For my final blog I choose to discuss the Glee episode entitled “Ballads” from season one. If you are interested in viewing the episode, it can be found streaming on Netflix. After watching the show for the first time during this course, I have become quit fond of it despite the bad acting and High School Musical feel. In this particular episode, the teacher Will splits the Glee Club into pairs in which they are required to sing a ballad. One of the students in the Glee Club is missing, thus leaving Will to fill his place. Will is then paired with Rachel, who after singing their first ballad together, falls hopelessly in love with him, which I will talk more explicitly throughout the blog. Finn, whom is a stereotypical jock is paired with Curt, who is your typical gay guy. Throughout the episode some interesting discourses take place between Curt and Finn, both minoritizing and universalizing. This episode is also a continuation of Quinn and Finn's pregnancy crisis, which becomes an even bigger problem once Curt suggests that Finn uses a ballad to tell Quinn's parents. Throughout the blog I will discuss how adolescents are being depicted in Glee via way of Adrianne Brown's Youth and Popular Culture; Trangereration, via way of Driver's Introducing Queer Girls and Popular Culture and finally Harris' The “Can-do” Girl versus the “At-risk” Girl.

After Rachel and Will are paired off, Rachel becomes completely love struck and begins to throw herself at Will even though he happens to be a married man. Will scenting that she likes him, find himself in yet another sticky situation and struggles in finding a way to tell Rachel that her feelings for him are inappropriate. Will had found himself in this situation before with a student named Pepper, whom happen to a very weird, awkward, and unattractive girl according to hegemonic standards. Like Pepper, Rachel begins to buy him gifts and stalk him at his home. Will's wife being an older woman is completely threatened by this younger women and show signs of insecurity. All three women represent a very stereotypical women, they are insecure and need constant validation from men to feel valuable, thus defining themselves through men. This is minoritizing discourse surrounding women that is continually re-inscribed, thus suggesting that adolescent girls are emotional, flighty, and needy which carries over into their adulthood (Youth and Popular Culture).

Moving on to Curt and Finn, one can see how minoritizing discourses are being made about high school athletes and gay males. In short, Finn is you average jock – dumb as a box of rocks! Curt is your stereotypical gay guy – overly flamboyant, with a great sense of fashion. However, despite their stereotypical characteristics, they have an interesting friendship which creates a universalizing discourse surrounding them. Initially Finn doesn't want to be paired with Curt because he doesn't feel he could sing a ballad to him and it reads as if he's homophobic. However, Finn is actually comfortable around Curt and confides in him by sharing a boat load of his problems with. This creates a universalized discourse because it is breaking the norm that heterosexual males are complete homophobs, who refuse to socialize with homosexual males. Furthermore, this resists the notion that adolescent heterosexual males are immature because this in my opinion happens to be a very mature understanding that many “adults” haven't even achieved!

Finally I would like to discuss Quinn, who with the exception of her teen pregnancy, fits perfectly into Harris' definition of a “Can-do” girl – white, middle-class, social captial, etc. After Finn reveals to her parents that she is with child, her father is completely outraged and kicks her out. Her mother, being the very patriarchal wife that she is remains quite and allows her husband to kick their daughter out. Quinn represents a great example is demonstrating that “Can-do” girls do face problems similar to “At-risk” girls, furthermore supporting that “Can-do” girls also experience depression and other emotion issues. Although Quinn's depression is attributed to the pressure of being perfect, it pressure nevertheless, thus making a shared connection between “Can-do” and “At-risk” girls.

In conclusion, I feel that Glee does a good job in resisting some stereotypes surrounding adolescents, however like many adolescents shows, it lacks socioeconomic diversity. 

Everybosy Hates Chris - Minoritizing Discourses and Hegemony

       Everybody Hates Chris is a sitcom that is know for addressing racial stereotypes using a cynical and humorous approach. In the 22^nd episode of the 3^rd season of Everybody Hates Chris, entitled Everybody “Hates Graduation”, Chris has been told by his only friend Greg( who happens to be white), that they will not be attending high school together anymore. Greg's mom and Ms. Monroe – Greg and Chris' teacher – submitted Greg for a scholarship to go to The Bronx Academy of Science unbeknownst to him. Chris is deeply grieved because he and Greg are best friends and outside of each other they did not have any other friends. Chris decides he wants to go to The Bronx Academy of Science with Greg, however his father Julius, who is known to be an extreme penny pincher, doesn't want to pay the tuition because he feels it to expensive. Greg asks Ms. Monroe to help Chris get in. She feels that Chris is being to prestigious, unrealistic, and that school of such stature is far beyond his means. Ms. Monroe is a middle class white woman who believes and internalizes every racial stereotype about African Americans. Moreover, this episode of Everybody Hates Chris addresses how hegemony has heavily influenced the stereotypical beliefs concerning African Americans. Furthermore, hegemony has created minoritized discourses of the African American race.

       During the first 10 minutes of the Graduation episode, there is a scene with Chris, Greg and Ms. Monroe. Ms. Monroe is going on and on about how bright Greg's future is, however she tells Chris that graduating from junior high must be like getting a PH.D in his family. When Chris stated that he wanted to go to The Bronx Academy of Science, she told him that he should not get to “up-ady”. Ms. Monroe clearly associates a school like The Bronx Academy as an institution that should only be available to people whom have the same racial background as her and Greg. Considering hegemony is a “framing [of] all competing definitions of reality within [the dominant class's] range” (Lull), it is easy to see that hegemony has produced minoritizing discourses – silently cites norm/s in order to position subject or representation – concerning the intellectual capability of the African American male. Moreover, hegemony controls the images and representations of people in society. Furthermore, hegemony has produced very narrow and rigid images of African Americans male, that have brainwashed a vast amount of whites (not meant to be racist, rather meant to address white supremacy) in to thinking that African Americans are not able nor entitled to accelerated forms of education.

       Moving along, this scene frames the remainder of the episode. Ms. Monrow agrees to help Chis, after he remains her that he is “worthy” of attending The Bronx Academy of Science. Ms. Monrow states that he would have to apply for the scholarship under the minority curve, so Chris takes the admissions test and pass, which qualified him for an home interview. During the home interview Chris' mother is asked a series of racialized and stereotyped questions, such as “How long have you been addicted to herion” and “What is the name of the fathers (notice its plural) of your 3 children?” When she states that he (man conducting the interview) has her confused with the wrong person, he says “Lets move on must be a sensitive subject”. Chris' teacher Ms. Monroe has misinformed the man by telling him she believes Chris is a crack baby and his mother is delusional because she has treated herself to believing that she is married to a man who works 2 jobs and own a home; basically Ms. Monroe told him that he should not believe a word she is saying. However, Chris' mother is not lying. In the middle of the interview the police raid the house because of some other things that took place in the episode. When all the dust settled, the man states that Chris is in because Chris needs The Bronx Academy more than he thought. However, after checking his mother's financial records, Chris' acceptance is revoked because his mom was ironically telling the truth, furthermore Chris' parents make too much money! Considering that the African American family is heavily portrayed as broken/dysfunction – single mother, multiple father's of children, some form of drug abuse – it is nothing close to happen stance that this episode played out this way. It is evident that hegemonic views have blurred and denied any space for any other representations/minoritizing discourses of African Americans to be believable.