Glee Appreciation Thread — Page 3

I have a question. Last week Ryder was talking on a computer to some woman. Was it ever revealed who she was or are we just meant to believe Ryder is schizophrenic like in A Beautiful Mind?

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You deride anecdotal accounts of Lea Michele's behavior (which actually circle within the industry), but use anecdotal evidence to support your own argument.

There is little hard evidence to support the idea that Glee is having any sort of wide effect outside of an audience that would already be predisposed to be exploring the arts.

...in fact, the only group of people who are seeing massive benefits from Glee are those who are making money off of it.

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Yankee fan, No I don't love auto tune, the very obviously auto-tuned numbers are my least favorite, I'm not going to lie, I didn't like I don't know how to love him. Nevertheless, EVERY pop recording artist today uses auto tune whether you can notice it or not. At least when I'm watching Glee it doesn't bother me because I know she could do still sound as amazing without it. In the last episode Blaine's heart breaking solo was recorded live on set.

People making money off "Glee", parenthetically, often don't include the artists from whom Glee takes it's inspiration.

http://www.jonathancoulton.com/2013/01/18/baby-got-back-and-glee/

As for the show itself and its "joyful brilliance" I watched the first season and was thrilled that a show such as it existed. About halfway through the second season, when the characters had long-since ceased resembling human beings that I can recognize as three-dimensional (with the notable exception of Kurt, though one could argue his three-dimensionality became so flagrant it itself became two-dimensional), I gave up watching the show (as many others, it seemed, did.) Now Glee appears to have the fanatic tribalism of its supporters ("Gleeks," as they very vocally declare themselves) while having lost nearly all critical and industry respect. Fun fact: Glee was nominated for 19 Emmy Awards in its first season, and won four; it dwindled to twelve nominations the subsequent year and only one this past. Peaked too soon, it seems...

My problem with the show actually has little to do with Musical Theatre or Lea Michele or Matthew Morrison rapping (ok, maybe it had a little to do with Matthew Morrison rapping), but it goes to Ryan Murphy: Mr. Murphy is excellent at selling shows on the strengths of their pilots, but once it gets into long-running series' his storytelling sense is wackadoo and he loses me every time. Murphy's shows, to me, are houses of cards: very attractive surface-level entertainment, which the more you explore creak and groan until the rickety foundation cannot sustain itself and it collapses. (This, as it happens, is why I think making American Horror Story an "Anthology series" was the smartest thing Murphy has ever done; he finally freed himself from having to manage long-term storytelling! Just reboot when he gets bored!)

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Updated On: 3/24/13 at 01:35 PM

^Amen!! I'll start:

WHE-E-E-E-ER IS LOVE?

Because, as my post indicated, a lot of people liked it in its first season. I wrote that to indicate that I, like a lot of those dramamama wrote about, watched it happily that first year before the wheels fell off for most of us.

I also brought it up to indicate the steep drop-off in perceived quality, both personally and anecdotally (through the use of critical assessment as evidence.) 19 nominations was extraordinary. Winnowing down to 18 less within two years is also extraordinary; most shows with Emmy love tend to keep it -- the Emmys are often criticized for keeping nominees around long after they're over-the-hill *cough*Entourage*cough* so to lose all of that steam in two short years... this was the point I was bringing up.

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Glee is the smartest show I have ever seen. I love the sharp dialogues and double standards. Certain episodes make me laugh and cry at the same time. Not even a movie has ever done that to me.

Clever writing? One or two witty lines does not make up for the fact that characters switch personalities every episode, there are plot holes that could swallow up entire cities, and the fact that the writers cannot seem to create drama without endlessly pairing up different combinations of characters. And just because the writers occasionally make fun of their mistakes does not excuse them from making those mistakes in the first place (like Emma's father commenting on how students should start looking at colleges during their junior year).

I love television. I love good writing on television. And Glee does not have good writing.

Oh, and when I talk about the show's misogyny, I mean the fact that Rachel Berry has absolutely no agency whatsoever. She didn't even get to be involved in the storyline about her boyfriend being a male prostitute. Not to mention that creepy Finn scene where he calls her his future wife and tells Brody to never see her again without even considering if Rachel, who is a grown woman, would want that.

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Updated On: 3/24/13 at 02:18 PM

I will just throw it out there and say that Jordan is my all time favorite poster on here. Always brings a smile to my face!

You just invalidated any point you were going to make: NO, not every girl in your school loves the Spice Girls. It is impossible. Even if lots of them do -- which is highly doubtful.

MAYBE your friends, do -- but that's not what you said.

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"Clever writing? One or two witty lines does not make up for the fact that characters switch personalities every episode, there are plot holes that could swallow up entire cities"

Don't even get me started.

Remember when we first met Blaine, how he was the "hero" mouthpiece for being gay. Then Darren Criss signed the contract and he's in a race with Chris Colfer to be the nelliest nelly on tv. "Oh Sam I have a secret crush on you but don't hate me cause everyone else does too. I mean if you could kiss up on Mercedes, you could certainly kiss up on me right?"

Remember when Mercedes fell in love with Kurt? That worked so well that we had to repeat it with Tina and Blaine.

Remember the episode where Artie had those artificial legs? I guess they couldn't make the payments so the repo man paid a visit and took them away.

And the repo man must have taken away Sue Sylvester's character because she started to be nice when she had an autistic sister, then the sister died and she became mean again.

Remember when Puck had to date Lauren? I guess all the hot cougars he was cleaning pools for got a social disease.

I guess Unique is the new Lauren because all the character development we ever get out of Unique is sass. They don't even throw slushies at Unique.

And what happened to Sugar and the Christian dude with the long hair. Don't they ever get solos or do they not sing?

And this high school must be where all the well adjusted kids in the US go because they always know how to articulate their feelings and they're never shy about relationships.

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