So I watch Glee. There, I said it. I wasn't sure how to segues into that guilty pleasure of mine, but I felt it necessary to finally bring this semi-addiction out of the closet for the same reason a lot of long-term addictions are brought to light: I think I'm ready to quit.
I don't know, maybe that's just a knee-jerk reaction to this week's episode, but even if I end up forgiving Ryan Murphy and the show's other writers for this mishap, it will always in my mind be a mishap.
If you haven't watched Glee and have somehow dodged the commercials and show promotions for the past four years, it's your high school glee club's answer to Friday Night Lights, only these kids are anything but popular or cheered on by their community. The drama, however, tends to be just as intense and omnipresent, if not more so.
Now that you're all caught up (seriously, the narrator at the beginning of each episode couldn't have done it better), let me tell you what happened this week: Right at the beginning, the school has a power outage, rendering all electric guitars and pianos useless. Since the show must go on, Mr. Schuester (Mr. Schu for short) decides to have the kids perform acoustic songs that week. The objective is for each student to strip down their feelings and let them all out. I'll skip Sam Evans' charming performance of "That Loving Feeling" and go straight to Ryder's performance of "Everybody Hurts." I love REM, I love that song, and I loved Ryker's rendition (though it wasn't entirely acoustic, but what acoustic song is these days?). What I didn't love was the reaction he received from some of his classmates upon sharing his experience with being molested at the age of 11 by his teenage babysitter. Seriously, Sam and Artie's high-five praises and virtual reverence for this achievement of every adolescent male's fantasy was way out line.
Admittedly, this show often uses satire. But in my mind, for satire to be successfully executed, at least two of the following three elements must be present: 1) Believability, 2) Extremism, and 3) Contrast.
Now obviously, believability is essential in any genre of the performing arts. The piece's plot and characters must develop themselves in such a way that their audience buys anything and everything they sell. This is especially critical with satire, which often involves insensitive dialog and behavior that, if not believed to be part of the offending character's nature, could fall on the writers as a tasteless attempt at humor.
This episode did not lack believability. Sam and Artie are teenagers, and their character development has been more than consistent with such a reaction. But what about the element of extremism? For behavior and attitudes to be recognized as satire, they must be extreme in comparison to what we the audience experience on a regular basis. Sam and Artie's reaction wasn't extreme in comparison to the typical attitude present among adolescent males, a population that makes up a substantial portion of this show's audience. Not only that, but many adolescents do not have a fully developed capacity to recognize satire or the attempts thereof. I certainly didn't.
Combine those two factors, and Mr. Schu's immediate yet weak attempt to address the problem is taken by your average teenage male as nothing more than a prudish reaction from an older, out-of-touch generation that doesn't understand how the world works anymore. I can also see Katie's subsequent attempt to reach out to Ryder being perceived as another manipulation tactic from an evil Quinn Fabray protege. I wouldn't be surprised if that turned out to be the case, as I'm not fully convinced she has changed. The only way this problem could have been remedied--if at all--would have been for Mr. Schu to incorporate the element of contrast by revisiting the issue and emphasizing to the kids--especially the guys--that rape is never okay, regardless of the victim and/or offender's gender. But he never did. And the public service announcement at the end of the episode, though wise, didn't do much to erase the attitude the scene may have inadvertently perpetuated.
We need to keep in mind that the double standard that exists between genders begins with our thought process and the extent to which society rebuts it. Our society is out of control in the way we treat each other and ourselves. And it all starts with the way we think. Just like many girls grow up learning to base their self-esteem on the praise they receive for their outer beauty, boys are often taught that "making it" with an older woman is an envious achievement, of which you should never be ashamed. If errant thoughts like these don't get corrected immediately--let alone overtly enough--those thoughts soon turn into the person's schema of the world.
With all that in mind, this double standard cannot be "satired" away by merely echoing it. That's way too subtle. It needs to be imitated in such a manner that places it in a position of contempt. Perhaps not all satire needs to be addressed to that extent, but because it addresses just a small piece of a several thousand-year-old epidemic of gender inequality and stereotypes, this one did.
Like I said, I'm sure I'll eventually forgive Glee for this epic fail. But for now, I'm pretty sure we're fighting.
