The Gay Potential Of Glee

For a while now, there's been certainly storylines of Glee that I've wanted to looked into deeper and after viewing the fourth episode of Season 2 called Duets, I thought it was time to address them.

If there's one thing that can be said about this show, it's that it's LGBT topics/characters/representation is certainly head above water over Ryan Murphy's last show but before I discuss Kurt, I'd like to talk about Cheerios girls, Brittany and Santana and their relationship. Santana might not be keen to label any of her trysts with Brittany but clearly there's enough meaning behind them if she's content to sabotage any chances of her mate spending time with Artie this week. Normally, even I would've pegged it as Santana being a bitch but whether or not the girl wants to identify as bisexual or not doesn't matter. She cares enough about Brittany in her own way that she's not willing to share her with even Artie.

Brittany might have also exhibited her own upset at being rejected by Artie (after she'd slept with him) but her scenes with Santana this week from her POV further indicated that their trysts were more than sexual to her. Brittany in her own way admitted to caring about Santana by wanting to sing a Melissa Etheridge song for their duet and when Santana rejected her, she was hurt by it. The hints of Brittany and Santana's fluid sexuality has been present since the latter half of the first season but after this week, it's going to be interesting to see where exactly Brittany and Santana's relationship heads to next. Brittany might be more in love than Santana but this is clearly not a one sided thing between the girls either. It's no wonder that the LJ community and other gay media outlets are dubbing them, "Brittana". Because let's face it, they are a lot more interesting and believable than so called "power-couple" Rachel and Finn this season.

And for a girl who doesn't take crap and enjoys being a bitch, showing any vulnerability with Santana would certainly be a fascinating thing. I can only hope that even if her and Brittany aren't meant to be that the rest of this season does flesh their romantic endeavours out fairly nonetheless. As for Kurt - this was definitely an interesting episode for him. While I don't like that he kept making potshots at Sam's hair as an allusion to the guy's sexuality, I have to admit that Finn made me a lot angrier than Kurt did this week.

First of all, I totally agree that Kurt went too far with Finn last year and while it's fair that Sam is aware of the fact that being in Glee club makes you susceptible for being slushied for no apparent reason, it really felt like Finn was projecting some of his own hang ups about Kurt's sexuality onto Sam. Even Sam questioned whether or not Finn had issues with Kurt being gay and a part of me wonders if underneath everything, Finn does. I get that Kurt was a pain last year over the crush thing and that he might have made a move on Sam if he got any encouragement but Finn failed to realise that all his little warnings to Sam about Kurt were bigoted and basically were excusing any homophobe within their school, even if that wasn't his intention. I liked that Sam was generally polite to Kurt and that it wasn't him that backed out of the duet, though I hated Kurt pulling out of it, due to peer pressure even if it meant a snappy comment from Santana about musical masturbation when Kurt performed Le Jazz Hott from Victor/Victoria.

As for whether or not Sam himself is gay - I think this episode left it ambiguous. There are so many contradicting rumours at the minute that until I see it, I don't know what to believe in regards to which team Sam bats for - maybe he'll be bisexual. Sam might have spent this episode trying to impress Quinn but even on their date after winning the duets competition, there was still a possibility that Sam may or may not be straight. Only time will tell. However points this week have to go to Rachel for picking up on Kurt's loneliess due to his sexuality and performing her own duet with him at the end of the episode. Kurt might not always been the most likeable of characters but with issues of bullying and rumours of a love interest from a rival cluband a tackling of gay suicide, he's certainly helping to educate viewers on the complexities on gay teens and after a rather shocking disservice from Nip/Tuck, it's about time from Ryan Murphy. Also Glee is actually doing more for a variant of LGBT than even Brothers And Sisters is at the moment as well and that's something I didn't think I would've said a year ago.