The Sociology of Glee

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Glee feels like it was written by a graduate from my course on popular culture. I tell my students to look for the racial and ethnic minorities, look for the women, look for the disabled people, look for the gays and lesbians. On a many shows on television, these characters are not present or they appear very infrequently. A lot of hype surrounds the occasional exceptions, but they really are exceptions.

Glee is one more of those exceptions, but it's striking for its inclusiveness. The initial Glee club--New Directions!--includes one kid in a wheelchair, one kid who is probably gay, one Black woman and one Asian woman (who is probably lesbian), along with the perfect straight White male and female leads. This isn't a show that argues that we're really all part of the mainstream. The key moment in the pilot episode is when Finn, the male lead who has been recruited from the football teams, declares that "we're all losers!" The show isn't about pulling towards the middle, it's about pulling towards the margins. The creator Ryan Murphy said as much in an interview on NPR's Fresh Air. This show is about exploring the loser in all of us. I love that.

The show is not above critique, but I'll save that for another time. Obviously, the leads are attractive non-disabled straight people and there's something problematic about this ensemble. Furthermore, the show is produced and distributed by Fox. But there's definitely something new about Glee that I want to pay attention to, and it's going to make more appearances on this blog.

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