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.
