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Glee shines as the best gay show on prime-time TV.
At the Hot Topic in south suburban Orland Square Mall, so many security guards block the entryway that you’d swear President Obama is using the youth retailer for a public meeting on health-care reform. But then Cory Monteith, the tall, rosy-cheeked star of Fox’s new musical-comedy series Glee, pops his head out and snaps a picture of the gathering crowd with his iPhone. Among a hundred or so screaming girls and their gay best friends, pandemonium ensues. This is the kind of fan adoration Glee has inspired—after airing just the pilot last spring (the season premieres Wednesday 9).
Created by Ryan Murphy (Popular, Nip/Tuck), Glee tells the story of idealistic high-school teacher Will Schuester (Broadway’s Matthew Morrison) and the scrappy teen troupe he’s assembled to resuscitate the school’s show choir, or glee club. It also happens to be the gayest thing on network television since—well, perhaps ever. In addition to the rainbow-hued subject matter and musical numbers such as Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” and Salt-N-Pepa’s “Push It,” Glee stars out actor Jane Lynch as Sue Sylvester, a tracksuit-wearing cheerleading coach and Schuester’s arch rival. Lynch spits out plum lines such as, “That is the most offensive thing I’ve seen in 20 years as a teacher, and that includes an elementary-school production of Hair.”
But wait, it gets gayer. Lea Michele (Spring Awakening) plays Rachel, a budding ingenue with two gay dads who boldly proclaims, “There’s nothing ironic about show choir!” And then there’s Kurt (played with sassy earnest by Chris Colfer), a perfectly coiffed, delicate young dandy who delivers juicy one-liners, including, “My body is like a rum chocolate soufflé. If I don’t warm it up at night, it doesn’t rise.”
As the crowd of “Gleeks” (Fox’s marketing term for the show’s fan base) swells outside Hot Topic, we slip inside the store to discuss the show’s LGBT appeal with Michele and Colfer. “It’s the whole performing aspect of it,” Colfer says. “The theater, the jazz hands. All the gays and lesbians in my hometown hung out at community theater.” Michele agrees but points to its appeal among outsiders in general (other Glee misfits include a student with a disability, a dorky Asian punk and a zaftig chanteuse). “Someone came up to me the other day and said, ‘Finally, a show for us,’” she says. “I knew exactly what she meant. ‘Us’ are the people that no one got in high school, the people that didn’t know how to fit in. This will show kids it is so okay to be who you are.”
While Glee revolves around two heterosexual love triangles (Schuester is married, but a love connection blossoms with the school’s OCD guidance counselor Emma, while Monteith’s Finn dates cheerleader Quinn yet wrestles with his affection for Rachel), Colfer says his character will have the kind of gravitas rarely given to gays on prime-time TV. “He’s not a punching bag and he’s not a punch line, as usually those characters are,” Colfer says. “He has depth, he has soul, he has issues. I hope he does well with influencing young gay kids out there.”
Kurt also has something most gay characters don’t: a kinship with the actor who portrays him. Colfer says his high-school experience in suburban Fresno was similar to that of Kurt, including the constant teasing. In his high school’s annual talent show, Colfer begged to sing Wicked’s showstopping “Defying Gravity.” “My drama department told me no, it’s a girl’s song, we don’t want anyone to get uncomfortable,” Colfer says. “I was venting to our creator, Ryan Murphy, about this, and the next thing I know it’s in the next script. Kurt wants to sing this song and they won’t let him because he’s a boy.”
Glee premieres Wednesday 9 at 8pm.
