Category: tv

Glee: Following up – Blaine and gender; Sebastian, Blaine, Santana and race

Two quick Thursday afternoon followups to some of our recent Glee discussions:

First, the detectives over at CSI Tumblr have been having some fun figuring out what’s on Blaine’s bookshelf. Aside from toy robots and old film-based cameras, they’ve also identified some SAT study guides, a book on the American theatre, and what someone is pretty sure is a history textbook. That isn’t the awesome part though.

The awesome part is not only does he have Mockingjay, he has What If… You Broke All the Rules, a-choose-your-own-adventure book in which the reader is a teenage girl neglected by her parents who must decide which boy or fabulous group of friends to spend her spring break with.

Next to that? Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J.Edgar Hoover. I don’t need to give you Hoover history here, do I?

The job of set dressers isn’t, really, to be ready for CSI Tumblr, but to make things look good at the level of detail the TV audience is supposed to see things at. That said, HD TV and digital fandom really changes the game, and I love that the folks working on Glee are not only hilarious, but seem to agree with me that maybe Kurt’s not the character we should be asking gender identity questions about. Blaine passes as a lot of things, and maybe that’s not just straight if he wants to; remember the Sadie Hawkins dance?

On a completely separate note, that does however touch on this season’s themes around passing, biyuti has written about Sebastian’s bad behavior and subsequent reactions in the context of race. Because, of course, it’s not just that he says unbelievably offensive stuff to Santana; Blaine’s not white (at least as of this writing, more on that in a moment) either, and while Dalton looks a lot more diverse than the private school I went to growing up, that still doesn’t mean that what’s happening with the power structures in this episode isn’t all about race too.

Meanwhile, for those who haven’t heard (and remember, this is not a spoiler-free blog), the very white Matt Bomer has been cast as Blaine’s brother for an episode airing in April. Considering that Glee‘s canon has glancingly acknowledged Blaine has having a non-white background (Rachel wanting to have his “vaguely Eurasian babies”), a lot of folks are head-tilting at this choice, especially when Glee has often used details of the actors’ personal lives in crafting character backgrounds (i.e., both Jenna Ushkowitz and Tina, the character she plays, are adopted). Stay tuned….

Glee: Gender, violence and power

While most of what I had to say about last night’s episode of Glee remains firmly centered around “Smooth Criminal,” which was just as creepy in context as out of it, I did want to briefly mention how intensely focused the whole episode really was on gendered types of violence and gendered responses to that violence, with most of it being in the realm of the feminine, despite most of the players being men.

The slushie meant for Kurt that Blaine steps in front of contains rock salt, which heats when it comes into contact with water and ice. This implies strongly that Sebastian’s initial goal was for Kurt to experience chemical burns, and it certainly evokes a type of violence generally directed at women by men and that the media tells us transpires because those women do not obey the wishes of those men.

This is violence about damaging the one asset these women are believed to have (appeal to men) and publicly shaming them through the lasting mark of that violence, and in Glee, it hardly represents the first time that Sebastian objects to Kurt both on the basis of the charms he holds for Blaine and for the degree to which he is not straight-acting.

That Blaine’s eyesight is then damaged when he engages in a traditionally masculine act (I’m sorry, Glee is broad, and I have to use a lot of normative gender expectations to take it apart) of protecting a lover, then serves to recode Blaine as the feminine, thanks to the long history of, as an anonymous user pointed out to me on Tumblr, blindness and blinding being used as a metaphor for impotence.

From there, we witness the strongly implied violence of “Smooth Criminal” in which both Santana and Sebastian are using sexuality in their duel, but in which only one of them, Sebastian, is able to successfully imply the perpetration of acts of sexual violence through that performance.

When Sebastian slushies Santana at the end of that number, the same form of violence against women by men seen in “Bad” is again evoked, but he doesn’t even bother with the rock salt this time; Santana isn’t worth the trouble, perhaps because her lesbianism in Sebastian’s eyes already renders her of little use to men, even, or perhaps particularly, to a predatory gay one.

Responses to this violence from the New Directions team is also highly gendered. Multiple people on multiple occasions talk about how the police won’t be interested in, or believe, what was done to Blaine. This includes, most notably, Schue’s attempt to minimize it in a kids-will-be-kids way and move on, and Kurt’s privately furious catharsis which later gives way to a brave-faced comment on rising above, largely because that seems to be the only weapon he has.

Meanwhile, Santana, we later find out, wasn’t actually trying to fight Sebastian on his own terms of overt sexual aggression, so much as she was both literally and metaphorically taking one for the team in order to get him to confess on tape. A woman fights a man by appearing to yield; it gets her close enough to do real damage.

This constant metaphor of rape and response to it in the episode is even underscored by small, seemingly throwaway lines, like Brittany saying, “I don’t know how,” when told to lock the door to the choir room. This is further highlighted by the contrast of Artie, who has been constantly used to explicitly define what masculinity is and isn’t this season, blowing up at Schue for his lip-service sympathy.

But outside of the near explicit implications of Sebastian’s actions, most of the episode’s masculine violence is metaphorical and unrealized from the dancing-fighting of “Bad” to Artie’s fantasy sequence.

Lima, OH is a world where people only dream about conventional forms of power and nearly everyone must accept violation. By bringing back the slushies, Glee‘s original iconic bullying instrument, in this form, Glee tells us that all of this bullying has been serious (and sexual) business all along, and that the worst thing anyone can be in this place is feminine and feminized; the problem, however, is that nearly everyone is. There are almost no men, and remarkably few honorable ones, here; the brutality of WMHS and of Lima don’t allow there to be.

Which is really why the ridiculousness of Quinn getting into Yale feels so good. She’s the character most explicitly punished for the feminine on Glee, and so she’s the first one victoriously out. Kurt, the character next most explicitly punished for the feminine, also has his huge NYADA finalist victory moment in this episode, in a way that, unlike Rachel’s victory letter, is untainted.

Glee has always been a story about a terrible place in which to be a girl, or gay, or disabled, or different in any way. That makes people angry often, largely because the show doesn’t tell us bullying is bad, but merely shows us it is awful and exists largely without correction. But as the adult world encroaches as the stakes get bigger, at least 3.11 reminds us that the powers that be know the only way up is out.

Finally, on an almost, but not entirely, tangential note, I just want to point you to the faerie trinkets that are currently adorning Kurt’s locker. Rae Votta, who also writes stuff about Glee and other pop-culture interests, pointed them out to me last night, and I haven’t stopped thinking about them since. They seem to be references queer, magical, and feminine, as if they are the small tokens by which Kurt, who seems to always be in exile from something (a dead mother, his straight friends, his horrible high school, his gay fantasy land, a still faintly out of reach New York City), always remembers who, and what, he is.

Glee: Honor, duels, and consent

One of the things I’ve been meaning to write about here for a while is how intensely creepy the Warblers have become in Glee‘s third season, but I haven’t really had an excuse to go back to that somewhat boggling performance of “Uptown Girl” and talk about the predatoriness of these particular denizens of faerieland. (If you haven’t caught it here before, Glee actually, explicitly, frames Dalton this way, from Puck’s sending Kurt there to spy to Kurt’s amazed little query as to whether all the boys at Dalton are gay. The answer is no, but that doesn’t stop the school from being, at least, temporarily, a magical haven for him).

But today’s release of the full clip of Santana and Sebastian singing “Smooth Criminal” has made me want to revisit that earlier performance, which foreshadows this new release quite nicely.

But to get there, I have to work backwards, so first I should note that “Smooth Criminal” is one of the most menacing and interesting things I’ve seen Glee do, and it manages to evoke the consent-related themes that simmer constantly under show’s surface but are rarely explicitly addressed. Additionally, the performance is a truly masterful representation of a duel, and serves to finally clarify for us why Sebastian is anything but a trivial villain.

As a fight scene, the number is remarkably well done. Yes, both Santana and Sebastian do things that would make no sense to do in an actual fight, but that’s how fights in fiction work: some big, showy stuff that would get you killed in non-fiction life is necessary to make the duel read on-screen for the viewer. If we brush those choices aside (mainly, how often they turn their backs on each other), there’s a lot of good strategy on display.

Santana begins by conserving her energy. She lets her bigger opponent, who will tire more easily, wear himself down by showing off and providing her with data. Then, once she has the data from afar, without touch, she allows him to come in close so she can see what that is like; she let’s him touch her, and it is awful.

And then, because she’s smaller and faster, Santana gets inside his reach, and goes on the offensive; this is where she’s grabbing and shoving at him, something some people in fandom have been saying was uncalled for on her part. I think it was necessary; without it, in the duel metaphor of the performance, she wouldn’t have even lasted the whole song.

Then, after she makes contact, Santana obeys the most important rule of a duel: “When in doubt, get the hell out.” She spends most of the rest of the song keeping Sebastian as far away from her as possible, so as not to lose what ground she’s gained. The scene between these two works, because if you were to replace the song with swords, you’d barely have to change any of the physicality.

But despite this relatively good strategy from Santana (Sebastian has the advantage, but he’s cocky, and one day that’s going to bite him, hard), what I can’t stop being fascinated by in the scene is how frightened she looks.

Yes, she stands her ground, and laughs Sebastian off before the song starts when it seems like he’s challenging her to a duel (note: he challenges; she chooses the weapons, that is, the song), but she knows things with this guy aren’t necessarily going to be just some allegorical vocal duel, especially after he dismisses the Warblers from the room because he doesn’t want witnesses.

This tells us several things about Sebastian. The first is that he is concerned with modes of honor. That’s why he wants this duel, and that’s why he doesn’t want witnesses when he does something dishonorable (making a girl cry). But in a duel without actual weapons or violence, not having an audience makes no sense; if there are no witnesses to the event, without blood, how do you know who has won?

Which is exactly why Santana is nervous. Despite scoffing at the ridiculousness of the initial duel challenge, she gets the implied threat of the Warblers’ dismissal immediately. After all, this is the girl who at least fantasizes about knowing how to fight even if she doesn’t actually (never forget those supposed razor blades in her hair).

When Sebastian dismisses the Warblers, Santana realizes that whatever they are framing this battle as now, there’s a very real possibility that he’s interested in doing some sort of lingering, visible, tangible damage to her. Otherwise, a victory on his part would be intangible, and not serve his oft-highlighted status-related desires.

And it’s the role desire plays in this confrontation that is critical to understanding the intensity of the scene’s menace. Because while the chemistry between Santana and Sebastian is off-the-charts, they are also both gay. Which means that the sexuality overtly present in the scene isn’t about desire, but arguably about power, control, and violence. The fact that the song being sung is about a woman being assaulted in her bedroom, and that Santana is singing response to Sebastian’s lead until she gets to do some gloriously powerful notes at the end, further underscores that Sebastian is one more Glee character with an unhealthy perspective on sex, power, and consent.

Frankly, I find Sebastian far creepier than Dave Karofsky, because while Karofsky systematically harassed and eventually assaulted Kurt with that kiss, a lot of that at least had to do with what Karofsky wanted for himself and his anger around that. Sebastian just wants to take for the sake of having and hurt for the sake of his own amusement. For me, that feels a lot more dangerous, because it’s harder for me to understand. At a distance, Dave Karofsky has my empathy; Sebastian can’t.

Which brings us back, finally, to the Warblers in their creepy, corrupted “Uptown Girl” state from the beginning of the season. Not only does that number feature echoes back to the slow-motion of Blaine’s introduction of Kurt to Dalton in season two, but this time with Sebastian dragging Blaine into the number (the risks of faerie rings, anyone?), it also foreshadows the circling choreography that is central to the Sebastian and Santana “duel.”

In “Uptown Girl,” however, it is a female Dalton teacher circled first by one boy, then by two, then by the whole group of them as she tries to exert her authority. Eventually, she succeeds, but it seems like a near thing and one where the boys have retreated only because they’ve become bored.

By the time we get to “Smooth Criminal,” we know from other spoiler clips that the Warbler’s Council seems to be no more, replaced instead by Sebastian as captain, and if he tells those boys to leave him alone with a girl so he can fight (brutalize) her, in private, they go without question. Sebastian has rewritten their notions of honor and eliminated whatever code would have forced them to stand up to him and to say no to him, had he been present in the season two Dalton landscape.

While Sebastian’s clumsily aggressive and showy attempts to hook up with Blaine have been largely laughable, I think “Smooth Criminal” and its growth out of “Uptown Girl” shows us we may now be looking at the realest, darkest villain Glee has ever had. Watching his corruption of the Warblers is like watching fruit rot, and the sexual aggression that at first seemed interesting and seductive to both Blaine and the viewer now just seems like an explicit, ongoing threat of sexualized violence.

I’ll be surprised if Glee ever actually addresses, as opposed to just demonstrates, the consent issues many of its plot lines raise. But I’m not even sure the show actually has to do anything more than point to the existence of these situations to be effective, not when I see Santana, despite standing her ground, actually looking afraid of this boy Sebastian.

Suddenly, I feel very clear on why Blaine — nearly always presented in canon as taking a traditionally feminine role, at least in his thoughts about himself — has such a hard time saying no to Sebastian. Like everything else surrounding this situation, it’s not about desire. It’s about feeling like he’s even less safe in the face of this boy than he already is if he were to say no.

Glee: The ferryman always takes a toll

“These next six [episodes] are designed to be fun, fun, fun. They’re big, glossy, star-studded. Then the last six will be very heartbreaking.” – Ryan Murphy in Entertainment Weekly

I was in the airport when fandom found this and got understandably anxious. Me? I just got excited. Like, tapping my feet, fidgeting, get-me-off-this-plane, I have stuff to write, excited. Not because I like tragedy, but because I like stories, conclusions, and victories that are earned. And it occurred to me, reading Murphy’s rather Persephonean remark and thinking about some of the ongoing discussion of “Yes/No,” that I think we have to expect that no one gets out of William McKinley High School without paying a price. No one gets to have everything they want, especially before this story is over, and it’s probably time to start getting ready to pay.

Sadly, I think, the character many of us would like to be most immune to this debt, is the one most susceptible to it to it: Kurt Hummel, who has the show’s closest relationship with death, and often serves as its mediator.

Kurt still opens the drawers of an old dresser to catch his dead mother’s scent; he worked to call his father back from the dead (and not with the help of any god, it should be noted in the face of Kurt’s atheism, which in no way diminishes the otherworldly themes with which he is surrounded). He’s the boy who got death threats, who arranged Sue’s sister’s funeral, who was able to walk in and back out of the faerie kingdom of Dalton, and the one who has a dead animal trophy motif in his wardrobe from fox tails to hippo heads.

He is also the boy who struggled the most with the idea of sexuality and losing his virginity and then took the most ownership of it (big death, little death, spiritual union, Kurt Hummel has got this death and associated metaphors thing covered). I’ve written about it before: Kurt is a magician and a creature who lives between many worlds, including, but not limited to, two schools, a blended family, his gender presentation.

But in many ways, it’s not that Kurt’s a Persephone, cycling in and out of the realms of Hell, not now that his bullying isn’t so terribly plot central and dangerous. Rather, it’s that he’s an Orpheus who didn’t look back when he left Dalton (remember that when Blaine sang “Somewhere Only We Know”, they had their “I’m never letting you go” moment, but then Blaine looked back while Kurt, surrounded by his friends, did not), and so got to keep his Eurydice.

For now.

If we argue that William McKinley High School is Hell, or a realm of it — and I think that’s a pretty easy argument to make, not just because it’s awful, but because of the heightened reality of Glee, and because of the themes of Ryan Murphy’s work (all his stuff is arguably set in different realms of Hell, sometimes explicitly so) — we sort of also have to assume that Death may be the least inclined to grant favors of escape to his most cherished servants.

Because Death’s been kind to them in a way, and wouldn’t want to see them go. More than anyone, Death’s given Kurt a place, and a very specific function in the world of Glee in which his otherness is less a role and more a symptom of this unique purpose. For that matter, Death gave Kurt Blaine when Pavoratti died; as such, Death might be inclined to have some demands, if Kurt is going to leave.

This suggests to me that if Kurt gets into NYADA and chooses to go (and I believe, deeply, that Kurt will get into NYADA, but that he may possibly choose not to go, sacrificing that dream for Blaine or his father), either he will then break up with Blaine or his father will die. That’s the price to cross the river (Manhattan is, after all, an island): NYADA, romantic life, or family; Kurt can only choose two.

Rachel will also have a price to pay on her graduation journey, but I suspect (and let’s be frank, this is what I would do if I were writing the show) it may be a less obvious, but not less significant, toll. If Rachel gets into NYADA and goes (and I can’t see a way towards a moment where she chooses not to), I believe she will also, as recompense, agree to marry Finn, and take him to a New York where he will not be happy.

Many fans, of course, will yell and scream at the end of season 3 if and when this happens, especially if Kurt and Blaine have broken up (which I suspect they will), but, again, to quote the same Leonard Cohen line twice in a week, love is not a victory march.

What we’ll be seeing won’t be Rachel getting a happy ending and the gay boys getting screwed by network TV homophobia. I promise you. Because Glee loves mirrors. For a pair of friends who are getting out of Lima to both pay the debt to do so with their hearts, in ways that seem to be polar opposites of each other, is the type of elegance that Glee does well, and makes the show worth watching despite all the other places in which it gets lost while trying to play its long game.

So I suspect Rachel will get to New York without having really escaped; and Kurt will arrive as less than what he has always been meant to be by denying his nature — that is, that he is a boy from Lima, and his heart is tied to that place and to Blaine, no matter how far he goes and no matter how true his dreams become. Season 4, in turn, will then be about renegotiating the prices of their escapes.

These inevitable tolls to cross out of WMHS and Lima aren’t limited, of course, to Kurt and Rachel. The other seniors will surely have things dear to them taken too. Quinn, for example, probably won’t get out of Lima, but in exchange, will get to retain a connection to Beth. Santana will likely have a choice that involves Brittany, her family, and possibly a Lima escape. Mercedes, I suspect, may be dancing back and forth between Shane and Sam for the rest of the season, simply because the show hasn’t really given her another dilemma. Finn’s going to have to choose being a big fish in a small pond (and taking over Burt’s garage) or getting over his conception of being a man (Finn’s not leadership material, and you don’t have to be a leader to be a man, but that’s going to be hard leap for him to make).

None of these choices will be easy to make for any of the characters; all of them will hurt, and many of them will be the wrong ones.

My gut tells me Kurt will get into NYADA around episode 3.17 and then break up with Blaine in the second to last episode, although in that final episode they’ll probably have a small moment where there’s a kiss goodbye or some other gutting sign of hope (Note to the powers that be: all I want for early Christmas is Kurt and Blaine singing Mika’s “Happy Ending” to each other as everything falls apart because they are still in love).

Rachel, meanwhile, will commit to going to New York, whether or not she gets into NYADA and will bring an uncertain, plan-free Finn with her. The New York half of season four will likely feature Finn not being able to hack it and going back to Lima for a while (although not necessarily permanently); and Kurt and Blaine dating around miserably (Kurt has dinner with a myriad of boys and can’t stomach more, while Blaine’s probably going to be very busy in the back seat of cars) before he and Blaine get back together towards the end of that season.

It’s hard, of course, to want stuff like this to happen to characters and relationships we love, that keep us, frankly, company in the dark. Kurt’s been through enough, we say. But they have such great chemistry, we remind. We’ve been through so much watching these people, don’t they deserve happily ever after?

Don’t we?

But narrative, of course, thrives on conflict. And fandom and general audiences both thrive on longing. When will they kiss? Doesn’t he realize he still loves him? These are the questions we ask. These are the questions we will be asking.

Because loving fiction that is out of our hands is one of the realms of Hell too. It is a place of shades and ghosts that we can almost, but not quite, touch, and who we strive to make tangible through our desire and our grief.

But the ferryman always takes a toll, and he’ll take it at the end of this season of Glee not just from Kurt and Rachel and Finn and all the other WMHS high school seniors, but from us. That’s the price for all the love and yearning these stories give us.

The secret, of course, is that it feels good to pay that price, and to drink from the river, and forget.

Glee: Marriage, public status, and private lives

There are a few things we know unequivocally about Kurt Hummel. He has an astounding voice; he has an uncanny ability to spot trends in men’s fashion; and he knows when it comes from a bottle. He also really, really likes weddings. Just look at his fixation with the royal event (who could forget his still unrealized musical about Pippa Middleton?), and, of course, his amazing wedding planning for his father and Carole.

So, in an episode all about planning weddings and proposals, where the hell was Kurt Hummel?

The fact is, I have no idea. Because in an episode that gave us amazing content around Artie and Becky, underscored the very real chemistry between Sam and Mercedes, and treated us to another round of Finn Has No Idea What To Do With His Life, there really wasn’t room for another great scene that had no tonal relevance to any other scene in what was an information-rich, but largely hideously structured episode.

But I do have a theory. Although it’s one built, largely, not on the presence of data, but the absence of it, which isn’t my favorite basis for constructing an argument. I suspect whatever was going on in this episode goes back to the ring box scene between Kurt and Blaine that was supposed to be in the Christmas episode, but got yanked for time because what the episode needed to say about Kurt and Blaine got said in other ways.

The ring box wasn’t necessary to the Christmas episode, no. But it was necessary to this one, and if it had been broadcast, it might help explain not only Kurt’s non-participation in the marriage narratives of “Yes/No”, but why Beiste’s elopement was also a critical detail when it comes to this season’s ongoing marriage theme.

That season three is all about marriage we learn right at the start of 3.01. Kurt and Rachel are being interviewed by Joseph ben Israel about their plans for the future and Kurt says, “Married by 30, legally!”

I squealed at that line when it aired because of the turning tide, because of the recent marriage equality decision in New York (which Colfer gave a shout-out to while that was in process during the Glee Live dates here), and because of the state of marriage equality in Ohio.

You need to know it’s bad. Like really, really bad. Like, should the state, its people and its government have the will, it will still be a hot mess to fix. Ohio has multiple laws and even an amendment in the state constitution banning marriage equality. It’s not that it’s not legal, as is the case in many states; it’s that it’s explicitly, constitutionally illegal. In fact, despite not being the worst place to be gay, at all (especially if you’re in the Columbus area), Ohio has some of the ugliest legal language out there on marriage equality.

At any rate, 3.01 is hardly the last time we hear about marriage. 3.05 and the ramp-up to it is littered with references to spiritual marriage (I’m working on something with someone on that theme for this blog; we’ll get it to you one day), and that theme continues in its immediate aftermath through everything from Kurt’s wardrobe to a number of interactions between Santana and Brittany.

The Christmas episode also underscores marriage themes — around Kurt and Blaine euphemistically, and around Finn and Rachel and all that fretting about jewelry purchases. We also, of course, lost a Santana scene in the Diamond Basement in that episode, as well.

And then we come to “Yes/No”, an episode centered around something Kurt adores, and yet he’s no where near it. Why? Or, as gets said on Tumblr (and surely other spaces): “Why is Klaine being left out of this incredibly romantic episode?”

But I don’t think that’s the right question, because I don’t think this episode is supposed to be about romance. Or even marriage, as an act or a state of being. I think “Yes/No” is about the public spectacle and status conferred by marriage (and relationships) and the toxicity excessive focus on that public spectacle can engender.

When Will wants to marry Emma everything is fine until he starts to engage with the expected rituals of marriage with others by asking her family’s permission to marry her. Things then promptly go (temporarily) to hell.

Meanwhile, Finn’s proposal to Rachel at the episode’s end is far more about trying to find an identity for himself than it is about loving her, despite the fact that he does love her. Not knowing what will mark the culmination of his high school career, he chooses to propose to her — again, the need for spectacle and status getting in the way of good choices and the actual relationship.

Additionally, the glee club worries about Artie’s reputation if he is romantically linked to Becky; they can say it’s because they don’t trust her, but people on Glee date unpleasant people all the time, and Artie is right to call them out on their discomfort with her Downs.

And let’s not forget Shane, pulling Mercedes away from Sam right after he gets slushied. It’s all about relationships and partners as status items and possessions.

Even the opening use of “Summer Nights” focuses on that. The currency in that song is gossip, cars, and sex, and in case you forgot about the sex, Rachel was back with an I’m-about-to-lose-my-virginity-oh-wait-I-already-did capelette in that number.

So were does that leave Kurt, a young man who loves the spectacle of weddings, but also recently, according to canon we haven’t actually seen, received an age-appropriate token of affection from his boyfriend in private? In a pretty awkward place, I’m guessing. Because Kurt, more than anyone else in this show, has had significant time and cause to consider the status impacts of relationships conducted both in public and in private. Remember, it’s dangerous to other people for him to be their friend too; I wonder if he and Becky ever talk about that.

That the status of how people relate to him is critical to Kurt is something we see in play at Burt’s wedding. We see it at Kurt’s prom. We see it in Kurt and Blaine agreeing to have sex with each other for the first time in a conversation on a stage in an empty theater.

There is no audience for Kurt an Blaine’s commitment to each other, whatever it may be. No matter how out they are, the audience cannot exist; they aren’t paying the right type of attention; the script and framework are absent. Because this is Lima, Ohio, and certain spectacles are barred to boys like Kurt and Blaine in this place and time. Really, it’s even written down.

For Kurt, that has to be profoundly challenging. Here is a boy who just wants to be both seen and valued for what he is, but is often misinterpreted and devalued. Now that he has something that elevates his own feelings about himself and seems to fit the model for public celebration and status, he still doesn’t quite get to have that. Remember how tainted the prom was?

And then, we hear, Blaine gives him a ring and a promise. The ring is too delicate to wear regularly. The promise would make no sense to those around them: not to Rachel, who is leaning harder and harder towards her career and doesn’t have a partner who can take that journey with her; and not to Finn who would just shrug and say, “Dude, sucks you can’t get married.”

In a world where the ring box scene had actually been broadcast in the Christmas episode, there would be a clear thru-line from Kurt’s marriage fantasies about New York through the spiritual marriage theme of “The First Time.” This would then journey on to the commitment of the gum-wrapper ring, followed by this episode that largely shames the ways status rituals around marriage can get in the way of love. Note, of course, the one angst free marriage/partnership situation in this entire episode was Cooter and Beiste, and they eloped.

These themes, currently elucidated murkily thanks to the absence of that critical piece of connective tissue from the Christmas episode, seem as if they will be further underscored based on the spoilers we have for the Michael Jackson episode, in which we apparently see Kurt comforting an injured and/or emotionally miserable Blaine. This is something very different from the demonstrations of affection we see in the other couples on the show, and will probably then be in play again (in a state of absence due to Blaine missing a few eps due to Darren Criss’s run on Broadway) as the Valentine’s Day episode likely once again focuses on the toxicity of status issues around love and romance.

Glee, increasingly, seems to be about the public/private divide, about what you keep close, and what you can feel belongs to you — your pride, your talent, your capacity to love, and what is beyond your control — other people’s reactions, your success, the people you love. This is unavoidable in a narrative in which kids learn about themselves by performing, and Kurt, for all his striving since the show began, has, unfairly, some of the hardest, cruelest lessons to learn in this regard, in part, because of inequalities that are underscored by his blessings: his voice, his fashion sense, and, yes, his boyfriend.

Would “Yes/No” still have been incoherent on the “where is Kurt?” issue if we’d had that ring-box scene in the Christmas episode? Probably. The structural flaws were pretty epic on multiple fronts. But with the connective tissue of that ring box scene, I’m fairly sure we would at least know what Glee was aiming for, not just tonight, but with its ongoing marriage theme, that keeps making me want to quote Leonard Cohen: Love is not a victory march — not for Kurt and Blaine, who don’t get a parade; and not for Finn and Rachel for whom marriage seems to be a plan B to bigger dreams.

Where this will all go in the end, I’m not sure, but I am certain we’re not done with this marriage theme, nor are we done with Kurt and Blaine being absent or ambivalent around public displays of romantic status. They’re getting a little older and the realities of the public spectacle fairytale are getting much clearer for them — both in terms of what they can and can’t have, but also in terms of whether that’s really a fantastic mode for building a life.

That’s one thing about being a gay kid. Fewer blueprints on hand. And sometimes, that’s the best thing in the world.

Gallifrey One: Panel news and other goodies

I’ve spent this dreary Friday doing a large number of logistics for a large number of things, and in a moment I’m going to go out and brave the grocery store. Otherwise, it’s more enchiladas from the amazing, yet odd, Mexican/Teriyaki place across the street (welcome to my bachelor lifestyle — Patty’s been in India since January 5, so I’m on my own for a few months). Anyway, the place that makes the enchiladas of my dreams also blasts Abba, often. It’s pretty awesome.

Also awesome is that, on the logistical front, I can now report that I’ll be doing two panels at Gallifrey One in Los Angeles over President’s Day Weekend: I Ship Everybody With Everyone Else in Every Fandom Ever @ 10:30pm on Friday, February 17 and Sarah Jane is My Doctor @ 2:30pm on Sunday, February 19th. I encourage you to bring your adult beverages to the Friday panel, and I am hoping I will be in the clear to announce something I have coming out that’s particularly about Sarah Jane by the (likely to be emotional) Sunday panel.

Also, in the spirit of that first panel, take note that if you’re a Glee fan who will be at Gally, make sure to find me. I may have slightly appalling trinkets for you.

See you in LA! In a while. I’ve got a ton of other crap to do first.

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying: Slight show, chewy meta

Growing up, one of my best friends was David Merrick’s daughter. If you don’t know your Broadway history, you don’t know that he was known as “the meanest man in show business.” But because I knew her, I saw 42nd Street as a child early and often was there the night that Gower Champion’s death was announced.

Which is to say, I have been to a lot of Broadway and have seen the spectacle of it for a long time from some pretty odd angles.

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying is, aside from a weird show, a slight show. It, like the world it is about, gets by on design and surface. The Rosemary plot isn’t awful, so much as dropped; and Finch’s final fate is unclear. The songs aren’t anything that randomly pop into anyone’s head six months, six weeks, or really even six days after they’ve seen it.

Finch is also the perfect role for stunt casting, because he’s supposed to be less than those around him. Or at least just middling. Which means Darren Criss had a lot of wiggle room for mediocrity in his performance last night and then rose entertainingly above that rather low bar.

Certainly, his comedic timing was flawless and his ridiculous facial expressions are far more suited to the stage than our televisions. His dancing was good, for what Finch has to do, and while his voice is pretty (and was thankfully not pitchy) it had little power behind it, which would matter less if the women in How to Succeed… weren’t exceptional (they are, see it for them). As it was, however, the thinness of his voice showed. At times badly (although he sounded a lot stronger in the second act). And if Criss weren’t such a joy to watch, it would have been a lot worse.

But back to my childhood. I have seen a lot of Broadway madness. I started going when people still wore tuxes (or at least suits and ties) to the theater and when standing ovations meant something other than “I want to see your beautiful face.” I saw Richard Harris on stage. Jerry Orbach. Peter O’Toole. I was there the night Gower Champion died. And for an extremely likeable, high energy, but somewhat middling performance that was more about promise than fact, I have never see the type of madness I saw last night.

And I don’t mean the fans and the posters and the swooning (and there were fans and posters and swooning and a massive crowd at the stage door on the coldest night of the season). I mean the whole audience holding its breath and rooting for this guy and his character. It was an Event. Some random three week run by some random teen idol is not an Event. And I say this as a fan, a big one (come on, you read this blog, how any times have I seen Criss gig in the last year? Please don’t answer that). But there it was.

But How to Succeed… is also hilarious as meta. Hilarious as something that was both the creation of fandom but also the creation of marketing (regarding, I must reiterate, a show about marketing and self-invention), in a way most of the audience either seemed to miss, made the choice to miss, or was at least magnamimous enough not to mention.

My dad was an ad man in New York City from the 50s – 90s. He was the son of shoemaker with little formal education and he joined the Army to get the GI Bill to pay for Cartoonists & Illustrators College; That’s right, my dad joined the army so he could draw comic books.

One of my most vivid memories of my 70s childhood was the office gossip I would hear him speaking about with my mother: tales of account executives who weren’t good at anything other than drinking and being fresh with the secretaries and stealing ideas and wearing really loud sports jackets — always plaid or houndstooth, he’d say.

And so there was a moment, somewhere in How to Succeed…, when I was being charmed and boggled by Criss as Finch where I thought, “Screw you and your charming face. And screw me for rooting for Rosemary and her desperate desire to be ignored by just the right man.”

Stunt casting How to Succeed… is really the perfect response or use of fandom ever, isn’t it? All those heteronormative tropes — tropes that I think all of us in fandom recognize from so many fanfics, except this time with girls — that even as they were skewered I wished I weren’t old enough to feel quite so keenly.

But more than that, Rosemary’s story is perhaps oddly and theoretically justifying for the fannish audience. Rosemary may get the boy in the end, but her happy ending aside, she is the collective us, clamoring for just one little moment so that she can say to the boy she thinks is adorable, “It’s not enough” instead “it’s not anything.”

In the end, How to Succeed… is a sort of weirdly perfect Broadway night, full of imperfection, story and longing. How little of that has to do with what’s explicitly on stage, however, is what makes it rise to a level of rather peculiar brilliance. It’s a surprisingly thinky joy, and if you want to see Criss in it, you best get tickets soon. Otherwise, you won’t be able to see it until the next Finch, Nick Jonas, takes the stage, something which will undoubtedly be suitably surreal in its own right.

Wrapping up 2011: Hugo, pop culture and kind magics

Greetings from scenic Ohio, where I’m spending the week between Christmas and New Year’s with my partner’s family.

While a yearly trip at this point, it’s not a place I’ve gotten used to. I’m an only child who has never needed to rely on other people to get where I’m going, at least at home in New York. But here in Ohio, we have to cadge rides from her parents, and I have to learn about the fine art of family teasing: Patty has a brother, and there’s a mode to the household humor that I often don’t get and can sometimes rub my desperate need for approval very much the wrong way.

But this is a week each year that I need in its quiet and during which I tend to catch up on random pop culture I might not otherwise seek out. This year, that’s included the second Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes film, a Jeff Dunham comedy performance in an arena (and wow, does that need a post of its own; I have never so felt the truth of New York City as another country so uncomfortably), and Martin Scorsese’s Hugo.

It’s Hugo, of course, that really seems like the best place to wind up this blog for the year, because Hugo is about what this blog is about — the love and loss of stories, the nature of fame, and the tonality of magic. I loved it, desperately, and, towards the end of the film, when a character describes their first experience of cinema as “the kindest magic I’d ever seen,” it seemed like a balm to some of the unpleasantries of this inside/outside life that I, and many of my friends who also write about pop culture, inevitably lead.

Loving media and stories can be unkind. It is an act that does, in fact, often break our hearts: whether from within the narrative or outside of it. There’s a reason that “life ruiner” seems to be one of the most popular Tumblr tags for cute celebrity boys of the moment, no matter how much it’s meant as a joke. We measure, not just our lives in stories, but also our smiles, our bodies, and our hearts. And we measure these things not just against tales we love, but the people who create them; and so what is meant to make us feel more, can so often make us feel less.

At least, that’s what true for me and many of my friends, and none of us are snowflakes that special.

So we’ll see if I find the time to catch up with writing about some of my misadventures out here in a state that Patty insists is on the East Coast and I insist can’t be because it’s not on the coast or producing a piece on the horrors of being a girl and liking stuff that I’ve been promising my friend Rae since the night we met.

In the mean time, if you have any love of the sentimentality I can never seem to avoid when talking about pop culture, do yourself a favor and see Hugo. But be sure to follow it up with the 2000 film, Shadow of the Vampire, which is its own strange tribute to the silent era and really represents us all when the vampire grasps at the light from a projector that displays his long-forgotten the sun.

Because who here hasn’t touched the screen or held hand to heart in response to a story or a movie or a moment or a smile that moves us? We are all, I think, greedy and waiting in the dark, even when the kindest magic is also sometimes made of sorrow.

As ever, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Happy New Year.

Glee: tokens of affection, public approval, and the lives of stories

While I feel like discussions about Glee often focus on what was missing, it’s unusual for that focus to actually be about something that was originally meant to be there. In the case of episode 3.09, which had a delightfully weird send-up of classic B&W Christmas specials, the big discussion on Tumblr, Twitter and LiveJournal has largely been about what’s in the box?

Except the scene where Blaine gives Kurt what looks like a ring box got cut (along with some other, unrelated scenes) from the final show. Rumor on Tumblr that seems to be coming from someone with a friend who works on the show is that the box contained a ring made out of gum wrappers, to serve as counterpoint to the Rachel and Finn narrative involving expensive gift-giving and proof of love. It may or may not have also been meant to be a promise ring. (Since the initial writing of this piece, the gum-wrapper ring has been confirmed by TV Line, but context speculation remains. The scene will, however, be included on the season 3 DVDs).

Narratively, the cut makes sense. The broad middle of the episode and the decisions that set it up are extremely focused on Kurt and Blaine imagining an adult future together and their friends presuming one. Therefore, we didn’t actually need further narrative development around their commitment, and really, the Finn and Rachel storyline was completely resolvable without it (and filled with its own bucket of problems that I’ll perhaps address in another post).

Other than the rumored possibility that it was a promise ring used in its original sense, not as a placeholder amongst children with grownup dreams, but as a placeholder from someone who doesn’t yet have the means to purchase an engagement ring (there’s more than one story in my own family about gum wrappers and paper bands from cigars, including my parents), what’s been super interesting to me has been one of the key phrases going around Tumblr about the whole affair: My OTP doesn’t need a box or a ring. (OTP, for those not in the know, means “one true pairing” and is what fans refer to their favorite couples, on-screen or fantasy only, as).

I don’t think it was said with the queer culture discussion it evokes in mind, but it’s a powerful and confusing statement at a time when queer identity and the public reception of queer identities is deeply in flux.

Because right now, so much of queer identity is a discussion about equal marriage rights, and equal marriage rights are complicated, not just because of the obvious stuff like queer families needing equal protection under the law and keeping other people’s religious beliefs out of our lives. But because marriage equality is having, and will continue to have, a huge impact on queer culture.

Because suddenly, we have to talk about, in far more practical ways than in the past (the past on display in the black and white portion of tonight’s episode) about marriage, and if it’s for us, and what its impact on queer culture is. Do we need and want rings and rituals that to many of us feel are borrowed from a straight culture we don’t get? And if we do need or want those things are we allowed to talk about how incredibly conflicted we do or do not feel about them?

I’m such a fierce proponent of marriage equality, and am very happy for friends who have or will be marrying same-sex partners. I’m also a huge romantic, and, unfortunately, am also someone who was raised to believe that marriage is the only possible marker of success and adulthood I could ever have (oh, being a girl in the world I was a girl in).

But I also love — loved — the perhaps vanishing queer culture that raised me as a queer person, and it was a land of not needing boxes or rings. It was a land of massive pride in keeping it together day after day after day, because it was a choice every day, because there was no glue that was easy to show off or receive approval for. There was no paperwork.

In the land of Glee, we know, at least somewhat, where Kurt and Blaine stand on marriage. Kurt’s already told us about his fantasy life in New York, “married by 30, legally” (3.01), and Blaine may have given him a promise ring made of gum wrappers for Christmas. (For the record, I remember making those in summer camp on rainy days as all of us girls — all presumed straight — sat around wearing them and imaging futures full of shiny bragging).

That the Kurt and Blaine gifting scene got cut tonight was pure narrative common-sense; the most important part of storytelling is always editing, and what we needed to know about them got told elsewhere in the episode.

But I have to say I love that the fannish discourse, which has gone from outraged to trying to get comfortable with the cut, brings up this issue and the idea that commitment doesn’t need a ring, or, perhaps more importantly any public display or approval. This is especially critical considering the frequent concerns many fans express about the level of physical contact between Kurt and Blaine on screen, often with little awareness of safety concerns gay teens in their environment would face.

While I can’t wait to get a look at the cut scene because I am endlessly charmed by Kurt and Blaine, I am also thankful for the cut, because it really reminds me of why I love fan culture. Because fan culture always promotes, explicitly or implicitly, the idea that stories continue and live full lives, whether we’re looking at them or not.