Is it time to rename Tube Ray Army something like 'The International
Glee Fan Club, Australian Chapter'?
That may well be the case, because today I want to talk about this:
More specifically, the episode that surrounded it (spoiler alert, I guess).
To sum up, Blaine - that's him being sexy/amazing in
Teenage Dream -
encourages Kurt to stick with McKinley High rather than escaping to the
safety of a progressive boys' school like Dalton Academy for
Hotties Boys, even if things are tougher at the
home of Nude Erections.
As AutoStraddle
pointed out in their recap, "Yeah, you can move to San Francisco or Manhattan and find plenty of
people just like you and never get bullied again. Or instead of waiting
for it to get better, you can work on making things better right where
you are."
What is most important about the episode -
Never Been Kissed - is that it provides a gentle counterpoint to the It Gets Better campaign.
(To be clear, I still think It Gets Better is brilliant and very necessary.)
So often, television depictions of gay youth sit at either end of the spectrum: it's either a fairytale vision of happily-ever-after, or a horrendous quagmire of abuse, suicide and oppression.
The reality for many is somewhere in-between, and somewhere a lot more depressingly mundane.
It may Get Better eventually, but what about those teens - like Kurt - who still have two or three or more years of high school to stick out?
Take, for example, Hannah Williams,
banned from her formal at Ivanhoe Girls Grammar because she planned to bring her girlfriend along. Williams is lucky to have a terrific, supportive family who have also encouraged her as she's changed schools.
I think it's fantastic that she's going to get the opportunity to see out the rest of her school years in a more accepting, supportive environment. Ironic as it may seem to say it, considering her reason for being in the news in the first place, Hannah is one of the lucky ones.
But what about the young GLBTI students who long to change schools but can't because of financial or geographical obstacles?
The scenario might be vastly different - Hollywood is a long way away from regional America, and in turn, regional Australia - but there's something in Kurt's storyline this week that I hope speaks to those queer kids isolated socially, financially or literally.
It would have been very easy for
Never Been Kissed to simply shoot Kurt off in a flurry of sparkles to engage in sweet, sweet man-love with Blaine while a heavenly choir sang in the background, but instead Kurt chose - if begrudgingly - to stick with McKinley High in order to take control of his destiny.
And apart from anything else, I think the above cover of
Teenage Dream may well be my favourite thing that
Glee has ever done.
Let's watch it again.