Not a surprise

Once again, my distaste for weekly network TV shows is confirmed.
An episode of “Glee” came on — a show I’ve never watched — and the plot is apparently about a threat to abolish the school’s choir.
Who do the writers present as the bad guy of the episode? Who wants to do away with the group he formerly starred in? A “Christian” character, of course!
And to make the guy “worse”, they throw in some unrelated stereotypes too: he’s out to “convert” former choir members (it’s a dig at ex-gay ministries). And he sells big SUVs and says he doesn’t believe in global warming. That’s one of the ultimate heresies to Hollywood, apparently. I wonder whether this episode was written before Climategate blew up in the faces of the East Anglia and Penn State experts.
If the writers are so desperate for material that they have to resort to a cheap cliché, this show must have jumped the shark already in its first season.
Life is too valuable to waste any of it on this.

6 comments

  1. I didn’t take it this way at all Richard (re: ex-gay ministries). I took that more along the lines of standard rehab-speak or AA/NA stuff.
    It was Neil Patrick Harris and his character was pretty twisted in a way that seemed an obvious over-the top stereotype to me.
    He didn’t strike me as “Christian” just “Republican” and it was a stereotype. It wasn’t my favorite episode by any stretch but I wasn’t offended. Just my 2 cents.

  2. I figure I’m interpreting the stereotypes as they were intended! :-)
    In the first minute when he was introduced, Harris’ character talked about how he hit bottom and “met Jesus”; he talked about his camp for former chorus members, and a vignette of it was shown: some girl being interrogated to admit when she last sang a show tune. Nothing demanding like that ever happens in AA/NA meetings, as far as I know; so the imagery probably is meant to refer to sexual reorientation ministry.
    Personally, I don’t like it when Evangelicals are treated cruelly and mocked on television. When I see them insulted unjustly, my sympathies are with our Christian brothers and sisters, not their snide Hollywood scorners

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