Glee-Cap: F U, Glee, for making me tear up

Sorry I didn't get this week's Gleecap together terribly quickly, the show did cast focus on a couple of its female characters this week dealing with the harsh concepts of humiliation and reputation. While it had its share of laughs and ARGHS there were two really strong scenes that shed some light on my two favorite characters and even dealt with consequences.
First, Quinn,
While her big scene came at the end of the episode, it once again called attention to Quinn's depth as a character.

Mr. Schuster confronts Quinn privately about a list of Glee Club Members organized by their sluttiness, which had caused the major conflicts in the episode. The scene reveals Quinn's remorse, but also, the complexities of her social situation. She wrote the list in a hope to be seen again, having lost her popularity, social power, her position on the cheerleading squad, her boyfriend, her lover and control over her body to pregnancy. At the time, she thought having a bad reputation would be preferable to being invisible.

"People would part like the red sea when I walked down the hallway..."
"You're going to give that baby to a family that loves it, that really wants it and you're going to go on to do incredible things"
"You really think I can get it all back one day?"

"No, I think you can get something even better, I mean Come on, You're Quinn Febree, those people didn't move down the halls... you moved them."

"Thanks Mr. Shu', you're a really good teacher, even if everyone is calling you a manwhore"

This scene took me by surprise, especially after:


When Rachel decides to use all they guys she's ever tried to have any romantic relationship with in order to make herself seem desirable, or bad. Possibly real teenage behavior, sure, consequences, sure I suppose, but her response still seems... uncomprehending? There is a real distasteful element to using the guys like that, and I hope that there is some note of how using three girls in a video and playing with them like that would be similarly inappropriate, I can't think of a bit that Glee has done previously that did that... just don't break my heart with a double standard, Glee. I compel you, Glee, with the AWESOME POWER OF THE INTERNET, don't break my heart.

Ms. Pillsbury slut-shamed Mr. Schuster– and while slut-shaming of any gender is lame– he did make out with another woman and she's learning to stand up for herself. The funniest thing about Ms. Pillsbury to me is that she's really learning a lot from the cruel criticisms of Sue Sylvester.

Ah Sue, It's time I talked about you.

Sue is a fantastic villain, she has real skills and is an incredible ability to turn a situation to her advantage. Like in this episode, when she faces humiliation for the first time when an embarrassing video of her is posted to YouTube. She skyrockets to Internet infamy and draws the attention of Olivia Newton-John with whom she makes a response video and earns a boatload of cash.

While Sue's methods are ruthless and often involve blackmail, manipulation, cruelty and other terrible means to her ends, one has to love a good villain. The Glee Club learns more from fighting her than they would otherwise, grow in response and become stronger because of it. Her attempts to take them down to save her insanely large cheerleading budget only help turn them into more refined performers.

Sue is aspirational, she speaks her mind (even when her opinions are repulsive) and she IS the holder of national championships with the Cheerios Squad that bring positive attention and funding to the High School. She gets the best lines and she doesn't hide her opinion of people from them, she's brash and honest (even if her opinion of truth is skewed) and she is fearless.
The true magic of Sue's character though, is that the show gives the audience insight into Sue that no one else sees. Sue has a disabled sister who she cares for, dotes on, confides in and adores.
Throughout this and other episodes, we see scenes where she has sincere, sweet moments caring for her sister. While Sue is often comedic, the sincerity she shows with her sister, and in respecting the disabled as people, adds superb depth to her character and to the show.

In another episode, Sue put a disabled girl on the Cheerios Squad and had to face criticism that she was expecting too much of the girl, which bore out as implying that by expecting her to do the same things she expected of other cheerleaders she was somehow being cruel. Her methods proved to be ultimately brilliant, the girl proved to others and to herself she was capable of the same rigor Sue expected of anyone else. That character is still on the Cheerios Squad and is clearly accepted by her peers.

Sue's interactions with her sister do not seem tacked on, though it could easily have seemed that way, but for the magnificent acting of Jane Lynch. Who really loves the character and brings both the comedy and quiet drama out of a character who could easily have become a caricature.

From an interview:

Q. As awful as Sue can be, one of her great moments this year came when she showed tough love for a Down syndrome cheerleader. Was that one of the highlights of the season for you?

Yes. That was the "Wheels" episode. Sue Sylvester's sister, we find out, has Down syndrome and is in a home. It's a more touching episode, and we get to see a softer side of Sue. I think there's a decency to Sue. There were three or four different moments where you saw a kind of a decency and rationality.

Q. But then, in the blink of an eye, she can turn nasty again.

Absolutely. Good Sue is very short-lived. She just really enjoys being an awful person. She really gets great glee, if you will, out of being a terrible person. I think she just really enjoys shocking people.

I love laughing at and with Sue and I love that the same character regularly brings a tear to my eye.

Previous Glee-Caps: The Madonna Episode, Am I Taking Crazy Pills?

Slutoween

It's that time of year again, Halloween. As we have traveled through time closer and closer to the 31st of October news has focused again and again on that shocking, startling and never before exposed scandal... inappropriate costumes for little girls.


Now, as this clip from Mean Girls so artfully presents, there's a certain cultural fetishization of Halloween, the anonymity of donning a costume allows people to explore certain aspects of their character they don't feel they might in their normal clothes. Therefore, many women make the choice to wear sexy costumes and let it all hang out for that one night when they are culturally allowed to put on a mask and go out and celebrate. Like Mardi Gras, Carnival or Masquerade Balls, Halloween is a shared liminal space where people can play a part and part of that is expressing sexuality that is otherwise hidden, but the question at hand is... are nine year old girls expressing themselves or simply buying in to what is presented to them?
I've always been the sort that would adjust and amend any costume I got pre-made from the store. One my my very favorite Halloween costumes was the result of going with my best friend to the thrift store where we both picked out fantastic and utterly cheap clothes that we turned into rather fantastic Victorian style ghost costumes, with lace and greasepaint galore. We were 11 or 12 and while it didn't get me any dates at the middle-school dance, I absolutely loved the entire process of getting the costume together. There's a lot of fun and a lot of self-expression that goes into picking out a Halloween costume for child or an adult.
The scandal of "Slut-o-ween", is that Halloween is a 4.3 Billion Dollar holiday where pre-made costumes are more common than others, and quite reasonably for the millions of people without the time or inclination to make their own costume. But the choices for women are often overwhelmingly "Sexy _____" the blank representing any noun in the encyclopedia. Over the years the same principle of "Sexy _____" has trickled down throughout the costume market to little girls, who want to emulate older women and older girls, who are also their, mothers, sisters, and aspirational role models of all stripes.

The pressures are only compounded when you look at the costumes of celebrities, and even child stars like Noah Cyrus, Miley Cyrus's little sister, who at 9 has been splashed all over the news because of her "inappropriate" witch/vampire costume.Did her parents let her out of the house like this? Obviously they did and have before, can we talk until we are blue in the face about this one girl's possible exploitation for publicity? Sure, but let's not. Let's instead take a look at what drives the production of sexy costumes for little girls?

1) Girls want them, and they are easily available.

Why might this be? Might it be that they are considered scandalous and seem cool? They make it to the newsstands and news reports EVERY Halloween as though this is the first time something questionable has ever been marketed to the under-10 set? (A Scary NEW Trend, NY Daily News... really?) The free publicity that these costumes get from the news of the scandal rocking the good name of Halloween only add to their bad-girl mystique, and while turning a blind eye to them is silly, this yearly outrage obviously drives sales.

2) Parents purchase them for their daughters and allow them to wear them out in public.

I don't think there's an easy answer to the "my daughter wants to wear this risque outfit" issue. On one hand, as a parents you're totally aghast that your little moppet wants to wear something that might make a stripper blush out to Trick-or-Treat with her friends. But it's not as simple as "that's inappropriate and I'm not going to let you wear it out," for many parents. One wants to allow their child self-expression and as girls get older they want to emulate older girls and women, and you might consider "if I let her wear this now, maybe she won't be as fascinated by it when she's older, it'll become something she did when she was a little kid."

On one hand, its obvious that for most kids and parents, this is a discussion that can be done reasonably, the child isn't accustomed to getting everything they want all the time and some sort of compromise can be reached that satisfies both the child's desire for a particular look and the parent's particular standards of aesthetics and propriety. From everything I've seen, read and experienced, it helps to go costume shopping prepared so that both parent and child know what the ground rules are when picking out a costume.

Here's my list of requirements for any costume I buy or make for myself or my kids, it's based on my years as a costume designer, event planner and wearer/buyer of Halloween costumes:

1. Can one move in it?
2. Will it be appropriate for the weather?
3. Is the fabric comfortable enough that I won't claw off my skin?
4. Will I be visible in the dark? (Especially important for Trick or Treating)
5. Am I going to be comfortable with what this outfit covers or uncovers? (also think about how it's going to act when you move? will the hemline rise if you walk?)
6. Is this something I'd want to wear more than once?

The answers to these questions are different for each person and each situation, but if you go in having some sense of what you need from a costume and what you want from a costume you'll end up with one more appropriate for you or for your child than you might if you go in without any ideas. Not every costume is one that you end up wanting to remember forever, and there are still options out there for people who don't want to wear something raunchy for All Hallow's Eve, but make sure that you're not settling for something you don't like just because it's available, and if you do want to dress up in a sexy manner... at least put some thought into it.

Happy Halloween!