Thank you Glee, for spelling it out–Glee on marriage [Spoilers, for the picky]
Mock Glee all you want – it’s all over the place, has crazy plot holes
, veers directly into the offensive and sometimes matches the plot with the music so badly that it makes you want to tear your eyeballs out. At the same time, the show has a gift for saying all the things we were afraid to say twenty years ago. If you accept that the show is not about high school now but about what the showmaker wished high school was like in the 1990s it makes more sense; these bon mots are all things those of us from that era wish someone came up with back then. Sorry current generation, we really can’t give you wisdom because even when us older folks have the same experiences, we experience them in totally different ways. I suspect – but can not experience so do not know for sure – that this is especially true for gay and non-gendered kids.
The show is known for acting as a voice for the gay experience; there’s been some pretty bracing stuff in there about homophobia, bullying, the way some protect themselves by becoming the bullies to avoid bullying. It also has some sweet moments that are only just now starting to appear in American canonical/TV trop storytelling: same sex first love stories, coming of age for gay teenagers, the non-relationship betwen gender identity and sexual orientation.
Also, marriage.
HERE BE THE SPOILER! I’ve changed the font to white to make this easier on delicate eyes.
Last night, Blaine worked up his nerve to ask for Kurt’s hand in marriage. Mr. Hummel shot him down on the spot, asking him point-blank if he was crazy. Why? For the same reason he didn’t really support Finn and Rachel’s prospective marriage: they are teenagers. This may be a poor paraphrase, but he got it out quite explicitly: “It’s marriage. It’s sacred. That’s why divorce hurts so much more than just a breakup. There’s so much more to it.” He didn’t say he was averse to having Blaine as a son-in-law, he just didn’t want him as a teenage son-in-law. Since Blaine and Kurt were also broken up at the time, there may have been some additional protect-Kurt logic to Papa Hummel’s logic.
Somewhere in between weirdness and occasionally awful choreography, Glee has a way of saying what needs to be said. Notably those moments are the ones without the dance numbers.