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.

Sing Out, Raise Hope: unabashed swooning over Whiffenpoofs ahead

Last night Patty and I went to the “Sing Out, Raise Hope” benefit for The Trevor Project and the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, which featured the Yale Whiffenpoofs (and yeah, yeah, Darren Criss, we’ll get to that later) and a capella groups from Harvard and Princeton.

It was a bit of a strange experience because of how many different constituencies were present with their own inside jokes and knowledge. The Yale people were doing their Yale thing. The fandom people were doing their fandom thing. Every performer had to explain something to the audience that part of the audience already knew very, very well, while the rest of the audience remained completely boggled even after an explanation. And while that was sort of awkward, it also made the whole thing sort of chill and casual and feeling very family for something in a big venue.

That said, it’s hard provide a single hook review of a set of things that didn’t always fit together well. And then there’s the fact that the Whiffenpoofs are just this epic step above the very pleasant but nothing to write home about groups from Princeton (the Nassoons) and Harvard (the Krokodillos), and I pretty much felt bad for everyone who had to share the stage with them over the course of the event.

By their second song of the night, all I wanted for rest of the evening was to bask in the pure awesome that was John Yi. He and his fabulous hair need to actually be “On Broadway” immediately. Of course, since the Whiffenpoofs website informs us that he’s also an economics major, one imagines he’ll either be saving the world or destroying it at any moment instead. Alas.

Also, alas, there were a lot of other things on the evening’s program, including Allison Williams, who had the deeply unenviable task of being the only female performer on the stage. She, and the jazz trio she did most of her songs with, were quite good and I’d love to hear them in a more intimate environment, but the arrangement of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” she did with the Whiffenpoofs really put me off, and I had trouble getting back on board. Somehow, it managed to strip the bite from the song, which, I’ll confess, I’ve always preferred as a masculine narrative and the occasion seemed an odd one to switch that up at.

When Darren Criss joined the show after intermission, it was, expectedly to “Teenage Dream.” Now, here’s a thing — I love what Glee did with the song (that arrangement, and the backing vocals, by the way, are from the Tufts Beelzebubs); I love what Darren Criss does with the song at his solo shows (I find it gutting, and love that it plays on multiple levels); and I have now fallen hard the Whiffenpoofs. But trying to smush all those things together live with an awkward backing track and not exactly anything resembling a full rehearsal? Terrible, terrible plan, and the less said the better.

That said, Criss’s voice sounded stronger than it has recently and we got to hear a few things live (like “Something’s Coming” from West Side Story and “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” as a comedy duet with surprise guest Brad Ellis) that I’m sure none of us in the audience expected. The performance he did with his brother (Chuck Criss of Freelance Whales) of Bob Dylan’s “New Morning” was gorgeous and I liked it better than the recording (which, btw, is on Chimes of Freedom, a Dylan tribute album to benefit Amnesty International).

We also got treated to Criss’s between song banter, which rambled more than usual and felt weird in a space where it was pretty much certain large chunks of the audience were not predisposed to be charmed by it. Also, seriously? The only other performer I’ve ever seen forget lyrics while reading them off a piece of paper or screen right in front of him? Nick Cave. Talk about comparisons I never thought I would make. On the other hand, who can blame the guy? Apparently he’d just gotten off a plane and certainly sleeps even less than I do.

Anyway, fun thing. Good causes. Videos of the whole affair are all over Tumblr and YouTube for the curious (if anyone got the Whiffenpoofs doing “Midnight Train to Georgia,” please let me know). Me? Totally making a point to see more Whiffenpoofs gigs.

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.

American Horror Story: Why am I watching this?

Super casual post here, but can anyone tell me why I’m watching American Horror Story?

Because it’s not like I have a problem with dark (aren’t I always talking about the receptor sites I don’t have for happy shiny things?), and it’s not like the show isn’t structurally masterful.

The parallels in 1.02 with nurse-murders and the abortion alone are worthy of one essay, and there’s certainly another to be found in “I don’t believe there’s any door beauty can’t open” when linked with the bad girl mirror closet and the broader body of Ryan Murphy’s work (honestly, I should Netflix all his stuff and write that for a journal, because awesome).

But I’m not a horror fan, and I’m more than a little resistant to shows with a guess-the-mystery structure.

Patty, however, is a horror fan, and she’s on board. But I’m like “Why are we watching this grisly murder? Why did we need this level of detail? Why do I feel like this show is trying to make this titillating as we identify with the victims? Is the horror not what happens but how I the viewer experience the horror? Please explain this genre to me, I don’t get it.”

I, in a single sentence, asked this same question on Tumblr last night, and the answers I go ran the gamut from “best show ever” to “because it’s awful.” And certainly, American Horror Story does seem to be, in part, explicitly about rubbernecking other people’s bad choices; much like fandom often seems to be about rubbernecking what’s wrong with stuff we actually love.

But all of this is besides the point. I just want to know why I’m watching this thing and what the purpose of the revulsion I feel is.

Do I just not get the genre? Does it just not matter if I’m miserable and uncomfortable with the content if I am (and I really am) turned on by its structure and winking fourth-wall mocking in-jokes instead? And can I love a show if my experience of it is completely divorced from any character empathy or long-term curiosity about the narrative?

Because I think I might, and, well, that’s strange.

For those of you making your way through this thing (or who have given up on it), what’s your relationship with it?

Glee: boys, girls, and homosocial squeamishness

Despite Glee‘s strong focus on multiple queer characters, I’m increasingly noticing that the show is remarkably squeamish around issues of homosociality as it intersects with homosexuality. And, as is usually the case with Glee, I having trouble telling if this is an intra- or extradiegetic problem. Fair warning: I’ll be talking about some spoilers from future episodes to make this point.

All of this really occurred to me because of two fandom complaints that seem particularly loud right now. The first is an assertion that outside of scenes specifically about Kurt and Blaine, you can’t tell that Kurt and Blaine are together. The second is that Brittany and Santana have not kissed or explicitly been shown to be a romantic couple.

While I actually have some problems with both of those assertions for a myriad of reasons, including a feeling that they ignore issues of relationship style, history, and queer teen safety, the fact is, people are seeing something, and what the audience sees is, absolutely, one version of what’s really happening on screen.

What I suspect people are reacting to, around both couples, is Glee‘s intense discomfort around homosociality and where it intersects with homosexuality. Certainly, we saw this from within the narrative when, in season 2, Finn tells Kurt he can’t ask Sam to do a duet, because it’ll ruin the guy’s life at McKinley. But, increasingly, I suspect we’re seeing this from external sources; that is, writers being squeamish as opposed to writing characters who are squeamish.

On one hand, we have Kurt and Blaine, who are explicitly a couple. Despite multiple assertions that both confirm and muddle each of the character’s roles around gender performativity, we can also basically agree that the explicit text as presented is at least supposed to be two gay boys in love. The thing is, Glee is very cagey about showing these two boys as boys together in the context of male peers, even male peers who we are told are totally on board and supportive of them as a couple.

Blaine can dance with Kurt at the prom, once Kurt is cast as the prom queen. And in an upcoming number from Grease, Blaine’s performing with the boys and Kurt’s performing with the girls. Now, we can say that’s because Kurt prefers to be with the girls. And we can say that’s because of Kurt’s vocal range (which is a particularly weak argument when Kurt’s range is, at least, historically male-appropriate), but really, it seems to be about Glee knowing how to write gay couples as long as they aren’t socially playing for the same team.

The same issue is in play with Brittany and Santana, but it’s causing a completely different set of fan reaction problems. Brittany and Santana are positioned as on the same team — literally. They’re both highly femme cheerleaders, and they’re together, or so we’re told (and not, particularly, shown). Glee seems to have no idea how to portray this, because they haven’t been able to split them up in a performative context the way they have with Kurt and Blaine.

Additionally complicating the situation is that physical homosocial behavior among women is so culturally acceptable (before you even get to stuff like “I Kissed a Girl” hijinks), that it’s nearly impossible to tell they’re dating. Straight girls who are close friends do, do things like hold hands, hug, and kiss on the cheek, all the time. So the only reason we really know these two are together is Santana’s discomfort with her coming out process, and the snarky joke of them being in bed together that started it all back in season 1.

Glee often gets itself into trouble by playing the long game and then seeming to get distracted halfway through. It also struggles when it’s too murky around whether it’s portraying toxic situations or being toxic in how it’s portraying situations. Add to that the fact that mainstream TV really isn’t to be trusted in general on how it writes queer people, so believe me, I get the anger and suspicion.

Certainly, I have my own sets of concerns, largely related to how sexual desire between women is minimized unless its for male pleasure (something Glee has both skewered, and it seems, bought in to), and how sexual desire between men inevitably turns into some sort of discourse on perceptions of gay male promiscuity (e.g.,: Kurt and Blaine have a beautiful moment; Sebastian is a predatory creep — tell me something I couldn’t have spotted from orbit, thanks).

But I do think it’s worth looking at the homosocial conundrum the show faces when critiquing how it handles Kurt and Blaine and Brittany and Santana. At the end of the day, Glee has set itself a ridiculously huge challenge in putting these storylines as front and center as they are.

While the age groups that are the most desirable TV audiences increasingly see gay content as no big deal, the statistical minorities that are offended or uncomfortable remain very large. Additionally, even straight people who support LGBT equality, can and do (wow, the Internet is such a source for what people aren’t willing to say to you at dinner parties) sometimes get uncomfortable with queer content, or wonder why suddenly their TV is filled with stories about people who aren’t like them. Us gay folks are used to it; our allies, for better or for worse, aren’t.

It’s my suspicion, that even as Glee has written about homophobia as displayed around homosocial behavior (i.e., locker room worries, the Kurt and Sam duet, the prom), the show’s powers that be have also been cognisant of how that anxiety exists around homosocial behavior in its audience. With Kurt and Blaine that problem has largely been easy to “solve” because of how Kurt’s been written from the beginning and because of Colfer’s vocal range. With Brittany and Santana a so-called solution has remained elusive, and such, so has a great deal of clarity on that relationship and its physicality.

As much as we talk about how Glee is awesome, subversive and complex on LGBT issues, there’s still this arena on which the show strikes me as squeamish, and whether it ever decides that two guys in the T-Birds can totally be dating or that the head cheerleader can really get a sparkles and glitter girl, absolutely remains to be seen.

But as much as I want Glee to solve its extradiegetic homosocial anxiety, I also want the issue to be one that allies who are fans of these two couples consider in their own lives. The first person I ever had in my life who described themselves as an LGBT ally to me wrote an opinion piece for our university newspaper, without my permission, about how being my roommate didn’t make her gay. Talk about homosocial anxiety; she used my situation to make sure the world knew she was straight.

Ultimately, my hope is that if we’re going to spend time wondering what Glee‘s afraid of, that we’ll also spend some time wondering what the audience is afraid of, and how, sometimes, in some cases, we may be contributing to those anxieties.

Glee: sex, contradictions, and Blaine Anderson’s backstory

One of the things about fandom is that it tends to spring up around narratives that need solving. Harry Potter fandom was so explosively huge in part because Rowling does archetypal characters and world-building very well, but it was also huge because the books are structured like mysteries and Rowling wasn’t always edited as tightly as she could have been. As such, fandom appeared to solve what was not yet known while the series was in the process of being published and what continues to not quite make sense now that it is concluded.

Glee, which is often criticized for inconsistent writing, arguably has a similar fandom culture for similar reasons: it presents a compelling world full of archetypal characters along with a whole lot of structural problems to solve. And lately, one of those biggest problems to solve seems to be Blaine Anderson. Specifically, what is going on with him and sex? And I don’t mean Kurt.

Blaine is not appropriate about sex and sexuality, except when he’s too appropriate about it. And neither of those things would be notable or even of any particular interest if his words and deeds around sex since he first appeared on the show weren’t so incredibly all over the map and relatively plot-central.

There’s the inappropriate, yet mature and weirdly responsible, conversation he has with Kurt’s father about Kurt’s own reactions to sex. That seems to mesh with the little-adult version of Blaine we got during his time at Dalton. But it sure as hell doesn’t mesh with the guy who had a crush on an older dude he had coffee with once and then decided to sing a song to featuring a line about sex toys as a way to declare this love.

The seeming randomness of Blaine’s actions around sex don’t stop there: there’s the kiss with Rachel; the attempt at sex in the back seat of the car with Kurt after Scandals; the nagging Kurt about his sexy faces after his failed performance at the random foam party in season 2 (Glee, you are so weird); the perfectly mellow frankness with which he discusses masturbation in season 3; his ever growing list of dubious song choices; his very contradictory responses to Sebastian; and now, his rather intense declaration that he’s not for sale (that is, specifically, a declaration of being unwilling to use sex for approval, and yet….).

So, in summary we have Blaine being uncomfortably forward, often to inappropriate people, about sex, almost always as a bid for approval, regardless of the mode, mixed with defensiveness and anger and assertions that he’s not that guy.

Now I feel a little guilty about this analysis, because it plays so strongly into not just real-world serious business, but so many fandom tropes that I don’t often engage. I’m not judging those fandom trends, but on this one I have to be aware of how my thought process fits in with certain community dynamics.

But my point is that since the spoilers for 3.05 about the fight outside of Scandals first broke during filming, I’ve been looking at Blaine’s behavior around sex and thinking “this guy has some sort of sexual abuse or trauma in his past.”

Of course, there are other explanations for this inconsistency around Blaine; he was originally written neither as Kurt’s boyfriend, nor as a show regular. He also was supposed to be a year ahead of Kurt in school and then wound up being a year behind. So there are plenty of external-to-the-narrative reasons why building a solid profile of just who Blaine is can be a little bit challenging.

But, as an audience member and a fan, I view my part of the creative contract in engaging source material as an obligation to help to find or establish a through-line, most particularly when the property has been unable to do so itself.

This doesn’t need to apply to anyone else, it’s just the way I’m wired around stories. But with Glee and its ever-present, and frankly bizarre, fourth wall problems (and that’s an overdue analysis I owe you guys), this viewpoint feels a little less like a quirk of my brain and more just sort of how you’ve gotta do Glee if you want it to make sense at all.

Which brings us back to Blaine, who (alongside Tina) is arguably one of the most sex-positive characters on the show while also simultaneously dealing with sex in some of the least predictable or reasonable ways. When I combine that with his desperate need for approval, his ability to discuss sexuality in mature and rational ways; the ways in which he copes with his anger; and the little bit we know about his relationship with his absent parents a really clear picture forms for me, with, frankly, less effort than I’d like.

I see Blaine as a guy who had something bad happen to him sexually at a fairly young age. His parents sent him to therapy and that was helpful and gave him the communication style he pulls out both when discussing Kurt’s fears about sex with Burt and when he and Kurt have that chat about masturbation. He’s still got some stuff going on about shame and desire and sex as a way to get praise and approval, but hey, don’t we all. On top of this, Blaine is gay, and his parents (or at least his dad) aren’t super accepting, perhaps because they believe (oh so erroneously) that whatever abuse he experienced may have contributed to his sexuality.

Then all of this gets tangled up with how Blaine relates to authority figures in fairly messy ways — and when Blaine transfers to McKinley, suddenly everyone is an authority figure, even his peers. Cue: our consummate performer is also an awkward boy shifting between personas that don’t fit well; he’s uncomfortable in his own skin and completely unable to figure out what to do to get people to like him; and it shows up in weird ways and at weird times, even with the person he trusts most.

Do I think I’m right? Well, I’d be a little shocked if Glee actually went there, but then Glee shocks me fairly often. But the fact remains that I can’t unsee this particular theory, and neither can a lot of other people with whom I’ve been having exchanges around the “What is going on with Blaine?” theme.

Unfortunately this means that I’m now watching with an impulse towards confirmation bias, which I feel like we got in spades tonight — Blaine lashes out at Sam (and he may or may not know about the stripping — it’s not like Finn would have told him), yes, but what he says and how he says it reads as so much more about himself than Sam that it’s a little startling. Even if I hadn’t been nursing this theory for weeks, I think I would have been after that scene.

Frankly, because I’m inordinately fond of Blaine, I want to be wrong. But because I love when breadcrumbs lead somewhere other than an empty clearing, I also hope I’m right. Sexual abuse is, sadly, something that happens all too often — it wouldn’t be an uncommon story, just one uncommonly told, especially as something other than a central trauma narrative, but just a thing in the landscape of a kid growing up. I don’t know that I trust Glee with a plotline like that, but I know I want to trust Glee with a plotline like that.

But considering how often Glee acknowledges, but doesn’t necessarily investigate consent issues (to name just a very few — Dave and Kurt; Brittany’s “alien invasion” remark; various plotlines technically or explicitly involving statutory rape; the outing theme; Blaine and Kurt after Scandals; Sebastian; the awkward predatory vibe of the Warblers in “Uptown Girl”; and Quinn’s attempt to get Puck to get her pregnant again), I’d be surprised at this point if the show doesn’t go there.

Because, increasingly, it feels like it wants to.

So who said this was a comedy again?

Personal note: Swordspoint audiobook

Even when I’m aggravated by it (and let’s face it, we’re all aggravated by stuff we love sometimes), I adore fandom and, particularly, fanfiction. I will always be inclined to defend it and be honest about my participation in it for all sorts of different reasons including that it’s just fun and that it’s arguably an act of perpetual longing, which just totally fits how my brain works. But, most importantly, it’s also how I met my partner.

Specifically, Patty and I met writing fanfiction about Ellen Kushner‘s Swordspoint, which is sort of hilarious as far as romantic impetus goes. Because even with a glorious couple at its center, Swordspoint is not a romance, and wow, neither of those guys are anyone you want to date, even if they’re pretty awesome as far as narrative kinks go and are people that Patty and I can be said to be bear some slightly hilarious and superficial resemblance too: she is a scholar, who is taller than me, and is, on occasion, quite difficult; and I do, in fact, keep swords by our bed.

Anyway, Swordspoint is now available as an audio-book from SueMedia Productions for Neil Gaiman Presents/ACX. I’m telling you all because I love this story like burning, and it helped me find Patty, and there are some rockin’ voice actors on this, and oh hey, I also have a teeny, tiny, awesome credit on it.

It’s cool stuff that I think many readers here would enjoy — swords, queer people, intrigue, and witty insults, just to name a few. If you do check it out and want to find the fandom, it seems to live on Livejournal.

Glee: Kurt Hummel, heteroaesthetics, and feminine modesty

When Glee‘s season 3 started, one of the things we were told was that Kurt’s outfits would be less outrageous — he’s getting older, he has a boyfriend, there’s less need to shock. And for the first four episodes, this was by and large true: there were fewer inexplicable pieces and gender non-conforming choices, and Kurt largely stuck to vests, dress shirts, trousers and stylish scarves. Sure, there were some outrageous accessories, but he’s growing up, not dead….

And then there was sex and Kurt Hummel’s fashion started knowing no gender once again.

At first I thought I was just seeing things as I watched too closely for all the ways I expected a heteronormative bucket of fail to get poured all over the first time narrative in 3.05 in a desire to appease straight audiences. But after watching 3.07 last night, I’m convinced that 3.05 marks a specific and intentional turning point regarding Kurt’s clothing that actually echos back to, among other things, season 1, and is designed to amplify the passing-related plotlines of the current season.

It’s all about the knitwear, starting with Kurt’s first outfit in 3.05.

Sure, he’s wearing a tie, but he’s also wearing one of those form-fitting knee-length sweater (dresses) that he made clear his dad abhors in S1 (he promised to stop wearing them to get his car, remember). It’s a brilliant outfit choice for the scene where Blaine’s nattering on about masturbation and Kurt’s unsure of his own desirability. The male/female content of the outfit combined with the ridiculous animal print and Kurt lounging on Blaine’s bed like a girl goes a long way towards saying, “I’m not like other boys, and there’s not even a short explanation.” But Blaine blows right by that and a conversation that starts about insecurity winds up being about flirtation.

It’s later in that same episode when we see the first of the many, many capelettes and ponchos we’ve seen since (and just in case you weren’t clear these capelettes are girl clothes, Rachel wears one in this episode as well, when she arrives at the Hudson-Hummel home to sleep with Finn for the first time). It’s that scene with Sebastian in the Lima Bean, and Kurt has this severe almost nun-like look going on, what with the high white and black collar, the amorphous shape of the cape over his chest, and the prim disapproval. But it’s important to remember that Kurt never intended to see Sebastian in this scene — this supposed to be him and Blaine engaging in their private routine — and therefore a private, relationship-centered moment, even if conducted in public.

In fact, outfits that are arguably supposed to be about Kurt and Blaine time (or at least Kurt explicitly addressing Blaine with the outfit), remain resolutely feminine in influence from this point on. There’s that equestrian moment in 3.06 in which Kurt is wearing something not only feminine in nature, but in which Blaine is solicitously helping him down from a chair he was standing on (said equestrian outfit, it should be noted, echos the polo motif in Blaine’s bedroom as seen in 3.05).

There’s also that hideous outfit involving the belted shawl/poncho and the leather Sunset Boulevard turban. And then are the three feminine outfits of 3.07 — the kilt (without leggings this time), the long grey knit turtleneck poncho, and the asymmetrical knit poncho worn during “Perfect.”

These clothing pieces aren’t just feminine for all the ways they aren’t masculine. Rather, they are all deeply representative of feminine modesty. Ponchos, in particular, minimize the figure and frequently show up in modest dressing blogs with a range of cultural emphases. That we also have Kurt covering his hair with greater frequency post-3.05 (sure, he’s always been into hats, but I have to argue this is different), particularly in that ridiculous Sunset Boulevard outfit, is also notable. In fact, the only time Kurt shows skin in one of his feminine outfits is when he has some leg on view in 3.07. But, if we argue for the school girl uniform reference, there’s a primness and social modesty connotation here too — regardless of what we’re all thinking on Tumblr.

But Kurt’s clothes haven’t gone entirely this direction. Not in the least. In fact, when he has to engage in public moments — such as his student council election speech (3.06) and election day (3.07) — he’s in masculine attire. Kurt Hummel performs a lot of things — queerness and femininity, of course, but also masculinity — when it suits his needs. There’s a discipline in that, a reading of and playing to the audience that he lacked in earlier seasons. It’s a savvy he’s acquired now, one that speaks both to politics and his own goals as a performer, even as it in no way impinges upon how he chooses to present himself in his private (even if conducted in public) life.

The big aberration here, of course, are the outfits he wears on his date with Blaine to Scandals and when he tells Blaine he’s going home with him (for sex) at the end of 3.05. Those are both what should arguably be private moments, and therefore, to fit the pattern above, involve feminine attire. But they don’t. At all.

My suspicion is that the variance here comes from two things: extradiegetically, to make it very clear that Kurt and Blaine are two gay boys; and intradiegetically, because Kurt is worried in both of these situations about proving man enough — first for gay culture, and then second, for his boyfriend who so clearly wants to be wooed and seduced (see: the Sadie Hawkins dance and Blaine’s interactions with Sebastian). In fact, extradiegetically, the auditorium outfit is actively hilarious, at least if you’ve been following the hanky code discussion over on Deconstructing Glee. That hanky code queer in-joke is, however, part of what makes Kurt’s adventures with gender so utterly subversive and queer.

For folks (largely queer folks) paying attention, Glee informs us that Kurt is happy and eager to be an aesthetically feminine partner in his relationship and play act at that very role… when it’s about his relationship. But that in no way makes him a passive, submissive or traditionally feminine partner; it doesn’t even make him a girl (sidenote: I loathe all the stereotypes it’s necessary to address to untangle what’s going on with Kurt, but it’s the world he, and we, live in). It places a heteroaesthetic dynamic around Kurt and Blaine, while firmly removing any hint of a heteronormative one.

That heteroaesthetic dynamic serves to amplify queerness for the viewer interested in queerness, but also to minimize queerness, by suggesting the actually rejected heteronormativity, for the viewier not interested in, or not comfortable with, that same queerness. This is a type of relatively outrageous passing, one that offers Kurt and Blaine safety both intra- and extradiegetically, without imposing restriction on their significantly queer gender expression and sexuality.

Finally, that Kurt’s feminine aesthetic choices evoke modesty seems to play into broader issues around his experience of sexuality. Kurt has, for all his “baby penguin” denial, always been a sensualist — it’s present in his fretting about fabrics, skin care, and even food (despite the toxic, self-restrictive tendencies we’ve seen there).

Since 3.05 we have seen him project physical modesty and avoid physical contact with people who aren’t Blaine (including, but not limited to, Rachel and the awkward hug that required warning; and Brittany and the lack of hug response/cringe thing), and it is emotionally touching as well as indicative of how much work he is having to do to both segregate his desire from the rest of his life and to integrate it into a necessarily public existence. This parallels neatly with the male/female dichotomy of Kurt’s presentation and additionally with the heteroaesthetic/queerness passing game he and Blaine are, I think, knowingly playing.