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penroseparticle:crownofweeds:penroseparticle:crownofweeds:penroseparticle:crownofweeds:penroseparticle:crownofweeds:penroseparticle:Glee Meme: Nine Episodes 2. LaryngitisThis episode was so fantastic. Like, seriously, a contender for best season 1 episode.You know, if Throwdown didn’t exist.But seriously, love.Oh my god, are you actually trying to make me fall in love with you with that strikeout after everything else?<3 ___ <3(For those who are emoticon challenged, as I am, that means hearteyes, which I am told is the face Blaine makes at Kurt.)YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND. Like, I hear time and again that Preggers is where people fell in love with this show, and I just… idk, Throwdown was what made this show a must see for me. I loved Preggers, I loved Vitamin D, but… Throwdown was just, guh. All the feels.Hate On Me is like my favorite season 1 song, because it’s one of my Mom’s favorite songs. She loves Jill Scott.And that’s part of it, but it’s mostly that… well, Will misses the point so very, very eloquently. The idea of discussing things like race and minority isn’t to say “WE’RE ALL DIFFERENT WHICH MAKES US THE SAME” (Also, his “You’re a minority because Glee Club” was insensitive as fuck), because that erases all sorts of incredibly problematic things that are kit and kaboodle with that sort of discourse. The idea is to say we are all different, and that’s okay, but there are some things about being different that make things unfair, and we need to work to minimize or erase those things.The amazing thing to me is just how much Sue GETS IT, and she uses that to advance her scheme- She knows exactly how to win Mercedes and the rest of Sue’s Kids over, by singing a song that cuts right to the quick of it (Even if some people think it creates an “us or them” mentality), lets this sort of idea permeate the club.I have a lot of feels about this episode, especially about Sue in it, but I’m gonna try and save the rest for the review for it, which should come sooner than expected- I’m halfway through Acafellas! :p<3____<3 right back at you!This blog needs all the Throwdown commentary. All of it.And Sue isn’t good. She does something really shitty. There’s no easy moral.And oh my god, since you mentioned disability politics, have you seen me going on about the fucking brilliance of Sue’s Kids?Oh I agree- Sue is horrible. The fact that she gets it, but still plays the kids using the same bullshit, is beyond abominable. Like, seriously. (And how could she not get it? Considering exactly how Sue acts in Wheels, I KNOW that she understands exactly what she’s doing, and that makes it just, guh)I have not, but I would love to hear about it!Sue’s nastiness, if anything, is amplified when you realize that she knows exactly what she’s doing and does it anyway, sometimes for personal vendettas.And Sue’s Kids is a reference to Jerry’s Kids. Jerry’s Kids were the children with muscular dystrophy who Jerry Lewis exploited for the annual telethon for years and years and years—a telethon that is still going on. A number of the kids grew up and started calling themselves “Jerry’s Orphans” and objecting to the sensationalism, tokenization, and pity-porn. Here have a link!On a larger scale, Jerry’s Kids represented a common, deeply entrenched, and fundamentally rotten model of activism. It relies on a marginalized group being pitiable and grateful and in need of salvation and championing. It requires the marginalized group’s silence and compliance. Anyone who disagrees with or disobeys the privlieged champion or challenges their framework will be punished and expelled. Usually they will be told that they were too angry, or that their very existence is personally hurtful. Often concepts like “ungrateful” will come into play.This is not activism. This is just dressed-up oppression masquerading as charity, and it’s uniquely disempowering.Does it sound familiar?Because they wrote an episode around it. I don’t know why, but they did.HOLY. SWEET. HELL.They really DID do that. Like, exactly that, down to the letter. That is fantastic. Like seriously, you have enhanced the episode for me.Depth and nuance, in my Glee? It’s more likely than you’d think.I keep trying to figure out why. Which I know is a deliberately impossible thing to do with this show, but why—and why use Quinn as the marginalized voice? If this episode is about How We (Fail To) Talk About Minorities…first of all, that’s bullshit, and second of all, why use Quinn as the character who embodies the consequences thereof?So it can’t be about Minorities, because that makes no sense in completely new ways. But it can be about marginalization. Does that differentiation make sense?I’m a member of several minority groups. That’s an identity. The process by which I am marginalized, however, is not something unique to any group, and it can be done to people who don’t belong to them. Glee does a lot of stuff with identities, though it hadn’t really gotten to that point by Throwdown, but it does most of them in a sort of side-along way. But, as you’ve been pointing out, Glee does a lot with communication. Particularly dysfunctional or broken-down communication, missed messages, crossed wires, and people silencing each other.And we have a winner.I think Throwdown is structured around the idea, which is fundamental to the show and really, really important than the audience explicitly understands early on, that no one listens to these kids. WMHS is not a safe place to grow up. It’s a bright veneer of cheer over a not-even-completely-obscured poisonous core. And the tools you use, to not-listen to people, to paint a palatable masque over something you don’t want to, can’t, address and then pat yourself on the back, are pretty standard. Pity porn and sensationalism, Inspiration, We’re All Minorities, declaring that the Minorities Don’t Feel Heard so long as you never ask them anything….It’s simple. It’s easy. It changes nothing, but it makes things look nicer and makes you feel better about yourself and confident in your Goodness.It’s very Will.What I’m trying to say is, Glee is not an explicitly political show (definitely not S1. I can be persuaded in some regards for this season.) So they’re referencing Jerry’s Kids, which makes sense because it was a major media and pop culture thing, but Throwdown is not really (and I know I’ve said the opposite of this before, because words and my brain don’t get along) a How We Talk About Minorities episode. (Which would be bullshit.) It’s a how do we silence people episode, and the tools are the same.And the parallel episode for that this season?I Kissed A Girl.That differentiation absolutely makes sense.The focal character for this episode really is Quinn, when you think about it. She sets our plot rolling, has a large amount of interaction during the actual events, and ultimately suffers the consequences. Which you’re right, is really odd- Quinn isn’t a member of the group that we’re ostensibly focusing on.Marginalization is the name of the game here, and it’s funny that even in Will’s group of “White people” (Artie, stay classy), he still ends up marginalizing everyone except his dream Show Choir couple (Quinn even lampshades it: “So much for togetherness.” I swear, the lengths this show goes to show how hypocritical Will is are absolutely astounding)I love dissecting themes and politics of shows, and Glee is rife with a lot of uncomfortable truths when you really look at it- This episode is ugly and dark (With one of the happiest, affirming scenes in the whole series, Ride Wit Me), and it needed to be.I guess to sort of touch on Laryngitis (Lol, we’ve talked about it absolutely zilch), that was the part of the episode I never liked- The Pity Porn with Sean. Until I realized that was the POINT- Pity Porn doesn’t do anything, it was a terrible thing to do, Finn you’re an asshole.It’s just so much more explicit in Throwdown- The episode just hammers it home again and again with how to silence people (think about it- even Quinn’s number here is about how she has a lot she has to express, so we of course slide into a fantasy number where she’s talking to all these people, expressing herself, but in real life… nothing has changed.). Silencing people indeed.And the parallel in season 2 is The Substitute… the themes of each episode are also really tight parallels, wow.….oh hey, I remember this. It should go on this tumblr now, too.There are things here I wish I’d articulated better, but conversation is hard, and I love this episode so much. -- source link

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