![[personal profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
troubleKatie, Emmy and I had a very brief chat, and have collectively decided that Glee stopped being even irritatingly fun two episodes ago and we're not going to watch it anymore. I mean, Emmy, who regularly watches the episode saying "potato potato potato" over Finn's lines, couldn't even get herself to do it, because she was watching the whole episode with a look of horror. Katie wisely decided not to watch it at all.
There was a stage where Glee was just irritating but with some awesome. I still love Mercedes and Kurt, and there have been a few songs that I've really enjoyed their version of. (I really liked the boys' mash-up in "Vitamin D", for example.)
But, I think there are two things that sum up what I think it really wrong with Glee.
First, and I don't think this is a spoiler:
Defying Gravity is a duet.
Second:
Three people faked having disabilities in this episode. (Well, I guess four if you count Kevin McHale, but let's put that argument aside for a moment.)
Tina's been faking her stutter all along, in order to get out of having to give a speech in the sixth grade.
People with stutters are routinely mocked and yelled at, told to get over it, and basically the subject of ridicule. And yes - people do think stutters are faking it for attention. But Glee, that "diversity" show, has presented stuttering as something that will get you left alone, and something easy to fake. For years.
This is the show that's supposed to make people with disabilities feel empowered.
You know what really makes me feel empowered? Having a really vibrant community of people with disabilities that I've met through the internet and off-line. Having people who love and trust me enough to call me out on shit when I say something ignorant or thoughtless about disability. Having people who respect my work enough to read it and give constructive feedback. Having women with disabilities being willing to share their varied sexual experiences and expressions on a public blog that I'm a part of. Having a lot of people I've known over the past few years tell me how much they appreciate my posts about disability and how they've really thought about the stuff I've done. Having![[livejournal.com profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sabotabby write a rant about how inaccessible the museums are in Toronto, and have that rant not only be discussed by their board of directors, but be reported in the local newspaper as something important. Having a whole lot of people, even people I don't know, who don't know me, contribute to that list of YA books about people with disabilities.
Those things, those things that are actually about us, about our lives, about our experiences, are really amazing and actually empowering to be a part of. They've given me the self-confidence to write more, to question more, to ask for more, and to admit when I'm wrong.
Glee just makes me feel very very sad, and very very tired.
If you want to talk about the episode with me, don't hesitate to drop comments.
There was a stage where Glee was just irritating but with some awesome. I still love Mercedes and Kurt, and there have been a few songs that I've really enjoyed their version of. (I really liked the boys' mash-up in "Vitamin D", for example.)
But, I think there are two things that sum up what I think it really wrong with Glee.
First, and I don't think this is a spoiler:
Defying Gravity is a duet.
Second:
Three people faked having disabilities in this episode. (Well, I guess four if you count Kevin McHale, but let's put that argument aside for a moment.)
Tina's been faking her stutter all along, in order to get out of having to give a speech in the sixth grade.
People with stutters are routinely mocked and yelled at, told to get over it, and basically the subject of ridicule. And yes - people do think stutters are faking it for attention. But Glee, that "diversity" show, has presented stuttering as something that will get you left alone, and something easy to fake. For years.
This is the show that's supposed to make people with disabilities feel empowered.
You know what really makes me feel empowered? Having a really vibrant community of people with disabilities that I've met through the internet and off-line. Having people who love and trust me enough to call me out on shit when I say something ignorant or thoughtless about disability. Having people who respect my work enough to read it and give constructive feedback. Having women with disabilities being willing to share their varied sexual experiences and expressions on a public blog that I'm a part of. Having a lot of people I've known over the past few years tell me how much they appreciate my posts about disability and how they've really thought about the stuff I've done. Having
sabotabby write a rant about how inaccessible the museums are in Toronto, and have that rant not only be discussed by their board of directors, but be reported in the local newspaper as something important. Having a whole lot of people, even people I don't know, who don't know me, contribute to that list of YA books about people with disabilities.Those things, those things that are actually about us, about our lives, about our experiences, are really amazing and actually empowering to be a part of. They've given me the self-confidence to write more, to question more, to ask for more, and to admit when I'm wrong.
Glee just makes me feel very very sad, and very very tired.
If you want to talk about the episode with me, don't hesitate to drop comments.
![[identity profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD:
I have yet to watch this week's episode and hearing this does not make it any easier to gear myself up for the onslaught of fail!
This, x1000. This episode wasn't about "empowering" people with disabilities, it was about a very special learning experience for able bodied folks. So, they can have that, and this show, I guess, if they want.
I'm just going to stay over here and *actually* get empowered.
...I hadn't realised this was the "reason" for it. Um.
I have very many rather unfond memories of standing up in front of the class and stuttering my arse off giving presentations, because I did not get excused from any of them on account of stuttering. True, I didn't ask, but I really doubt my teachers would have allowed it. I *was* granted more time, but that was it.
Sure, other schools may be different, but I really doubt that many of them will just say "okay, you don't have to do this" to a stuttering student (particularly if they start stuttering just before the presentation, and I'd think that teachers would know developmental stuttering almost always develops between the ages of two and five or so, but - oh, right, I'm bringing *facts* into this. Mea culpa.) The way Glee presented this really ties in with the whole "disabled people are given special treatment!" thing that we also see in the whole job application scene.
I didn't think this plotline could get even more faily, but they are honestly heading for critical mass here!
::terrorist fistbump::
Between the faking disabilities and the terrible wheelchair choreography and Sue's sister (so see, she CAN'T be a bigot!) and Rachel's entitlement and Kurt INTENTIONALLY blowing the high note so the solo could go to the pretty straight white lead...
Just ugh.
They've presented him since day 1 as being mocked for being gay, even though he didn't come out of the closet until episode 3 (or was it 5)? When he confesses to his father, his father's like "I knew."
And yet, that was the first phone call his father got about his son? Really? The whole town apparently knows, but now it's a big deal, just because Kurt wants to sing a "white girl" song? (Mercedes, of course, gets to be one of the three soloists on a Tina Turner song. How nice. Because we'll let all the minorities sing together.)
The whole Kurt subplot made no sense after previous events in the show. It was just so they could have their Very Special Moment, and not so they could do anything with it.
ALL the minority characters on Glee are pushed to the side and made into caricatures rather than being fully-realised characters in their own right (and that they're side characters is no excuse, damn it) and it's never more obvious than during the Very Special Episodes. The whole show just makes me sad. And the general fandom makes me want to throw things.
Basically, Bobby was feeling sad and useless now that he was a wheelchair user, and he got himself in trouble with a witch who ran a poker game where you can bet years of your life in order to get favors from him, or something. And Bobby lost a bunch of years off his life trying to be able to walk again. So of course Sam and Dean had to come in and save him, with Dean trying to win Bobby's lost years back and losing like 50 of his own, and there were a lot of jokes about Dean being an old man until Sam won both of their lost years back in A VERY DRAMATIC POKER GAME OMG. It was a pretty typical Supernatural plot in that regard.
The specific part that I think people are trying to shield you from was that Bobby was so upset that he didn't want Sam and Dean to help him at first, and basically said a bunch of stuff about how he wasn't a hunter anymore and didn't think life was worth living now that he was disabled. At the end of the episode Dean sat down with him and basically said, "look, Bobby, you are the only family we have left so you are not allowed to give up, and also just because a soldier is wounded he doesn't stop being a soldier, so you are still a hunter even if you don't feel like one." Which was probably the right thing to say to Bobby at that moment, but not exactly breaking any new ground for portrayals of disability on TV, you know? (It would have been nice if we had seen them backing that up with, you know, actual accommodations instead of platitudes, but whatever, it's Supernatural.) It wasn't exactly "able-bodied person fixes all of disabled person's problems with a nice speech," because it didn't go into "all Bobby needs is an attitude adjustment!" territory, but yeah, it butted right up against that particular cliche.
Of course, this is just my interpretation and others probably saw it differently, yadda yadda.
What I don't understand is why we can spend 3 episodes farting around in meta-humor territory and not get a happy uplifting "Bobby's hunter friends help him to hunt again with an awesome wheelchair and an accessible house," which I totally agree would be brilliant. Meh.
I spent an hour yesterday trying to track down email addresses for the producers, because I felt they should get a crapload of slaps upside the head for "Wheels" (though I admit I stopped watching shortly after Mr. Schuster tied Artie's shoelaces), and finally gave up. I'd still like to write to them, though, because seriously? SERIOUSLY?
Anyway. Glad to find your account! I look forward to reading more things!