The last post was about an incredibly gay show that began airing in 2009 and did great things for the LGBTQ+ community, so this week we’re going to switch it up and talk about Glee (another gay show that premiered in 2009 and has done great things for the queer community). Glee was a revolutionary show because it gave queer storylines airtime in the early 2010s, and there wasn’t too much of that going on. While there were a select few shows and movies that had queer characters, Glee was different because it was specifically marketed towards teenagers. This made the show that much more impactful because the representation was being shown directly to kids. This was especially meaningful to the LGBTQ+ youth at the time because they were able to see people like them on TV at a time when the world was telling them they’d never be able to marry someone they love.  So, without (much) further ado, let’s talk about some of the queer characters on the hit TV show Glee.

Now I know what you’re probably thinking – “It’s a show about a high school show choir, isn’t everyone in it gay?” – but the answer is no. The show’s creator, Ryan Murphy, decided to add some great straight representation to the show as well. He was very brave for doing this as heterosexuals are an underrepresented group in show choir, but, as a show committed to diversity, Glee provided representation of all types. We will be focusing on the queer representation, though, as that is the theme of this blog. However, before we begin, I need to remind you of something I have already touched on in a previous post: not all representation is good representation. Now that we’ve got everything settled, buckle your seatbelts and hold onto any loose articles because this is going to be a bumpy ride.

Kurt Hummel from Glee (Image Source)

Right out of the gate we’ve got one of the characters on the show that provides the worst representation: Kurt Elizabeth Hummel. For those of you who have never watched the show, I want you to think of all the gay stereotypes that you know. Now imagine a person that embodies all of those stereotypes. The person you are thinking of is Kurt Hummel. Kurt is a fine character, but when it comes to queer representation, he misses the mark in every single way. Kurt is a character that the LGBTQ+ community can appreciate because he’s gay and his inclusion in a hit TV show works towards normalizing queer people, but other than that he falls into the ‘gay best friend’ trope that I discussed in my post about bad representation.

Santana Lopez, on the other hand, is absolutely amazing representation. Santana is not only the best character in the show, but she is also a raging lesbian. Santana’s queer storyline is important because for so many people she was the first time they saw a girl in a mainstream piece of media liking other girls. With Santana, the audience also got to witness a lot of the struggles associated with realizing you’re queer. It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows for Santana, she battled her feelings for girls for a while and then when she finally accepted herself her grandmother disowned her. This is what happens to a lot of queer youth, so having it represented on TV is very important. What Santana went through as she was coming out reflects what a lot of real people go through, so it is very special that people are able to see that represented in a huge piece of media.

Brittany S. Pierce (left) and Santana Lopez (right) being cute in the choir room (Image Source)

We can’t discuss Santana without talking about Brittany. Brittany S. Pierce is Santana’s best friend and love interest, but more importantly she is the bisexual representation we need. Brittany was the first character I had ever seen that liked boys and girls. Before her, I had no clue that was ‘allowed’, and I’m sure I’m not alone in that. Brittany’s storyline was also unique because it didn’t stress a coming out arc. There was no point in which Brittany emotionally came out to people because it was just an unstated fact. For a while no one explicitly called Brittany bisexual, it was just understood that she liked men and women. This is incredible representation because it makes it clear that being queer is okay and can be just another fact about a person, it doesn’t always have to be a defining thing about them. This type of representation does wonders for the community because it creates an environment where being queer is normalized. It works towards a world where people don’t have to announce that they’re gay the same way people don’t have to announce that they’re straight, and that is the ultimate goal.

Unique Adams (Image Source)

For how well Glee wrote some of the plots for the gay characters, the show really fumbled the ball when it came to their trans representation. The show had two trans characters – Unique Adams and Coach Beiste – and they messed up their arcs in very different ways. For Unique it was clear that the show was just dipping its toes into the pool of trans representation. Glee was testing the waters before committing, and that is evidenced by the fact that they wrote it off as drag for a while before finally deciding to make her trans. The trans representation itself was good because Unique talked openly about the feeling of not belonging associated with feeling out of place in your birth gender, but I wish they would have committed to the trans storyline earlier rather than being wishy-washy with it. Coach Beiste, on the other hand, was horrible trans representation. For four seasons of the show Coach Beiste talked about wanting to be viewed as more feminine because she was never treated like a lady due to the fact that she was burly and played football, but then, all of a sudden, she changed her tune and came out as a transgender man. This storyline is inconsistent and lazy and provides horrible trans representation because it diminishes all of the feelings that people have to grapple with as they realize they’re trans.

Glee is a very gay show, but that doesn’t mean it’s free from the lackluster queer representation that is so common in media. Some of the choices that the writers made when creating the queer characters were certainly questionable, but we can still appreciate the good representation that came out of the show and the fact that queer people being included in a hit show like Glee paved the way for more inclusion and representation in media.