Are Those Who Hate Glee Trying to Protect Kids from Themselves?

This week's questions, which focus around characterizing young people's relationships with media, connect with one of the items we touched on in last week's class: the idea that much of media literacy consists of "protecting" young people from the media. While this can be important (it's awfully easy to stumble onto unintended topics on the internet, and kids should probably know how to avoid doing so), it often leads to some cringe-worthy responses.

The inspiration for this post is a piece I stumbled upon regarding a conservative backlash to "Glee," a Fox-owned series that premiered last fall (if you work with teens and haven't heard of it, you might want to open your ears!). That first article, at least, is a fringe group (and, in truth, it's not clear whether it's satirical), but a quick googling of "Christian Glee Response" brings up quite a few other reactionary articles. Even Time Magazine has a piece about whether Christian leadership and families are reacting to "Glee" with hostility. It's fairly clear that they are (browse through some of those google hits and you'll see an overwhelming majority in opposition), but why?

Much of the conservative backlash to the show comes from the fact that it "glorifies homosexuality" (some of those articles claim that even the heterosexual characters are, in essence, not gender-normative enough). This is not a new trend in conservative backlashes, of course, but the sense that some of these scandalized adults are focusing on the show's musical content is hard to shake off.

Ironically, there's a fair amount of opposition to "Glee" from the liberal camps (blogs in particular, as those links will show), as well. Specifically: characters are thinly-veiled stereotypes; those stereotypes are exploited without explanation; and the show frequently falls into painful, seemingly unintentional mistakes of ableism, sexism, racism, and so on. There have been a fair number of episodes that fall into some pretty unfortunate traps, including a pregnancy faked to keep a boyfriend, a dance number in which the character with a handicap spends the entire sequence on a bed, and the fact that the only character of color is a young Black woman who is little more than a sassy afterthought. Part of this is due almost certainly to the fact that much of the show's energies go toward producing the musical numbers and bringing in guest stars, including Kristin Chenowith (most recently of Wicked fame), rather than adding depth to the characters and plot.

And yet, these are the grown-ups talking, and some of those even love "Glee" despite their protests. Among the high school crowd, especially those who went through middle school as High School Musical and its respective sequels and live shows came around, "Glee" is a phenomenon. In it, kids see a dramatic representation of the realities of their lives, from clique wars to teen pregnancies (and faked ones). The much-lampooned gay character, for example, is mostly well-adjusted with a supportive group of friends, but still encounters homophobia from his peers. Teens live in a world of stereotypes, and as we read in the Buckingham piece for this week, much of that is involved with creating their identities. In attempting to define themselves, they must also define others, but with everyone just beginning to create their roles in life, the definitions are limited and elementary. The characters in Glee are not especially deep, but teens don't tend toward viewing peers outside of their own friend-group as having characters beneath their veneer.

In the first case, we have parents (and other adults) attempting to protect kids from viewing a lifestyle of which they do not approve. For many kids, doing so is impossible. In the second, we have proponents of social equality trying to discourage stereotype. Again, it is nearly impossible to shield children from the influences of the larger culture. At the same time, most adults do hope to instill certain characteristics in the youth who look to them for guidance. A much more effective way of approaching the issues, and giving teens the tools to find their way through it, is to discuss these issues. There's an interesting article by Rachel Simmons that I found when googling links for this post that covers talking to your kids about Glee. It includes asking questions about the stereotypes in the show. If you'd like to address the issues in the show with the teens in your world, I recommend taking a glance at it.