Ladies, let’s start this ship a-sailing with a fuel tank of real talk: Brittany had some fucked-up lines this episode and everybody has a lot of feelings about them.
If you missed the episode, here’s the context of the first scene containing bits of the weird meta-commentary unleashed upon us by a gaggle of gay men who are jealous of how ridiculously awesome we are: Brittany has just eaten a trail of Cheerios right off the sweet sweet diseased floorways of McKinley High School’s Hallowed Hallways and said trail lead her to the open arms of Sam and his lips and his Backstreet Boys haircut and the whole deal. He likes her, she likes him, they sing a stupid song, and then Sam tries to kiss Brittany but Brittany turns away.
get a little closer so i can mooch some of your chapstick
Brittany explains her rebuke:
Brittany: “I just like you too much to put you in danger.”
Sam: “Santana broke up with you.”
Brittany: “No, it’s not just Santana. It’s like, all the lesbians of the nation, and I don’t know how they found out about Santana and I dating, but once they did they started sending me, like, tweets and Facebook messages on Lord Tubbington’s wall. I think it means a lot to them to see two super-hot, popular girls in love and I worry that if they find out about you and I dating, they’ll turn on you and get really violent and hurt your beautiful face and mouth.”
“The lesbians of the nation”?
The next Brittany/Sam scene in question happens mid-episode, when Brittany approaches Sam to ask him on a date to the VIP Booth at Breadstix, where every day is Unlimited Pasta Bowl Day.
alternately, we could make a pretty penny on the las vegas strip club circuit
Sam’s wondering why Brittany’s changed her mind about pursuing their interest in each other:
Brittany: “Yeah, well, I was thinking about what Finn said about last chances…”
Sam: “Mm-hmm..”
Brittany: “…and how everyone’s joining all these clubs because they don’t wanna miss out and the truth is that every since Santana left, you’re the only person that makes me smile.”
Sam: “I am pretty nonstop hilarious.”
Brittany: “You make me happy, Sam. And I don’t want to waste any more time not smiling at your hilariousness.”
Sam: “What about the lesbian blogger community?”
Brittany: “They’re not gonna like it, but the way I figure is that they know they’re my sisters and love is love.”
dirty sluts
“The lesbian blogger community”?
haaay!!
I admit I was surprised that Ryan Murphy reads AfterEllen, but then realized he’s probably confusing blogging with twitter, which’s where his staff partake in most of their horrendous fan “conversations” which generally devolve into a Glee writer dumping a pile of shit on a bunch of lesbians and then going out for lunch at The Ivy. After the episode, I caught some chatter about The Lesbian Blogging Community on twitter and tumblr and then went to bed and woke up the next day and kinda forgot about it until I was done writing about Mormons and having a three-hour consult with accountants regarding how many bunnies we’ll be offering as sacrifice to the IRS this year and then it was Friday night and ladies – LADIES !!!
preach
Fuck that Ryan Murphy guy! Whatever, dude! We’re like the awesomest people on the entire internet. Everybody thinks we’re hysterical, the rest of the web is always dying to hear what we think, and basically, if the internet were McKinley High, we’d be The Unholy Trinity Season One. All the straight white cisgender geniuses of the internet battle over who can link to us more often, and all the list-makers fret over whether it’s okay to make a Power 100 or Top 100 Feminist Blogs that consists entirely of us, the queer-lady blogging community. And the reason each Lesbian Blog employs at least 100 Lesbian Bloggers is because there are a billion lesbian television characters begging to be written about, because we’re just that popular. In fact, we’re so cool that you’ve gotta mock us on your stupid musical show about a silly club led by six feet of Potatoes Au Gratin sealed in Saran Wrap with a head made out of a tampon box.
Meanwhile, we’re just over here being awesome and smart and right about everything and the thing is that much like David Simon, the television producer targeted for backhanded meta-commentary in two Ryan Murphy shows earlier this season, you wouldn’t mock us if we didn’t make you uncomfortable by being awesomer than you.
For example, here’s your team:
And here’s my team:
see how awesome we are
What we’re dealing with here is just classic denial. Much like a certain something on Season Three of The Real L Word, it seems the Glee producers would rather write off our complaints as the irrelevant cries of hypocritical biphobic lesbians — a cleverly deceptive double-whammy — than take responsibility for the actual problem, which’s that they suck. Although I do hate men, Sam’s maleness is not why these scenes harsh our mellow — honestly, I actually find Brittany/Sam more plausible than Brittany/Santana ’cause Brittany’s profoundly stupid and Santana would be happier with a girlfriend who knows the difference between a pizza topping and her own nipples. Brittany and Sam make sense together.
It harshes my mellow — and the mellow of many lesbian, bisexual and/or queer ladies — because it’s a pointedly obnoxious double-standard that there were 44 entire episodes between Brittana revealing their sexual relationship and them actually kissing onscreen and there were approximately 44 seconds between Brittany and Sam revealing their feelings for each other and actually kissing onscreen. I cared about the Brittana storyline because that was the only context in which Glee allowed us to see a queer female story develop, and no new queer female characters have been introduced, despite adding two more pointless straight white girls to the cast, and thus far it doesn’t seem like anybody’s gonna build a Santana’s Dorm Room set this season.
Here’s the thing: we’re right and if we weren’t right then Team Glee wouldn’t be re-asserting themselves all over us every chance they got. We’re literally correct, entirely rational, observant and passionate. By “we” I mean lesbian, bisexual, queer, pansexual women, not just lesbians. It’s easy to write off our wrath, but our wrath is exactly as overblown as our love. We boil hard but we love hard, too, we can become a thing’s best girlfriend ever and we’ll sing its praises from the highest mountaintops like dancing squawking birds. For example: look how much our blogging community loves our blogging community. That guy just has a big lesbian crush on us.
I have another four paragraphs about the show’s quality decline that I’ve cut to spare you the pain, but in short: I really do enjoy the singing & dancing, and I’ll watch the show for that, but I sort of ended up recapping it by default (We burned through three recappers before it landed on my plate) and didn’t begin caring passionately about the show ’til the gay stuff happened and Santana came out and she was me and I loved loved loved all that stuff. Also, Blame It On The Alcohol is a cinematic masterpiece. It was super-fun and good for a while, and broke a lot of ground! But then I Kissed a Girl happened, and it just started sucking more and more and as of right now, the inconsistencies make the show pointless for me, it’s just hard to invest anymore. But I try to be objective when I recap. Anyhow! You wanna talk about what happened, yeah? Alright, let’s talk about what the fuck happened.
We open where we left off at Sectionals, with Sad Semi-Conscious Marley-Kate being carted off-stage post-fainting-spell in a woozy fever dream, trailed by her panicked peers, some of whom immediately disburse to locate juice boxes and Marley-Kate’s mother and some of whom stand around looking stressed out.
pass the cough syrup
New Puck informs a very-concerned Mr. Schuster that Sad Marley-Kate’s been skipping all the meals except for Afternoon Tic-Tac Tea and Santana Lopez calls Fake Quinn a “crazy bitch” for trying to make Sad Marley-Kate “rexy,” and Finn kinda stands there like an idiot with his eyes bugged out, much like his lifelong hero, Mr.Potato Head.
look watching “gangham style” was hard for everybody, marley, but you didn’t see any of the rest of us fainting in horror
Mr. Schuster commands his former charges to return to the stage, lest they risk disqualification for skipping out mid-performance, but then Sue Sylvester bursts in to burst everybody’s collective bubble: the disqualification has already happened, and the Sectionals Win has gone to The Warblers. Womp-womp.
really good acting happening in this photograph
We thus travel forlornly along a cross-country path surely treaded by our weary anscestors carrying unleavened bread on their backs and babies in their fanny packs to New York City, where Kurt and The New Rachel are discussing the New Directions Loss while moving various objects from one area of the Barbie Dreamhouse Bushwick Loft to another.
please sir, i want some more
Kurt’s yammering about how you only get one chance at life and therefore he’s gotta ace his second chance at getting into Fake Julliard, but then conversation quickly turns to the matter of the Fake Julliard Winter Showcase, for which Guinan Goldberg distributes “golden tickets” to her very best students. The New Rachel’s not expecting an invite ’cause only one freshman’s ever gotten one, ever, and said then-freshman was “raised on the Broadway stage,” not unlike one very special Lea Michele.
Dear Diary, today I fashioned myself fifteen new turbans from discarded bedskirts
Kurt puts on some opera and delivers some exposition:
Kurt: “The Winter Showcase is like the NYADA Met Ball. Ten students are invited to perform at the showcase a year. The cream of the cream. She handwrites and hand-delivers each invitation. Just getting invited is an honor, former performers have gone on to win Tonys, Emmys, even an Oscar. But they all agree. The proudest and greatest moment of their careers is when Carmen handed them that Golden Envelope.”
We then segue, accompanied by The Dramatic Opera Soundtrack, to The New Rachel’s dance class…
Rachel berry, you are still in the running to becoming america’s next top model
…where Whoopi Goldberg presents The New Rachel with an invitation to The Winter Showcase!
It’s a rewarding moment for The New Rachel, a big moment because this is it, finally, the confirmation that she’s precisely as exceptional as she’s always considered herself to be, that all the Lima Dreams weren’t for naught, that she’s here for a reason and on her way somewhere. And that’s pretty cool.
as if carmen tibadoux is a calligraphy master
Cut back to the sweet valleys of Lima, Ohio, where Sue Sylvester is reclaiming the Glee Room for her new project “Sue du Soleil,” much to the chagrin of our favorite Kentucky Fried Chicken side-dish, Finn Hudson.
holy shit i love Cirque D’Soleil
Finn wrestles Sue for the trophy, a match which transitions quickly to the Principal’s Office!
game of thrones and cheap trophies
Mr. Schuster, suspiciously present, joins Finn and Sue for this groundbreaking meeting about budget cuts. Apparently the entire school’s been rented out to the meetings of various special interest groups, leaving the thwarted Glee Club with nowhere to rehearse, much to Sue’s delight.
hearing about Sex & Love Addicts Anonymous for the first time
Sue: “Got to be honest, Becky. I have looked forward to this very moment for a long time. Now that it’s finally here, I’m left with a strange, empty feeling.”
Becky: “That’s how I felt when I saw Prometheus.”
come on, boone, come on little bear, stand up!
Sue wonders what’ll become of Glee’s sad sacks, fantasising the following –
Tina: “I’m a drug mule in the Lima crack district.”
Artie: “I was forced to sell my legs for science.”
Blaine: “I’m performing on the bathhouse circuit.”
Brittany: “I’m a finance major at Brandeis. It turns out Glee Club was really holding me back.”
Har.
and that’s how they became the shady bunch
Cut back to the Glee Club Room, where a man-child in a sweater vest and a lifesized knish are attempting to raise the spirits of their dejected Glee Clubbers.
this is a picture of two white guys standing in a room
Tina unleashes a mini-torrent of rage upon Sad Marley-Kate, who Tina points out is “no Rachel Berry,” which’s true, and also Tina stole her dress from Amelia Bedilia and nobody wants to talk about it.
listen up guys, i need you to throw it to smash
Finn reminds them there’s still the holiday show to look forward to, and his insolent charges, likely remembering last year’s strange psychotropic christmas disaster, find no comfort in this news.
Finn: “If this is our swan song, let’s make it the best it can be.”
I hope this means they’ll be doing “All I Want For Chistimas” again.
Following a delightful commercial break, we return to McKinley High for the Brittany/Sam scene we mentioned briefly earlier. Brittany begins licking Cheerios and, let’s be real, Hepatitis, from the soiled floors of McKinley High.
mmmm tastes like bacteria
The trail leads straight to Sam Evans, clutching a glass of milk in his manly man-hand.
Sam: “I think the reason why Santana was always picking on me was because some part of her knew the truth.”
Brittany: “About Area 51?
Sam: “About that I’m totally into you. You’re, uh, the only person who really understands me.”
Um… Sam was dating Mercedes last season and Santana picks on everybody and also, Sam and Santana dated once, but whatever, it’s Glee, let’s sing an annoying song!
heeee heeee we like to dress up in black latex and stroke each other with corn cobs
Following their insufferable musical number is the conversation we already discussed in the intro, so there’s no need to re-hash again, yes? Certainly. Let’s move on.
Over the river and through the interstate highways to Fake Julliard we go, where Rachel and Kate Hudson are facing off regarding Rachel’s dancing skills or lack thereof, ’cause obvi Kate Hudson’s super-jealous of Rachel’s Golden Ticket.
whaddya say we take off our shirts and rub our breasts together
Thus we launch with great fervor into an appropriately sexed “All That Jazz” (from Chicago, duh) dance-off!
Kate Hudson demonstrates her superior dancing skills and Lea Michele demonstrates her superior singing skills while also wearing a bra that totally reminds me of Miss August 2011. Then Kate Hudson has sex with the window treatments and Rachel turns into a bird and flies away into the great blue beyond filled with starshine and strawberries.
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What an absolutely perfect response to this double standard BS Riese. It completely made my night. <3
thank you <3
Agreed. *Resounding applause all around*
Bram does make more sense than Brittana, IF THE SHOW WAS EVER WRITTEN WITH A CONSISTENCY PAST EPISODE 13. FUCK YOU, MURPHY.
Funny, I’ve been anticipating this post much more enthusiastically than the actual episode itself.
And, totally all my feels right there.
It’s not Sam, it’s you, Ryan Murphy & Co. and all your double standard BS.
I actually laughed so hard during the lesbian bloggers bit, because all I could think was ‘Riese is going to have something to say about THIS!’
i had a dream that the angle of death comes to me and asks me a last wish.
i say-“let ryan murphy introduce a genuine,strong and awesome female gay couple and a strong hetro girl who isnt led by her bf in Glee”
the angle scratched his head and said-“you can live child coz thats gonna take another million years”
was the angle a right one?
also i wanted to point that RM talks about bisexuality? like does he really care about any sexuality of women?
bi women also hav girlfriends and not just guy favoring. and hello RM men are also bisexuals, bet if you can show some kurt’s bf turning to an awesome woman. how many lesbian or just girl couples can you find on television Ryan? just count and tell and if some die hard fan complained why you broke a good female couple and you had np answe for your lesbian hate so you turn the table on them instead!
so now Glee has man-woman, man-man but np woman-woman. and you talk about equality. its like India, where i live ppl think lesbians just dont exist. its okay if ur a gay boy but not if ur a gay girl????
i dont think it funny thatva sexual orientation was targeted as psycho bitches coz thats why i hear all time about myself.
feeling really low now.
hey j, I made a comment just above that could have come across a bit snarky – if it did I’m sorry, I was making a pun out of a spelling mistake in your post, not realising that you might not be a native English speaker.
I’m sorry things are so rough in India. Don’t let a silly show like Glee get you down, it’s not worth it. We’ve got your back and know whatever hateful words you’re hearing about yourself aren’t true.
Sam: “What about the lesbian blogger community?”
Brittany: “They’re not gonna like it, but the way I figure is that they know they’re my sisters and love is love.”
um no, pretty sure we’re just giving your writers the finger and hoping that the pain will end soon.
sorry if any felt bad coz am in a ugly mood with all anti-female homosexuality right now. I feel like living in dark ages. men can do anything but not women coz they are so weak that they only look good with a guy..
not against man-woman as that stupid white guy is trying to make me look but against unjust alligation, and being called a psycho just coz am a gay woman!
i dont get this?
what did u actually meant by “right one”
plz dont say that autsyraddle is also team ryan and think that his thoughts about lesbians being psycho male killers is okay coz thats gonna break my heart.
am not psycho. i wanna see lesbian visibility. is that a bad thing?
hey j, you typed the word ‘angel’ as ‘angle’ (as in, the geometric figure). when I asked you if it was a ‘right’ one, the colloquial term for a ninety degree angle, I was trying to make a joke how your angel had been right that it’d be a million years until we saw a strong lesbian relationship on glee. complicated I know.
I promise, I wasn’t trying to imply you were a psycho or anything of the sort! I just like playing around with words. I’m going to bed now because it’s past midnight where I am, so I hope that makes things clearer for you.
no am sorry
actually am really really depressed coz i turn to ur american channles thinking that u are more open minded then us since obama win but then this thing happen. you know glee and new normal and modern family are only shows availabpe in india. pretty little liars and ellen shows were cancelled and right now i hav bigg boss 6 with open bisexual man called imaam but last night one single queer thing happened bet two girls and the net was filled with comments like-
Psycho lesbians go back and u just need a right guy.
i was already upset and then this and also my own stupid homophpbic faimy.
SORRY IF I ACT STUPUD. may be i am stupid to react on a show but it hurts it really does hurt whn ur called psychp lesbian qgain and again.
sorry.
i want to mail ryan murphy a full length movie-poster screen shot of the your team vs. my team section of this post signed by all of us.
Basically.
YES!
I actually assumed they were talking about Tumblr, where the #glee tag is filled with things like “OMG FUCK YOU RYAN MURPHY IF BLAINE EVER LOVES ANYONE ELSE I WILL BOYCOTT YOUR SHOW” or “if Brittany has a crush it’s actually because Ryan hates lesbians.”
Personally, I didn’t think the META was the part that was problematic. Brittany has always been portrayed as bisexual or just non-labeled; she dated boys before Santana, during dating Santana, and now she’s dating boys again (and it wasn’t ever established that she wasn’t really into it, like Santana). So what if she dates Sam? I HATED the erasure of Willow’s sexual history with Oz on Buffy, and if you think Marti Noxon didn’t have some say in this, you’re …wrong?
It actually bothers me a lot as someone who is pansexual/bisexual when people get into a furor over someone dating someone of another gender on TV than their OTP because it’s “too mainstream” or “selling out”. Well thanks, welcome to biphobic rhetoric 101. The most biphobia I’ve ever FACED has been from queer people and it’s pretty upsetting to hear it again around shows I …hate/love.
But, the lack of other queer girls and the total lack of setup for Sam and Brittany does bother me. I’m not bothered by the idea that a girl who once dated a girl is dating a guy. I’m bothered by the fact that I don’t believe the relationship.
see sweetheart ur taking this as biophobia again which is what they wanted whn they made this episode. its not about boy-girl its about saying to a sexualitu that they are psycho male haters who will KILL a guy! really how many lesbians have killed how many men?
and you talk about lesbian ranting then how about-YOU CRAZY DYKE GO AND DIE sounds to you. problem is i did not say anything to ryan on any tumblr or whatever yet he talked about ALL lesbians including me.
sorry but its sound ugly to say that lesbians are killers, coz am not. just wanting to see a lesbian couple does not equal to hate for bisexuals or men.
if u are buying this white guy then i cant say anything but you sound like its okay to call ALL LESBIANS ARE PSYCHO KILLERS .
how nice if BRITTANY WAS FEELING LONELY AND SAM HAD COMFORTED HER AND THEN THEIR RELATIONSHIP HAD SATRATED. it would hav felt much better then those rantings.
but if like ryan you people also think that lesbians are all psycos then WRLCOME TO INDIA…
also this yeah, for a programme that is hailed as being so progressive to hark back to the old “psycho lesbian” trope – http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PsychoLesbian – is disgusting and makes plain RM’s disdain for lesbians.
although I would say that Sam did comfort Brittany in earlier episodes.
did you read the article though? the problem isn’t that Brittany is dating Sam, not directly anyway, it’s that we wait so long for the only lesbian relationship this show has had and then it’s over, we see nothing else like this with Santana and with so hardly any build up Brittany is dating another man. It’s also that we’re being mocked for wanting to be able to see relationships like ours on tv, and it’s being said that we are unreasonable for expecting this from a show that sells itself as being for those who don’t fit the societal norm, a show that they can see themselves in.
Yes, exactly, this is the thing. This show never gave the lesbian couple or the lesbian fans the respect they deserved. The writers and show runners have distinctively lacked tact and education when responding to our concerns, but now including it on the actual show as “hilarious” meta commentary is crossing a line.
I’m done with glee. I’m free
RUN LIKE THE WIND, GRASSHOPPER
sorry folks.
sorry if i sounded like old hystirical dyke. its not about you you know I LOVE AUTOSTRADDLE. and RM I LOVE ALL MY BI/PAN/STRAIGHT SISTERS COZ THEY ARE MY SISTERS NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU OR ANYBODY TRY TO TELL I HATE THEM.
Plz all my fellow bisexual ladies this is not about you this is coz my lesbian heart is broken and then laughed at. this is bcoz some white man trying to say that again that lesbians are penis envy and so they hate man-woman relationship.
what i got from brittneys line is simple old myth that lesbians will kill you sam. Really?
how can i kill him? and why?
he is a mature guy and if some heart broken silly teen lesbian posted something he should have laughed at that but instead he make those horrible lines to “all” lesbians.
i know that biphobia is there and it is ugly and we as people who know how being judged at should never to that to other people but the way Ryan did will i think puzzle the matters more then solving it. what we need is understanding for eachother and no bashing.
a lesbian needs to understand a bi and vice versa. we are all community and plz we should not break bcoz x some cheap publicity seeking dude abused the gay v/s bi thing for his own profits.
i am again saying that gut doesnt care about ant sexuality of women but only about his show.
sad.very sad. i thought it only happens in underdeveloping nations. its 2012 and we still say stupid things like -lesbians are man-haters, gay men are child-abusers and bi or pan doesnt exist.
wow progress.
thnx for that link ash.
sorry people here if i exploded. i love you. you atleast are there to give me hope. wish i could meet you in real so have a good community support but am seven seas far. still atleast you have rights and you have freedom that give me satisfaction. just sonetimes think about your sisters to far away lands who never get to express and fully live their lives as anybody either satraight/gay/bi/queer. or no label and think how previliged you are compared to them so plez instead of bashing love each other. for us atleast coz it makes me sad when my community is bad with eachother for silly misunderstandings created by wrong peaples.
i love you all
As annoying as the whole Brittany thing is (more than annoying, actually. I think Brittany/Sam could be cute, but the commentary was absolutely unnecessary), I was happy to see so much Kurt/Rachel this episode. I loved that we got to hear them both actually sing on their own and blow all the new characters out of the water. Anyway, I hope that is a continuing trend. Also I hope Burt Hummel makes some appearances soon because he is great.
Thanks Riese for those first paragraphs regarding Ryan Murphcifer. Perfect response. I mean, he can point and shame all he wants but LIKE I would want to be on his side. Never.
I actually really liked this episode, except for the whole angry lesbian bloggers bs which just had me rolling my eyes. I loved most of the musical numbers and the NY storyline even though it’s unrealistic and over the top but hey it’s Glee. Looking forward to the Klaine reunion next week. Great recap as always Riese!
What annoyed me about the lesbian blogging community line was that it was sort of a cop out for addressing something that is very real. I would have thought it was so much more admirable to address really feelings Brittany might have had about going from dating a woman to dating a men. For someone who’s 18 that can actually be really complicated. Instead of having her say some stupid throwaway line about drawing heat from the Lesbian Blogging Community she could have talked about how this might actually be complicated to explain to hr friends/family. Or even if she was scared of feeling ostracized from some imaginary lesbians friends she and Santana had. Or from her slew of actual gay friends. Or being worried that Santana would think she never loved her in the first place. Or I don’t know any one of the real issues she might go through.
Although I agree that Sam and Brittany make more sense than Santana and Brittarny. I hope this means we get to see Santana with that hot chick from the library.
I agree, but it’s seems much more likely to me (going from the show’s track record) that we won’t see Santana with anyone.
and if we do, it DEFINITELY won’t be another woman of color.
this is a really good point
Santana needs to move to NYC and somehow become enrolled at NYADA and join Cassie July’s dance class. I’m just sayin’…
And then trade barbs with Kate Hudson. YES
As a goodbye to this show I’d like to devote Dylan’s “Idiot Wind” to Ryan Murphy and his crew.
I was shocked and honestly amused by the “lesbians of the nation” stuff, because to me, it felt true — I am an Old, so I remember when lesbian Xena fans back on Ye Olde Usenet poured *gallons* of haterade on Joxer because he had a crush on Gabrielle, even though it was pretty obvious that while homophobia was keeping Xena/Gabby from ever becoming on-screen official, their love was more obvious and real and true than the puppy-crush they were giving this comic relief character. Nerd-rage: it’s real. And as a bisexual, the “lesbian blogging community” stuff reminded me of the few but memorable times when I’ve seen lesbians act like bisexuals sleeping with men is “sleeping with the enemy,” and it stings more than hetero biphobia, because I expect fellow queers to Get It. (I also agree with whoever said that the meta-commentary was probably aimed more at Tumblr and Twitter than AS.)
That said, I really liked Lizz’s comment that said that instead of making a joke, they could have done something a lot more meaningful, and that’s a really good point. I also get that, as rage-y and not-so-nuanced and passionate that Tumblr and Twitter can get, people here are right that the Psycho Lesbian is a pernicious stereotype to play into, even as (what I think was affectionate) meta-ribbing. And, like other people here said, it’s definitely punching down instead of up. It’s ignoring visibility issues and power. So. Yeah. More queer girls on screen, Glee!
i don’t think anybody is denying that biphobia exists in the lesbian community and that in the past many fan reactions to opposite-sex couplings have been rooted in biphobia — i mean, that’s so true that i didn’t even feel i had to mention it, i assumed we were all aware of that already. but, as I wrote about this extensively during TRLW this summer, by shows labeling stuff like our reaction to a bisexual woman dating a man as “biphobic” instead of “an aversion to shitty lazy writing,” they do a grave disservice to the ACTUAL biphobia that happens in the lesbian community while giving themselves a ticket out of addressing genuine criticism. also i feel like the targeting of the “lesbian blogging community” is itself a kind of erasure – um, bisexual women wanna see girl-on-girl romance too!!
So I was talking this weekend to a friend who has a 14 year old daughter that idolizes my wife and I. Our friend let us know that her daughter has a crush on and is just starting to date another girl at her school. She’s young and hugely sensitive, and I can’t help but think about what this show could be for her, if it treated lesbian story lines with any serious thought at all.
The fact that the writers don’t think about that sort of thing when they’re writing this stuff – that they’re so caught up in their own drama with that they forget how much influence they have and how they could make things better not just for teen boys but for teen girls, too.
But they don’t. They aren’t interested, it seems to me. And that sucks.
Wow. Perfect recap/review is perfect. As a bisexual Latina I was in love with their storyline because I loved seeing different vulnerable parts of my and my friends’ stories through theirs. I watched Glee ONLY because of it. And now…pff. None of the hetero-relationships ever came close to Santana’s coming-out scene when it comes to realtalk or serious teen issues. Even Quinn’s pregnancy (btw where the fuck did THAT go? Didn’t she want the baby back? Ugh RM UGH) was a big joke.
I think we’ll look back at Glee in LGBT media history like we look at shows like Xena or Buffy or the L Word, like you all mentioned: as stepping stones to something actually legit and non-shitty.
My (straight) friend was telling me how hilarious this episode was, quoting the whole “lesbian blogging community” thing as just super funny. And I couldn’t explain at the time why it made me so angry, but now I think I’ve finally figured it out – it’s because yes, there are absolutely girls on the internet who care intensely about Santana and Brittany’s relationship.
Like others have said, I think this refers less to AS and AfterEllen and more to twitter and tumblr. And the girls on twitter and tumblr who care a lot about the relationship generally (big generalization here) are teenagers who don’t look at the relationship in terms of “visibility” or “progress,” they look at it and they relate. These are girls who were seeing people like them on the TV (maybe for the first time) and were also going through the challenges of discovering their sexuality in an unfriendly environment, and who could watch Glee and see that they weren’t alone. Which is what TV shows are trying to do – make their characters relatable.
And then for Ryan Murphy to just shit on that, by turning the people on twitter and tumblr who loved and related to the Brittana relationship into some militant band of murderous crazies is so arrogant and insulting that it actually makes me angry.
I have yet to see the entire episode. I flipped it off after the second meta-bashing in the hallway.
I was just sitting there. Eating my cereal. And that conversation happened. And I looked at the TV Screen and then back at my cereal and back at the remote and switched to a DVR’d episode of Homeland.
I was so… off put. So offended. I couldn’t even enjoy their relationship and I would have! I’m queer, fluid (bi whatever) specifically, so I invested interest in Brittany.
And I was actually rooting for her and Sam. I love LOVE LOVE inLOVe with Santana. Hardcore. And always thought her and Brittany were awesome as bffls, not so awesome as romantic interests. I want Sanatana to be with an awesomely cool chick somewhere in NYC or even Kentucky. She should move in with Kurt and Rachel. Umm, how awesome would that be? Mmmkay.
And I wanted Brit to be happy post-Santana and Sam MADE SENSE. I enjoy Sam as a character. He kind of reminds me of an ex of mind. I didn’t need some insulting meta lecture to tell me their rude reasons. I didn’t need to be told to appreciate “two super hot chicks getting together” or that “love is love.” Bitch ass emmer effing Murphy, I know that!!!
I’m pretty logical. And if things make sense, they make sense. Brit and Same made sense. What didn’t make sense is the dismissive way in which the lesbian storyline was depicted compared to the gay male and hetero ones.
At the end of the day it comes down to Ryan Murphy is an ass who hates vagina and writes his OWN story. And… that is valid. He’s writing what he knows. I guess it’s my fault for becoming invested in a story created by someone with astonishingly insular views on female characters AND queer female characters.
Geesh.
I really agree with Lizz but just generally, did anyone else find it just a little bit of twisted progress that Ryan Murphy and the Debris Club even acknowledged that “lesbians bloggers” (whoever the fuck they are talking about) matter? Like, they could have completely skipped all of that, never mentioned us (again, whoever we are, we just know we are violent and kinda stalker-y) at all. Especially for a show like Glee which panders to straight audiences (and Christian, I mean, I love “O Holy Night” like nobody’s grandma and Rachel nails it– worst pun ever, sorry yall– but really? Yeah, lots of Jewish folks like Christmas songs but– at The Most Special Ever OMGs Everywhere School Recital? Really? Well, it will get them sacks of Santa’s iTunes sales).
So, yeah, I snorted more than got angry and then laughed that it was such a cheap low potshot– but took a little glee (maybe that’s the worst pun ever) that his poor little masculinity was threatened by “violent lesbians” that he even needed to address them on the show at all rather than just dismiss them in some commentary if anything. To me, it isn’t equatable to The L Word which was very specifically about lesbians (or said it was). This is a show that has (had– so long, Santana, we hardly knew ye) lesbian characters and liked to pat itself on the back for being so progressive (and, in some ways, it is) but was never a show that ever wanted to really deal with any lesbian or queer or trans issues at all. (Umm, teen suicide anyone?)
So, yeah, it kinda made me laugh that this is a weird sort of twisted progress that Ryan Slurpy even thought it was relevant to the show to make fucked-up petty comments about really genuine critiques by lesbians and queer women (and our allies) rather than just forget that Santana and Brittany’s storyline existed and that it was really important to a lot of people and still is, despite his whining.
Fuck you Ryan Murphy, for sure. But hey, thanks for the shout-out!
the thing that is most irritating about that lesbian bloggers line is that while queer women are used to seeing queer women onscreen choose men, and there is therefore a range of reaction to that phenomenon, the culture in general doesn’t even believe in the existence of male bisexuality (hello, blaine). Right now, oddly, there’s a storyline on coronation street (terrible uk soap!) in which a gay man is finding himself in love with a woman, and the gay men of youtube comment land are FURIOUS and describe it as “going back into the closet” rather than “figuring out his bisexuality.” So basically this was a hypocritical piece of lezbians-are-so-ANGRY sexist stereotyping. thanks ryan murphy!
Ryan Murphy handled this entire episode so badly. He constantly makes a joke about lesbians being on the show, and while it is great to have mainstream representation it is super offensive to be treated as an epic LOL.
Well…at least someone still reads afterellen.
Heather Hogan and Dorothy Snarker. That is all (no really, that is all).
but you know what really bugs me? the spelling of Carmen’s last name. any Louisianian knows, it’s THIBODEAUX, not Tibideaux!
sheesh, don’t y’all Yankees know how to spell?
Sadly, they don’t teach spelling in Yankee Condescension Toward Southerners 101.
I may or may not get myself flamed for this, but I thought the “lesbian bloggers” commentary was amusing, in an OH NO THEY DIDN’T kind of way. I have spent probably way too much time for someone my age in Glee fandom on tumblr, and the hardcore Brittana shippers (as in, people for whom Brittana is “endgame” and who will not accept any other partner for either character) can be somewhat overly zealous. To put it nicely. There are people who went so far as to call pairing Brittany with Sam “homophobic.” (Which is ridiculous, because Brittany is bisexual. Ahem.) These are the type of people that tweet incessantly at the writers, and whose opinions the writers are likely most exposed to. I’m not excusing all the shitty stuff that has happened on this show w/r/t Brittana and Santana and women in general, but the “lesbian bloggers” thing was funny to me because I took it to be a jab at the most, um, zealous members of the Brittana/Glee fandom. I’m willing to let the season play out and see what happens.
Also, I have liked Brittany and Sam together ever since that kiss in Blame It On The Alcohol. And they’re both a little ditzy and goofy, so they work together.
Moving on though, can we please talk about the completely inappropriate teacher/student relationship between Rachel and Cassie, and how I’m not complaining about it AT ALL because you could cut the sexual tension with a knife? Yeah, that’s fun.
Also Lea’s 2 solos and Chris’s “Being Alive” were perhaps the best musical performances of the season so far. They should just ditch the crappy new kids at McKinley and let them (plus Santana) be the focus.
I just can’t. They Brittany and Sam thing was no surprise. I think everyone saw that coming. Also I think Brittany cared for Santana but didn’t really love her, or we just wasn’t shown how she loved her. Also let’s just erase that Sam was with Mercedes. Because obviously the only time WOC are cool and important is when they are silent or belt out 1 out of 200 songs.
I like how Tina is bitching out everyone.They deserve to get called out on their shit.It just sucks that Tina and Artie don’t get to be the stars of the show and have their chance to shine. It’s like without Rachael none of them can win until Marley transforms into Rachel.
Even in the last episode where Tina got to sing lead it was all about Marley. I thought that Marley was going to sing lead they was the episode was shown.
Last thing , don’t appreciate Rachel of all people saying how it’s not about competing when she lives and dies by competing.
“Stay tuned for the remainder of this season of Glee, in which that question and many others will likely never be addressed or heard from again!!”
THIS!! sums up why most ppl are frustrated with Glee.
If at least the show was consistent with its embedded sub-messages and one liners references it keeps throwing at the viewers, Ryan Murphy and staff could easily defend their artistic choices.
They keep building new storylines for old characters instead of developing the bits they already have. Continuity = 0
Brittany was awesome in the backround and because they never labelled her “problem” (the could easily have written an asperger PSA). As a comic relief, she was a great revealer of other characters (ex: with Kurt, or Rachel when she stole her fashion trendsetting moment).
But here she is, acting and singing front and center, nearly every ep. which feels like a waste of screentime.
“DEAR DIARY, TODAY I FASHIONED MYSELF FIFTEEN NEW TURBANS FROM DISCARDED BEDSKIRTS”
excuse me?
I finally finished the latter half of the episode. Lea was phenomenal both times. I smiled warmly when Kurt received his acceptance letter. I smiled when the Glee bunch reunited at the end. Reminded me of when the Troubletones reunited with the rest of the gang to We Are Young. And I loved that scene.
Still whatever about RM.
This is an awesome recap (and made me feel really better)! I have a soft spot for Brittana, but I seriously think Santana could do better, and Brittany’s character isn’t really a good match for her (read: So dumb as to be eating off the floor) and Brittany hooking up with Sam would have been okay, but then that stupid line,gah! And also, I’d just like to point out – how could Brittany be surprised that the lesbian nation and the lesbian blogger community found out about her and Santana?!? She was the one WHO POSTED THE 2 GIRLS, 1 CAT SEXTAPE ON YOUTUBE! That’s continuity for you! Apparently the writers DON’T EVEN WATCH THEIR OWN SHOW. And also, I’d like to say, this episode seems to have been written by that guy who WROTE I KISSED A GIRL, and so I realized this is probably his (they’re?) way of getting back at the LESBIAN BLOGGER COMMUNITY (whoever they are) for the backlash from that crapfest of an episode.
Honestly, as a queer identified girl, I have never felt more blatantly and consciously disrespected as Brittany’s dialogue to Sam made me feel.
Stay classy, Glee!
* disrespected by a TV show / pop culture. Probably should have specified!
‘…Brittany has just eaten a trail of Cheerios right off the sweet sweet diseased floorways of McKinley High School’s Hallowed Hallways…’
Damn it, I thought you were talking about Sue’s Cheerios…
I find it so strange that a show that once prided itself on LGBT representation and progressiveness has gone out of its way to repeatedly insult a marginalized section of society that so happens to be an important section of its fan base.
The breaking of the fourth wall to promote a heterosexual, white, couple in place of what was once a groundbreaking portrayal of a female same sex relationship that had three seasons of development (however sketchy at times) is strange for Glee to do, given that its ratings have decreased massively in Season 4.
It is interesting to note that Glee anticipated outcry from its lesbian fan base and rather than deal with this in a mature manner using consistent story development it decided to ‘force’ upon said fan base the idea that it was wrong and violent for supporting their show and their characters so strongly.
Under the guise of Brittany being a bisexual, they are accusing the lesbian online community of refusing to recognize and accept her sexuality when in fact the outcry comes from the lack of coverage given to Brittany’s bisexuality during her relationship with Santana. During this relationship Brittany found herself muted by the writers and was notably missing during Santana’s forced outing by Finn. She was not a vocal participant of this relationship and Brittana itself received little to no meaningful interaction during the third Season and Brittany was almost demoted to being an extra. Yet once she finds herself paired with a man (after no real closure on her relationship with Santana) she finds herself in a starring role of the show once more.
I think that Glee underestimated two things;
The first being that Brittana fans are not just lesbians but are a diverse group of people who supported the relationship for various different reasons. But yes, many bisexual/lesbian girls and women found solace in the pairing who encouraged them to come out in a world where people are still murdered and violently attacked for their sexuality. They wrote to actresses, producers and writers to tell them how Brittana changed and saved their lives and now their stories are being entirely disregarded and spat upon by the very show that once provided them with the strength they needed to be open about themselves. The writers have told these people that their support is worth nothing and is, rather strangely, discouraged. The fans who petitioned for years and fought for lesbian/bisexual visibility on the show were shunned in favor of another, frankly unnecessary, heterosexual pairing.
The second thing it underestimated was how upset these fans would become and how even media outside of the LGBT focused websites are wondering why Glee decided to be so hurtful and rude to its fan base. They’re a little perplexed as to how a show could downright insult the people who support it. So am I. And I am not a lesbian but am actually a bisexual who is appalled that they are hiding behind Brittany’s bisexuality to promote this storyline.
But also, in all the frustration and hurt, it has to be noted how Klaine received so much more than Brittana. They received meaningful storylines and conversations and they will continue to do so. They’ve had a stable relationship for a long time and yes, Blaine’s cheating is completely out of character and a silly plot device, but it will lead to mature conversations between him and Kurt and will most likely be sorted out by season’s end.
Klaine fans have never received the general disrespect that Brittana fans have because they never had to fight for basic recognition. Kurt’s coming out story was respectful, heartbreaking and hugely significant. It was everything that Santana’s wasn’t.
When Santana fans were outraged at the episode in which she is outed by Finn, punished by Finn, told to be ok with it by Finn and who eventualy accepts that what Finn did was a positive thing, they were disregarded again. This is not just a television show, this is a show that hoisted upon itself the responsibility to act as an extended PSA and yet, in a country where a woman’s life could be seriously at risk for being a lesbian, they thought it was ok and acceptable to out a teenage girl of color and have a white privelidged jock tell her that it was ok (even if he was the one who outed her).
The girl who was angry and scared for the first two seasons of the show because (we are told to believe) of her attraction to girls (most notably her best friend) was suddenly ok with her sexuality and we were awarded with one scene with her grandmother (only ever to be mentioned in passing ever since) and no scenes with her parents/girlfriend. Her outing was soon forgotten and cast aside instead to focus on Dave Karofsky’s (former homophobic bully, gay man and background character) struggle with his sexuality which was poignant and treated with more respect.
I know that there is no hierarchy of struggles with sexual identity, everyone experiences it differently, but Santana’s story was badly written. I have since seen many YouTube comments from Gleeks who think that Finn was right to out Santana as he showed her that it was ok to be herself.
Yeah, it’s true. She did realize this. But what if she didn’t? What her parents had disowned her? What if she was violently assaulted? What if this was real life and she was at risk becase someone else decided that it was her time to be outed?
Amazingly, the lesbian fans seemed to have forgiven the show and continued to watch it, only to be horribly singled out in Swan Song for that reason. Glee would not have done the same with black fans (because of Samcedes) or gay men (because of Klaine) because it believes lesbians are beneath these in their struggle for equality. They are not as important. They are irrelevant. They are angry and violent and nonsensicle.
This show has a self imposed responsibility and it has failed its fans. It was failed the lesbian and bisexual fan base and it can no longer hide behind a veil of “we’re good for the LGBT community” because I am a member of that community and Glee has gone too far this time.
This makes me so sad.
I really wanted to like Glee but now it has become like the dry left-over pasta that you really want to eat but it’s gotten a little darker and you just know it’ll be all rubbery..
Anyone living in Sweden btw? let’s get together and be all friendsy!
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