The Glee Problem

TW: discussion of ableism, racism, and LGBT-misia

Note: a compilation of some of my Tweets on Glee from 2018 and 2019

I loved my high school chorus and theater. I was the target audience for Glee, and I wanted to love it.

But I was constantly horrified by the tokenism and stereotypes! Basically, the show pigeonholed its one-dimensional, comedic characters as “the disabled kid, the black kid, or the Asian kid.” The ableism! The auto-tuned, top 40, karaoke songs!

When Glee was still airing, I saw an exploitative, cloying news article about a wheelchair-using student. The tone of the article was inspiration porn. More recently, this is also called inspiration exploitation, to distinguish it from sex work and from any connotations stigmatizing sex work. The subtext is something like: “Look, he wants to participate too!” And he was segregated as far as physically possible from the rest of the choir. Even someone without mobility issues (or with hearing loss) wouldn’t even see the conductor or hear which part to sing at that distance. And it said he’d been “inspired by Glee” to join. Sigh. Bad representation can encourage stereotypes, misconceptions, and mistreatment in real life.

Someone Tweeted that the “vapid cheerleader” stereotype is sexist and mocks hyper-femininity. I totally agree, but that’s only the secondary reason why I hate it.

It’s also a really gross example of intellectual ableism. I’ve talked a lot about how much I hate Glee, its racist and LGBT stereotypes, and ableism, especially with Artie.

Brittany is a classic example of this “vapid cheerleader” stereotype. It’s a running joke that she’s (not smart) or (mentally ill) in other words than those.

Contrast that with Becky, who has Down’s syndrome. See how horribly mean and hypocritical this show was?… You can’t tout inclusion of LGBT students, students of color, and disabled students while also laughing that other kids are (not sane or smart). It actually ties right into abled people hyperbolically calling Trump mocking Serge Kovaleski THE WORST THING EVER.

This is because, if you pity disabled people, then you don’t treat us equally. If you don’t want to be ableist, you can’t say: “It would be too far to make fun of a student with a diagnosed intellectual disability. But another student, she’s just not very smart, ha!” It’s classic bullying.

I’ll call this the Glee problem: a double standard where mocking a real person or character’s intelligence is acceptable — UNLESS they have a known disability. Many disabilities are undiagnosed, but that’s beside the point. Mocking intelligence is always ableist, regardless of diagnoses. The Glee problem is a condescending double standard, and as a disabled person, I really hate when anyone is treated condescendingly.

Here, I described many alternatives to ableist words and concepts like dumb, stupid, crazy, etc.