be mistaken for, heterosexual sex and desire does have some admittedly serious consequences. After all, Quinn does get pregnant, and it’s worth remembering that Will and Terri Schuester were terrifyingly toxic together; Puck has arguably experienced statutory rape; Jesse’s a creep; Bieste had that domestic violence story, and a whole lot of friendships have been upended over and over again thanks to the heterosexual musical chairs at WMHS.

But all of that — from the realistic plotlines to the ones that would earn a side-eye from a soap opera — has nothing on the rather consistent darkness that seems to come with and from desire for Glee‘s queer characters. Where the straight characters risk heartbreak and being laughed at, queer characters face injury and violation as the result of desire, including desire from queer peers. This association is present from early on in the form of “predatory gay” Sandy Ryerson.

However, the link between danger and queer desire on Glee is present around far more than one unfortunate and fairly misleading stereotype. Kurt, for example, knows that being queer makes him seem dangerous to those who feel threatened by his desire, as when he and Finn have a showdown over his crush when the Hudsons first move in with the Hummels. Kurt also receives danger through desire in his interactions with Karofsky. And, of course, Karfosky’s not just a potential danger to Kurt, but to himself.

Closeted classmates aren’t the only way in which this link between queer desire and danger is present on Glee. Blaine, for example, identifies the desire of others as a threat to Kurt if he remains uneducated about sex in his chat with Burt. Additionally, Blaine is also injured by Sebastian, who aggressively indicates his sexual interest in Blaine in the episodes that lead up that event. Blaine also links danger and desire in his own interactions with Kurt when he gets drunk and sexually pushy with him after their visit to Scandals. And, of course, there is his Sadie Hawkins backstory.

Meanwhile, queer women on Glee aren’t exempted from this desire and danger link. Certainly, it’s hard to look away from the fact that when sexual assault clearly enters the Glee narrative it is through the queer female characters. Brittany, who is bisexual, frequently references events that seem to point to a history of non-consensual sex, while Santana deals with a threat of corrective rape once she can no longer avoid being out at WMHS. Additionally, she winds up in a disturbingly sexual confrontation with Sebastian in response to Blaine’s injury.

These events are not only different from the consequences of heterosexual desire on Glee mentioned previously, but also stand in stark contrast to events, such as Sam’s work as a stripper, that could be part of a narrative on the danger of desire, but aren’t, seemingly because they involve non-queer characters. In fact, when it comes to Sam being a stripper, it’s takes one of the queer kids (Blaine) to perceive and name the at least hypothetical danger present in that situation. Similarly, Puck’s interest in casual sex and sex work is played for laughs in a way that it’s not around Blaine’s random hookup and Santana’s promiscuity prior to coming out.

That this pattern seems to exist around characters and couples (Kurt and Blaine, Brittany and Santana) that have also received criticism for the chasteness of the on-screen portrayal of their romances and desires (Kurt even gets a narrative about finding sex scary, off-putting, and at odds with romance), despite the fact that both couples are canonically known to be sexually active as fairly significant plot points, is notable. It underscores how queer desire, or at least the portrayal of it, has not thus far seemed possible in the world of Glee without the presence of danger.

This association of queer desire and danger reflects, I think, not just the reality of some of the risks many queer teens experience when they express desire or are desired (and here we should all be keeping an eye on Unique when it comes to the next installment of this type of danger on Glee), but an older queer narrative as well. The presence of this particular narrative reinforces the ongoing discussion that Glee in general, and Glee‘s queerness in particular, is targeted not at current teen audiences but at 30- and 40-somethings who of course wanted a boyfriend who loved Bryan Ferry or Vivienne Westwood or a girlfriend who was just like all those cheerleaders on the cover of Sweet Valley High books.

This older queer narrative is, of coruse, one where queerness is identified as a mode of transmitting danger and can be considered to reference both historical, non-assimilationist queer culture and the way in which that non-assimilationism was both reinforced through and broken down by the specter of AIDS. Arguably, for someone who came out in the ’80s the links between queerness, danger, and desire were not only obvious then, but remain clear now, in a highly specific and and largely unvaried mode.

For a show that’s been rich in passing-related narratives that have often, but not exclusively, been centered around queerness, this link between queer desire and danger on Glee suggests a passing story taking place out beyond the fourth wall. In a world we often like to pretend is post-AIDS, and post-Matthew Sheppard, Glee shows us beautiful, young queer couples being publicly happy through America’s most public transmission-based medium. Yet, a the same time, Glee is also unable, or unwilling, to avoid the link between queer desire and the transmission of danger that too many of us watching (and presumably creating) the show grew up on.

One of the things I, and pretty much everyone else who analyzes Glee a lot, talks about is the idea of WMHS and/or Lima, Ohio as hell, the underworld, the afterlife, or purgatory. It’s not a nice place, and we don’t want to live there. And it must be a physical landscape, a place to be escaped, or else we wouldn’t have just had three seasons about a bunch of kids struggling to be something other than “Lima Losers” and I wouldn’t spend so much time talking about the Ferryman or crossing the river.

But glee is also a feeling you carry with you. Brittany, perhaps, knows this most clearly. Yes, earlier in the season, she draws Rachel and Kurt “in Heaven,” but she’s also a member of the Left Behind club, carrying a portable, practice run at The Rapture (and let’s pause to take in all the meanings of the world “rapture”) in her backpack. You can’t escape hell without carrying things from there with you — that’s like the most basic premise of any horror movie.

And a horror movie is, on some level, explicitly what the show becomes in “The Breakup,” not because the episode was filled with so many things we didn’t want to have happen (the anguish on Tumblr is palpable, heartrending in its own way, and also at times frustrating), but because it was, like a horror film, filled with so many inevitabilities. You can shout at the screen all you want for people to not ignore the warnings (Kurt), go into the basement (Finn), open a door (Rachel), or have sex (Blaine), but they’re still going to do those things with their expected consequences.

Death, the little and the large, is all over the episode — in the song lyrics (Rachel has a particularly memorable moment on this, and the eternal youth discussed in “Teenage Dream” is a death too in a live fast, die young, leave a beautiful corpse sort of way); in the story of Finn’s gun; in the profound and constant way Blaine is untouched; and in Kurt’s remark, delivered almost casually over a cup of coffee, that he feels like he’s dying. That is what it feels like, of course, when these things happen, but it was eerie for me to see the boy so narratively associated with death say that so casually.

There’s a lot to untangle in the wake of “The Breakup,” from the many possible implications of the name “Eli” to the obvious necessity to revisit “What’s wrong with Blaine Anderson?” to speculation about what happens next. Even without trying to figure that out, confirmed spoilers for future episodes hint at some deeply rich symbolism.

Blaine as “Teen Angel” in Grease is just one amazing detail when reflected against his role as Tony in “West Side Story” and the function sexual activity has played in the narrative around both casting and performance moments. While likely (and appropriately) exiled to permanent subtext, the metaphors embedded here around a young gay male about sex as life and sex as death are significant, harrowing, and appropriate, at least if you are in the part of the Glee viewership that recognizes and remembers Kurt Hummel and Blaine Anderson as having the preoccupations and fashion sense of gay teens circa 1987.

Also potentially on the table? Kurt finally getting that gay mentor that Blaine turned out not to be once the writers realized what they had on their hands with Darren Criss and “Teenage Dream.” Chase Madison, who Tumblr is already considering as having a possible interest in Kurt, I’m looking at you.

Yesterday, FashionofGlee.com updated with a post on the sweater-vest Blaine is wearing in “It’s Time.” Of note? While it’s, as usual, Brooks Brothers, but it’s from the women’s department. I chortled; fandom, quoting Kurt Hummel, said in unison, “fashion has no gender”; and then everyone went back to gawping over the price of the thing.

But, while hardly a significant data point (we’ll get to why in a second) in some of the arguments I’ve advanced about Blaine, it’s a really, really fun one to discuss, and I might as well do it here.

First, why it doesn’t matter: Extradiegetically, it’s irrelevant. As clever and sneaky as Glee‘s costume department often is narratively (see: Kurt and the hanky code), I’m pretty sure this was a case of wardrobe grabbing something that would fit an actor and was consistent with the character’s look. End of discussion.

On the other hand, if we want to be Watsonian about it, there’s a lot of fun to be had.

Kurt, of course, has not only said “fashion has no gender,” but often wears items from the women’s department or items that are not feminine but likely to be perceived as such in Lima, such as the kilt he wore to prom. Kurt does not choose these pieces in order to be perceived as a female, but he makes little effort to hide the femininity of them. Sure, a sweater dress becomes a “form-fitting knee-length sweater,” but clingy and curvy remains clingy and curvy.

Need an example? Think back to the outfit he’s wearing during the masturbation conversation in 3.05 — with that leopard print sweater and the shy, breathy, and deliberate questions about whether Blaine wants to rip his clothes off, Kurt is actually dressed like a sex kitten. And when it’s not about clingy and curvy, there’s the wardrobe phase that seems explicitly built around feminine modesty.

Blaine, on the other hand, wears traditionally masculine clothes. He may wear them with a wink, or a queer twist, but much like the decor of his bedroom, his clothes are all about classic masculinity, even if the current modern reception of them, and his body language and sense of self aren’t necessarily. And Kurt’s feminine clothes, or perceived as feminine clothes, aren’t something Blaine’s naturally comfortable with. Remember prom? That, however, very probably had less to do with gender and more to do with concern over attracting attention that may be hostile.

But all of this leads us to: How did Blaine, who is concerned with fitting in and displaying a masculine sensibility, wind up with that women’s sweater-vest?

Because my gut says that if Kurt was going to buy him a piece from the women’s department as a gift (and I don’t think Kurt would, I think he knows that might be uncomfortable for Blaine), I think he’d probably go for something outrageous. If he’s going to cross that line, which is a more challenging one for his boyfriend, I feel like he’s going to make that worth it, as opposed to another sweater-vest just like so many of Blaine’s other sweater-vests. Which means Blaine bought that thing for himself.

Now, this is where I have to digress and say I shop in Not My Department all the time. And I’m an adult, queer woman in NYC, and it often makes me super tense that I’ll get called out on it or be told I am doing something that is inappropriate in some way, even though I know better. I know this is not everyone’s experience who shops out of their department, but it’s some people’s, mine included. Now, Blaine is a teenager, in Lima, perceived as male (and I do think men are viewed as suspect more for breaking gender boundaries in this way than women are), and may have some gender issues. Leaving aside whether there is a Brooks Brothers in Lima (there is certainly one in proximity to Westerville), I’m pretty sure Blaine didn’t just walk into the store and decide to browse all the sweater-vests regardless of gender.

So maybe it was mis-shelved and Blaine didn’t notice? And no one at the register said anything snide when they noticed? Or if they did say something, perhaps Blaine just blurted about shopping for a sister that doesn’t exist? Or maybe it was mail order and Blaine browses the women’s sweaters because, like stuff in the boys department, he knows he’s slight enough for them to fit? Or maybe Blaine does have some gender identity stuff going on and likes to browse female clothes in relation to that? That sweater would be quite the find for someone trying to serve two sets of gender expectations — one external and one internal — that don’t overlap comfortably at all.

Much like what I had to say about 4.01 as a whole, the matter of this clothing item could mean any one of a dozen things, all of them fairly irrelevant outside of a Watsonian perspective and fanfiction plot bunnies.

That said, as much as I’ve already noted that I don’t think there’s a single, clear, easily supportable theory on just what Blaine’s feelings about Wade/Unique are right now, the fact that Blaine was policing this person’s gender, and telling them not to rock the boat, while wearing a woman’s sweater is deeply interesting and harks back to the many passing themes that always seem to come up around Blaine Anderson, and underscore why, I think, so many fans find him so irksome.

Blaine gets away with a lot, often by, as Kurt would say, just being “handsome and good.” For people that can’t, or don’t wish to pass, regardless of the categories in question, it can be galling.

Well, Glee is back, which theoretically means this blog is back even though it remains, I swear, not just a Glee blog (I’m waiting for the okay to announce several non-Glee related publications, so really, this is true!). As much as I do write a post after each Glee episode, one of the things I really want to stay away from here is doing a weekly recap vs. a weekly reaction. Recaps are dime a dozen on the Internet, and several of my friends get paid to write then, so there’s no reason to dive into that particular competition.

But, sometimes, there isn’t always a thematic essay that emerges out of each episode. Because while 4.01 is part of patterns established in the previous seasons of Glee, it is also a (re)introduction, meaning it’s also the start of a new data set, and a single point does not a trend make. Which leaves me at a little bit of a loss tonight.

I did, however, enjoy this first episode immensely, and thought it captured the reality of New York and competitive performing arts environments in a way that was truthful while also being completely fanciful and not at all how it actually works. Television is rarely deft about New York, because it’s mostly not for people who live in New York, and it was nice to see Glee selling a fantasy that felt relevant to me as a resident, even when the bulk of it was shot in L.A.

What was particularly of note, however, and feels like the best place to start blogging about the new season is just how much this episode can be used to explicate the “we’re all watching a different show” view of television.

I could, after all, easily write a long piece about Blaine and gender here tonight: about how he gets proclaimed the new Rachel, only feels threatened by Wade/Unique for the role, is repeatedly clearly uncomfortable with Wade/Unique’s gender expression, and clearly values his ability to pass as, if not straight, masculine and “normal” at McKinley, especially now that glee club is sort of accepted. Note, for example, how Blaine falls under the radar of all the cruelty and mocking in this episode — his queerness never comes up, and, to a given extent, that’s a product of how Blaine plays his queerness; it’s conspicuous in how it deviates from the expectations of heteronormativity, but is also expressed through a playful reenactment of a hyper-conservative very good boy look. Blaine’s gay, but beyond that, any queerness falls squarely into the category of plausible deniability. He’s gay, but he’s just like you. Kurt on the other hand….

Of course, there’s a whole argument about Blaine’s interactions with Wade/Unique that completely skips over gender and queerness: Wade/Unique is Blaine’s only real competition to be the new Rachel as the only other current New Directions member that has led a show choir before. That said, while that reading removes the matter of Blaine’s queerness and gender performance as a narrative device, it does once again raise the issue of Rachel “man hands” Berry, her gender presentation, ambition, and her location in the queer world as someone with two dads, a soul-mate in her gay best friend, and her desire to grow up to be, among other things, a queer icon.

But back to Blaine and Wade/Unique. Which story is the true story? Is Blaine uncomfortable with Wade/Unique because of his own queerness and gender identity? Or is Blaine uncomfortable with Wade/Unique because there’s real competition there? Well, that depends on what show you’re watching.

For me, and this blog, we’ll how the rest of the season unfolds — although gender identity and queerness is always on the table in my readings, with the uncertainty not on its presence, but on where those themes are being located by the show. Obviously, I’m tantalized by the possibilities regarding Blaine in light of previous essays I’ve written here, but I also don’t feel like I can jump on it, not quite yet.

Similarly, there were a few other morsels tonight that also felt fun in a following a trail of breadcrumbs way, including a Tumblr-favorite, Artie’s crush on Blaine, and a funny flip on the infamous “not for sale” moment from last season, when Blaine’s first line in “Call Me Maybe” includes “I’d trade my soul for a wish, Pennies and dimes for a kiss.” Someone’s changed his tune!

But right now, these moments are all merely pieces on the board of the pattern recognition game; I can’t wait until we all get to start playing it again in earnest.

If you’ve been following the spoilers for Glee‘s upcoming prom episode “Prom-asaurus” and spend any time on this blog at all, you can probably guess that I’m having a pretty great time with the gendered stuff that seems to be coming up around Blaine in this episode.

It’s not a plot line, probably because it’s never going to be a plot line, except for how it intersections with the history of Kurt’s bullying and the way gender is always central to status at William McKinley High School. But what may read (and be intended) as nothing more than a running joke for most audiences, not only continues to say some very interesting things about Blaine, but reinforces the criteria by which gender is determined at WMHS and its surrounding environs. Delightfully, despite my comments on Kurt’s trousers in “Choke” this tends to have almost nothing to do with what’s in your pants.

Currently, there’s a bit of a Tumblr frenzy around Kurt, Blaine and Rachel singing “Big Girls Don’t Cry.” While the song is likely intended to focus on Rachel’s circumstances after the events of her audition in “Choke” there’s some lovely, bittersweet content in it between Kurt and Blaine, and Tumblr has noted that according to song lyrics, last year Blaine was a little girl at prom, and this year he’s a big girl.

While Glee often doesn’t use song lyrics in ways that are necessarily plot-relevant (and Darren Criss singing too many songs not originally intended for a female vocalist would probably seem weird to long-term fans at this point), there’s been a persistent link between Blaine and songs that identify the singer as female not through an assumption based on a male object of attraction, but through explicitly female words.

In “Prom-asaurus” we also see Blaine positioned as female in another way, and not for the first time: other people feel that there’s nothing abnormal about telling him how he should look. From Brittany’s Blaine-directed hair gel ban, to Kurt’s bronzing moisturizer stunt, to Cooper’s complaint about Blaine’s outfits and Santana’s crack earlier in the season that puts Blaine off wearing bow ties for a while — people feel perfectly at ease directing Blaine’s appearance. If you’ve ever been female in public, you probably know exactly what I mean; I’m just waiting for the moment someone tells Blaine to smile.

Of course, two of those items — the stuff about Blaine’s hair and the stuff about the bronzer, also have clear racial implications, which brings us back to biyuti’s remarks that Blaine is bakla. Now that the race and gender stuff around Blaine is intersecting so vividly that a lot of discussion is going “I don’t know if this is about this or this,” the answer, increasingly the answer seems to be about and not or.

But Blaine’s feminine positioning in the show is about more than what songs he sings or about how neither he nor Kurt are quite what they seem to the untrained imaginations of WMHS. Rather, an inclination towards performativity is what positions characters as female on Glee, and Blaine is nothing if not a consummate performer.

I know, you’re saying, “But everyone on Glee sings!” And that’s true, but not everyone on Glee performs the same way. When Blaine performs, he’s playing a character; when Kurt performs, most times, he’s just playing himself. Authenticity on Glee is positioned as masculine (something we’ve explicitly seen Kurt move towards over his arc) and performativity is explicitly seen as female (which is why Kurt’s stint with Mellencamp fails, and why he regains his masculinity when it does).

This is partially why the boys of the football team freak out when they are required to join Glee and Dave Karofsky’s plotline so effectively highlights a frequently present common root in homophobia and misogyny.

Girls wear makeup, boys don’t and this dichotomy around the construction of appearance is constantly underscored in the structure and staging of of performances on Glee, and is really only subverted and complicated (and thankfully so, because the world is more nuance than the limited number of boxes presented at WMHS) thanks to Wade/Unique, wherein the authentic, feminine self is also introduced as a performative self.

The other central tool of gendering on Glee is about neediness. Narratively needy characters are feminine; self-suficient characters are masculine. This is why Blaine’s a girl in Glee‘s lexicon, but Kurt hasn’t been for a long time. This is why Rachel is “man hands” Berry; Santana is more traditionally-femininely portrayed than Brittany; and why Quinn never seems to stop being punished for her gender. It’s why Puck was fantastic with Lauren; Finn struggles constantly with ideas of leadership and being a man; Sam’s sex-work stint actually earns him the respect of the other dudes; and Artie is often the Glee club’s most clearly masculine member and Sugar Motta is its most feminine (because, what isn’t she performing?).

Ultimately, as much as Glee‘s structure and unsettling humor relies on clear gender dichotomies, accusations and misunderstandings, and as much as Glee is often about terrible people who say terrible things in a terrible place, the show is, on a subtextual level, deeply generous about gender in the degree to which it actually rejects the stereotypes that drive its setting. Glee lets us know people are complex mixtures of things, not just boys or girls, and not just combinations with stark lines drawn down their centers (as Kurt is in “Le Jazz Hot”).

But for all that subtle progressiveness, Glee is still sure of one thing: that being a girl, regardless of the gender you were assigned at birth, is a terrible thing. It will get you beat up, bullied, pregnant, uncertain about your future, and nursing a wounded heart.

People on Glee talk about becoming men, because that’s a positive goal, but never about becoming women, because that isn’t — at least not in Lima, OH.

Season 4, however, isn’t just going to be set in Lima, though. It’s also going to be set in New York, and possibly New Haven, which means Glee‘s going to have to make a critical decision about whether the world hates women, or just the small pond that originated its characters.

One choice will necessitate a radical tonal shift for the show, giving it a second act that celebrates femininity and places dread and misery around masculine identities. However, if Glee takes the other choice available, we’ll be confronted with a show that’s position on misogyny may be indistinguishable from actually being misogynist itself.

Glee has to decide whether it can get better — not just for queer kids (here, it seems to be optimistic), but for girls — and the decision it makes will largely tell us whether we’ve spent the last three years watching the beginnings of a victory march or a tragedy.

For me personally, as someone who lives in New York City and feels like I’ve seen more progress in my lifetime in terms of safety and respect as a queer person than as a woman, I’m not sure which path I want the show to follow. Because both will hurt and feel like betrayals of the realities I know. But maybe that’s always been the point of Glee: all the moments where you can’t tell if you’re laughing or crying.

After all, in fiction, that’s when we’re usually we’re most alive.