Glee drives me nuts. It has some nice moments, true. But to get to those moments you have to wade through an enormous amount of ridiculousness.
Here are some things I hate about Glee:
(1) Blaine’s bow ties. I viscerally loathe Blaine’s bow ties. When I see Blaine wearing a bow tie, I feel almost… angry. Bow ties are for suits. You do not wear bow ties to school. You do not wear bow ties with plaid shirts or polo shirts.
But it’s not that I’m some fashion maven. Far from it — I tend to dress pretty plainly. And I think that’s the issue: I don’t like it when people try to get attention for themselves by dressing outrageously. Why can’t you just trust that people will get to know you and find out what a unique person you are? Why do you have to proclaim your individuality so aggressively?
From a production standpoint, I do not understand why the show’s costume designer thinks Blaine looks cool this way.
I also hate almost everything Kurt wears.
(2) The extremely unrealistic musical performance process makes me batty. I know, it’s just a TV show and I should just relax and enjoy it. I’m not usually one to point out plot holes in other shows, so I don’t know why it bothers me so much here, but it does. Maybe it’s because I did musical theater in high school.
If the production of “West Side Story” is opening in a few days, why are Rachel and Blaine standing around a piano instead of in a full dress rehearsal? And why aren’t they off book? And how did the musicians get permission to change the orchestrations? (And as Matt pointed out, why did they perform the film version of the show instead of the stage version?) And why did it take them several weeks to put together a production of “West Side Story” but they were able to throw together “Rocky Horror Picture Show” overnight? And why doesn’t anyone ever need to rehearse anything? And what the hell kind of glee club is this in the first place?
(3) The ridiculous plot points regarding adoption and congressional elections and a splinter glee club.
(4) The wildly uneven character writing. What are we supposed to think of Mercedes, who hides her extreme insecurity behind some diva attitude she learned from watching movies and other TV shows? Are we supposed to feel sorry for her? Are we supposed to dislike her? (Because I kind of do.) Or is every gay viewer just automatically supposed to love her because we’re all supposed to be stereotypical gay men and identify with divas?
Gee, you seem to dislike this show so much. Why do you keep watching?
Aw, heck. Because there are some good moments. The Kurt/Blaine/Sebastian plot last night was great, and it was nice to see Kurofsky again.
And the music performances, as ridiculously overprocessed as they are, are fun to watch. Sometimes.
There’s a good show hidden inside Glee. It’s too bad you have to dig so hard to find it.
I know what you mean. I want to love Glee more, but it’s really hard not to nitpick. One thing I had to get over early on was the sound of the songs. Naïve me, I wanted them to sound natural, like kids singing in a room, but I’ve just given up on that. They are basically over-processed music videos. Also the uneven tone of the show bothers me. I want it either to dial down the melodrama or to just go all the way high-school parody. (Maybe I just miss Popular?)
I haven’t watched this new season. The show made me hate pretty much every character last season. Too much sleeping around and couple-swapping, and not enough about these kids actually being students and learning how to be better singers/performers.
But I totally disagree with you about the bowtie. They don’t have to only be warn with suits! People said the same thing about ties at one point. Fashion is fun! I get annoyed seeing pictures from the 20s of men more dressed up and having more fun with fashion, different hair styles, different facial hair, but now any time someone does something besides wear t-shirts and jeans people judge them or call them hipsters. Some people just like to be more creative with their clothes and style, just like some people get more creative with their home decor. Don’t judge!
On the other hand, I’m not a fan of Blaine/Darren Criss. I hate it when people use the word “douche” (I feel like most of the time it gets used by people who are themselves douchey), but Darren Criss seems very douchey to me! Emoting way too much like he knows he’s attractive and not aware that he’s just in his 15 minutes of fame right now. It’s annoying.
Conformity in attire is BORING. I have a few special shirts and a floral silk jacket that I wear for special occasions. This spring I wore my silk vest to a bid interview and I was the best dressed person there, and it helped us get the project.
That’s why I only watch recorded Glee with my thumb hovering over the fast forward button on my remote.