America’s Musical Sensation
By KAITLIN MCVEY
From the pop hits of Lady Gaga to the rock classics of Aerosmith, American musical TV drama “Glee” embraces all kinds of music and is totally addictive.
When American folk legend Bob Dylan gravitated toward rock ’n’ roll in 1965, he famously stated, “The only place where it’s happening is on the radio and records. That’s where the people hang out.”
In 2011, the new musical series “Glee” has embraced Dylan’s prescient vision of pop music as a place where people can hang out. As last season’s unexpected success story, and this season’s most anticipated show, “Glee” has become a cult phenomenon on its way to becoming an American obsession.
“Glee” is an American musical comedy drama that airs on Fox Network. The TV series focuses on a student show chorus, also known as a glee club, set within the fictional William McKinley High School in Lima, Ohio. Entertainment Weekly featured the musical series on its cover in October 2009, dubbing it, “TV’s Happiest Hour.” With about 8 million fans, commonly referred to as “Gleeks,” tuning in every Tuesday night, there is no denying that “Glee” has become a huge success in the U.S. TV market.
Part of that success is because of its open acceptance of all types of music as well as people. From the pop hits of Lady Gaga to the rock classics of Aerosmith and the soul R&B of Syreeta, akin to MTV in its prime, “Glee” will showcase anything and everything. Coupled with the diversity of music, the show embraces the uniqueness of the individual. Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times called the show “blissfully unoriginal in a witty, imaginative way,” saying the characters are “high school archetypes” but noted “a strong satiric pulse that doesn’t diminish the characters’ identities or dim the showmanship of a talented cast.”
While the main characters include cheerleaders, nerds, jocks and Goths, there is a strong emphasis on being true to one’s own identity, even if it is as an outcast. A classic episode, and one of my favorites, is “The Rocky Horror” themed episode which was directed by Adam Shankman. He also directed the musical comedy film “Hairspray.” In the episode, the Glee coach, Will Schuester, played by Matthew Morrison, explains the ’70s glam rock musical to the students by saying, “It was for outcasts, people on the fringes who had no place left to go but were searching for someplace, anyplace, where they felt like they belonged.”
Entertainment Weekly noted that the show was “snarky, theatrical and totally addictive,” which my friend Jimmy Morrison can attest to. Morrison, a 32-year-old Gleek, was a “fan since before the first episode. I loved the music and the concept on the commercials promoting it months before it made its debut. I ended up watching every promo I could find on YouTube prior to the first show.” He liked the show from the very start since he “was a somewhat geeky band and choir kid in high school. I have loved musicals since I was very young. I watched the movie ‘Annie’ so many times the VHS tape wore out and my Mom had to buy it twice.”
Morrison’s favorite character on the show is Rachel Berry, played by Lea Michele, because he “loves watching her take tiny steps toward the realization that the world does not revolve around her. I like watching the characters evolve and better themselves, even if it’s only in a fictional story. I’m also fond of Kurt’s storyline because I think it relates to what so many gay and lesbian youth experience on a daily basis in high schools and middle schools across the country.” He finds Sue Sylvester, the cheerleader coach at the high school and Glee Club’s arch nemesis, “very flat and predictable.” He is holding out optimistically, though, since he “has seen glimmers of hope in the episode featuring her sister with Down Syndrome, and in a recent episode where she let her guard down to sing with hospitalized children. Hopefully, the show’s writers will find more opportunities to expand upon that aspect of her character.”
While I agree with Morrison that the storylines and characters are entertaining and mirror real-life challenges, I find that I tune in every Tuesday for one reason: for me, “Glee” is a happy hour that comes once a week. It has been a long time since there has been a creative alternative to the hours of prime-time programming devoted to life-and-death medical dramas or crime investigations. It is refreshing to watch a show featuring high school kids singing and dancing, and while their characters are sometimes slightly over the top, each one is brimming with heart and uniqueness.
Kaitlin McVey is a writer living in Seattle, Washington.
