Wednesday night television

[apocalypsos]

-- Was Mia Michaels lit tonight? And did she share her stash with the rest of the contestants? 'Cause that was one weird-ass mellow contemporary round coming from her.

-- I'm rooting for Russell the crumper like WHOA. Everything he's been doing has been fantastic and he looks as if he's studied every genre they've thrown at him forever.

-- OUCH. OUCH, OUCH, OUCH. Pauline's injury looked so painful.

-- I'm starting to find the Di Lellos adorable.

-- I had to click away when Dominic got cut. That was really hard to watch.

*

-- "The minority students don't feel like they're being heard." OH HI META. NICE TO SEE YOU SHOW UP.

-- SUE'S KIDS. Oh, Sue, this is why I love you.

--- Also, words cannot express how much I kinda want to avoid everybody's reaction posts to this episode right now.

-- SUE'S CORNER, OH GOD. SHE'S ONE-SIXTEENTH COMANCHE INDIAN. YEAH, SURE, OKAY.

-- Oh, Finn, I love you, but you're so dumb. So very dumb.

-- Okay, either this episode is the writers telling the haters, "... fine, we give," or it's the writers telling the haters, "... you were saying?" I'm ... not quite sure which. 'Cause, yeah, either they whipped this together really, really fast considering the filming schedule, or there was a POINT to all the previous minority!fail.

-- I really wasn't shipping Finn/Rachel/Quinn until this episode. And possibly the OT12 of the whole damn glee club after that last performance. DAMN.

Comments

[fox1013.livejournal.com]

I really don't think they whipped this up quickly as a reaction, because this is about the point in s1 where Popular started to acknowledge sketchy race issues too.

I am totally willing to entertain discussion that Glee is TRYING AND FAILING in terms of dealing with race, but I really believe some of what people saw as fail was totally intentional.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't think so, either. They really would have had to do this in, like, the last two weeks. Which ... no, I'm pretty sure scripted television's turn-around is NEVER that good outside of SNL and South Park.

I really believe some of what people saw as fail was totally intentional.

Me too. I didn't watch Popular, but nothing I've heard about it has indicated the same people who gave us that should would be that tone-deaf about minorities just 'cause.

[liz-w.livejournal.com]

The first 13 episodes were finished filming forever ago, and they haven't been back in the studio since, so no, there's no way that they could have done this in the past two weeks. :)

[handyhunter.livejournal.com]

Do you think the number at the end, with Rachel and Finn getting the lead singing roles and the minority kids in the background again is deliberate on the writers' part too?

I think most things Sue says are deliberately offensive; I think Finn is deliberately written to be rather dense; I think Rachel is deliberately written to be annoying.

But I can't tell if they're not giving storylines and solos to the minority characters so they could highlight their own fail in this episode or if they're following the patterns of most other shows out there (because that's the result of what they're doing, so far). If it's intentional, perhaps contributing to the fail is not the best way to address or somehow subvert it?

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

The thing is, that number on the end is Will back in charge again. And as per usual, Will hasn't learned shit. Will's a well-meaning character. He's also guilty of every bit of minority!fail Sue called him on. I mean, hell, listen to that bit from him about, "You're ALL minorities because you're in glee." He's trying to be inspirational and it's a fucking ludicrous statement. Especially considering the first three "minorities" he picks are his usual pretty white leads. He's pretty much every person who thinks they can't possibly be committing race!fail -- they're just too darn NICE.

There's also the point to be made that the kids don't need that lesson taught to them as much as the adults do. Will means well and fails miserably on race issues, Sue's actually doing better on some level and still manages to be an offensive asshat about it. But it's the kids who say, "Hey, we are MORE than stereotypes, damn it!"

And while it would have nice considering the lesson supposedly learned through the episode for one of the others to lead at the end, the whole point of the ending performance was to reassure Quinn, and like it for not, for now at least Finn and Rachel are the ones who are most looking to reassure her. (Although the others were doing a good job during their dance routine of making it obvious through their expressions that they were with her, too.)

[handyhunter.livejournal.com]

The thing is, that number on the end is Will back in charge again. And as per usual, Will hasn't learned shit.

That's a good point. I suppose my main issue with the show is in making Will a main character, even if it's to demonstrate his cluelessness*. I have trouble discerning what decisions are Will's, and which are the writers' (that is, which bits of Will's minority!fail they're doing deliberately, and what about the other storylines that Will isn't a part of, and yet the focus isn't on the minority characters). Possibly this is because compared to the other characters Will is not as extreme in his reactions and opinions, though he seems to be unravelling a bit now, so maybe it'll be more obvious what the writers are getting at. I do wonder a little why it's taken them so long to get to this point; it's not like minority!fail isn't already in existence, so they had to create their own.

*which is part of my other issue with stories in general, with all the white (and straight and able-bodied) people as main characters and minorities as secondary characters, if we're lucky.

[eta]Or, to sum up, I think the show is inadvertently perpetuating stereotypes it maybe eventually means to subvert because of who the writers have chosen to be its main characters. If this ends up not being the case, I will be amazed and awed. But I can't say I'm holding my breath.[/eta]

[fox1013.livejournal.com]

inadvertently perpetuating stereotypes it... means to subvert

I think that's the heart of all the problems with Glee, honestly. I don't know if it'll finish (at least at the end of these 13) by successfully subverting them, but I think that THEY think they are already. Does that make sense?

[fox1013.livejournal.com]

I don't know. Kind of both? Part of me thinks the number at the end was the very clear result of the three people who'd been working with Will getting to be front and center, because it has been established that he is a petty ass who plays favorites. And part of me thinks that writers had two plotlines to end, one with people having actual conversations and one with people admitting things in song because they couldn't through conversation, and it didn't even occur to them that they could end the "diversity" plotline with a musical number and the Finn/Quinn/Rachel plotline with dialogue or confrontation instead of vice versa.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think they're being 100% successful dealing with race, not by a long shot. But I do think that they're trying.