Glee 1.05&6
Oct. 8th, 2009 10:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hazelkI didn’t discover fandom until about ¾ the way through Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s first run. Before Buffy my main fandom was old Hollywood movies, especially musicals and before that it was books. Say you like musicals and often the first thing people seem to think of are stage shows but when I say it I’m really just talking old school film musicals, the ones with happy endings however ridiculous the plots. With virtuoso tap dancing and songs that were already hits back in the day. Those movies are like family, I could sit stone-faced through the greatest performance of Wicked or Les Miz but find the good in the crappiest RKO or MGM non-classic.
I know Glee has its faults but it’s still like coming home. Plus this weeks episode was utterly hilarious and a Bechdel triple threat to boot. Last week’s jumped through all kinds of cheese hoops to service its guest star but what a star! Kristen Chenoweth played a musical comedy drunk finding unlikely redemption. It was utterly unbelievable but then she opened her mouth and tentatively began to sing “Maybe This Time.” The accompaniment rises, the lights go down, the spotlight comes on. It’s that inevitable transition from the mundane that I love most. The unreal that makes it all real. That and virtuoso dancing which hasn’t really been Glee’s thing, it’s been a singers’ show until this week. Mighty Harry Shum! I’m home.
I know Glee has its faults but it’s still like coming home. Plus this weeks episode was utterly hilarious and a Bechdel triple threat to boot. Last week’s jumped through all kinds of cheese hoops to service its guest star but what a star! Kristen Chenoweth played a musical comedy drunk finding unlikely redemption. It was utterly unbelievable but then she opened her mouth and tentatively began to sing “Maybe This Time.” The accompaniment rises, the lights go down, the spotlight comes on. It’s that inevitable transition from the mundane that I love most. The unreal that makes it all real. That and virtuoso dancing which hasn’t really been Glee’s thing, it’s been a singers’ show until this week. Mighty Harry Shum! I’m home.
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Date: 2009-10-25 04:12 am (UTC)Heh. At my high school, only other rugby players (not that we had rugby) would have known that. (Funny story: at one point the soccer coach tried to bribe her calculus students with extra credit to attend her team's home games, because it embarrassed her players that the visiting teams always had more supporters in the stands.) I am of course quite aware that whatever my tiny high school was, it was not typical. We did have a clear separate-but-equal division between the geeks and the non-geeks (with a few ambivalent individuals), but who among us had time (let alone motive) to care about or interfere with the Other Group?
I don't know whether I'm more upset by the idea that TV American High Schools do or do not resemble many American (suburban?) high schools, but either way, the setting bugs me.