Gleeversity

We hate stereotypes, boo-ho, go cry about it. Stereotypes serve as an identifier and familiarize us with a setting. They can make us comfortable or uncomfortable with what we are watching and Glee presents us with the typical high school setting. I use the term Gleeversity because Glee uses its diverse cast to hook in multiple groups of people while challenging us to think about less talked about issues (also, it just sounds cool). Granted, I was appalled at the beginning of this show for its stereotypes, a black young woman named Mercedes Jones who sings R-E-S-P-E-C-T and compares herself to Beyonce. Then comes Kurt who asks for his Marc Jacobs apparel to be spared before being thrown into a dumpster. They also have him dress stylishly and sing a Broadway show tune; we get it he’s gay. The blonde white girl cheerleads, the tall athletic brown-haired male is amazing at everything he does, and Berry is the Gleek that is a star waiting to shine. Fine, we get it these are stereotypes of “real life” high school characters. But guess what, in real life, its the real life characters of Diana, Finn, and Rachel that dominant the scene for long periods of time. However, we need these characters to show the issues within our Gleeversity. Kurt and Mercedes eventually do get more face time and there lives are expanded a little bit. But this is made possible by the show, hooking people in with familiar topics in order to go under the surface. I understand that Glee hasn’t completely satisfied this opportunity to go more in depth with Kurt, Mercedes, and issues around homosexual and racial inequality but the show would have flopped if the two main characters were black lesbian females, that were in a relationship with one another and grew up in a low income white household. It sounds really interesting, but is greater than 10 percent of America going to watch it? I don’t think this show would have made it past the first few episodes. That’s if it managed to be produced.

We need some familiarity in order to get to the meat of our Gleeversity. I really wish that these stereotypes didn’t have to be so stereotypically, and hopefully as time goes on writers won’t have to make characters like this. However, with the power they have gained, it is in their responsibility (maybe?) to stop messing up with the public service announcement episodes that viewers are complaining about and smarten up with their writing to get the audience they built to explore the depth of minority characters they kept dancing in the background.