Last year, the Golden
Globe winning series Glee aired a series of episodes that addressed the issues
of bullying against homosexuals. The gay
character, Kurt, ended up leaving the high school that allowed such bullying to
happen for a private, zero-tolerance school.
This gay character eventually came back to the original high school and
his former bully made a public apology. This episode included songs that celebrated
acceptance such as Lady Gaga’s gay pride anthem “Born This Way.” It is
noted in by an article in Huffington Post that conservatives reacted strongly
to this moment of gay pride and acceptance in a high school. Fingers were pointed toward the show’s
creator, accusing him of having an agenda that goes against Christian
beliefs. Conservatives were also quoted
for their concerns about allowing their children to watch this show as it
presents immoral sexual orientations. The
apologetic actions in Glee were certainly not reflected in the show’s criticisms. The want to participate in gay relationships,
including marriage, is shot down at an early age. If schools create more awareness of
homosexual equality then maybe future generations will be more open to gay
culture and marriage.
This
TV series brings up important issues that many LGBTQ students face in high school.
Creators of Glee recognize the mass media potential of the show’s popularity
and use this to their advantage by productively calling attention to anti-gay
bullying. According to Nan Stein,
bullying includes “any act of meanness, exclusion, threats of any sort, as well
as physical assaults.” (pg. 31) The high school which Kurt attended did not proceed
to punish bullies for their repeated harassments. This behavior is unacceptable and schools
should enforce strict repercussions.
Klein explains that schools should embrace a “zero-tolerance” policy in
which behaviors are noticed, commented on, and corrections are made. I agree with Klein in that it is a schools responsibility
to institute classroom education, provide support for students, and create a
safe space. Unfortunately, funding for
such programs is limited.
Not
all students are as lucky as Kurt and have access to a private school that does
provide a safe space against anti-gay bullying.
This leaves many homosexual students to face bullies in their own. Theo Van De Meer states that “most of the perpetrators
of anti-homosexual violence will probably never be brought to justice” and that
this is often because victims do not file charges (pg. 61). In the case of Kurt in Glee, the violent
actions against him were reported, however, this did not help. It should also be noted that the main bully
ended up being gay himself, so his anti-gay actions were an attempt to hide
this. This extreme attempt to hide his
true self and force attention elsewhere relates to Van De Meer who explained
that within peer groups there is a need to uphold their defining features such
as masculine or feminine and strong versus weak. Kurt’s bullies, members of the football team,
were trying to maintain the perception of their strength and ruling
status.
Bullying
happens in many forms and can be performed by all kinds of people; it is not
just something that happens in TV shows.
Conservatives and critics of Glee should recognize that bullying should
not be acceptable in schools as that was the real message of this
story-line. Instead, they neglect these issues
and focus instead about how their wants as viewers are not being met. A safe space may not be accessible at home,
so it is schools’ job to create one.
Stein, Nan.
"Bullying, Harassment and Violence among Students." Teaching Beyond Tolerance Winter.80 (2007): 48-54. Print.
Van De Meer, Theo.
"Bashing a Rite of Passage?" Culture, Health and Sexuality 5.2 (2003): 153-64. Print.
Zakarin, Jordan.
"'Glee' 'Born This Way' Lady Gaga Episode Addresses Gay Bullying, Sparks
Conservative Protest." The Huffington Post.
TheHuffingtonPost.com, 27 Apr. 2011. Web. 23 Feb. 2012.
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/27/glee-born-this-way-lady-gaga-gay-conservative_n_854193.html>.
Mason Hill
ReplyDeleteI agree that the media plays an integral role for the LGBTQ community in the way that queer individuals are represented in television shows such as Glee. Although the emphasis shifts between characters on the show, the message is the same - being a teenager is difficult, and being an LGBTQ identified teenager has certain challenges that heterosexual adolescents do not have to face. The character Kurt has an especially difficult time in fitting into McKinley high because he is more gender-nonconforming than other characters. According to Tomas Alamaguer’s article, “masculine homosexuality is tolerated” more highly than those men who have “feminin[ity] within him” based on the cultural context being represented (540). With this in mind, I agree that America’s patriarchal society is expressed in the show through other queer character’s such as Dave, Kurt’s bully, and affects the way the LGBTQ community is viewed as a whole. Dave is a football player, muscular, and gender-conforming - but he also turns out to be gay. He is represented as a queer youth having to overcome the normal challenges of American teenagers as well as the normal challenges of queer youth. Thus, the media represents the typical stereotypes of LGBTQ youth through Kurt, but breaks them through Dave in Glee, while showing that each teenager individually has to overcome unique obstacles.
Alamaguer, Tomas. “Chicano Men: A Cartography of Homosexual; Identity and Behavior” in Social Perspectives in Gay and Lesbian Studies ed. Peter M Nardi and Beth Schneider, 1998.