True stories that’ll break and warm your heart

 

For this next post, we’re only going back a few years, well to July 2018, so exactly three years. At this point, we were moving house and looking at places in Dundee, as my parents were moving there and I was starting uni there in September. With our stylish friend, Phyl, we went to see a performance of the musical ‘Everybody’s talking about Jamie’ streamed to the DCA (it’s fab when they put on stage productions at the cinema as it’s cheaper and easier to get to). ‘Everybody’s talking about Jamie’ was written by Dan Gillespie Sells and Tom McRae and premiered in Sheffield in 2017. It was inspired by the real story of Jamie from the 2011 documentary, ‘Jamie: Drag Queen at 16’ and a movie musical of ‘Everybody’s talking about Jamie’ is due to come out this year. The musical centres around sixteen-year-old Jamie New, who gets really badly bullied by homophobic classmates but ends up teaching them about acceptance, learning about himself and getting the happiness he deserves by creating a drag alter ego called Mimi and going to prom in a dress and heels like he always wanted. Jamie also shows true strength of character by being mature about his awful Dad, forgiving the bullies and having fun with his kind friend, Pritti. It’s a very moving, thought-provoking story and even though there are sad parts (the song ‘Ugly in this ugly world’ is quite a heartbreaker), on the whole, it’s mostly uplifting and heartwarming. 

Some of the songs include ‘And you don’t even know it’, ’Everybody’s talking about Jamie’ and ‘The wall in my head’ (which is quite an effective, powerful metaphor for feeling stuck or as if things are holding you back or even if you feel that you’re getting in your own way). Margaret, who’s Jamie’s mother in the show, gets some really good, moving numbers too. For instance, her song ‘If I met myself again’, which features some brilliant choreography, gives the audience some insight into her as a character and her relationship with Jamie’s Dad, who’s now her ex, without directly stating too much in the lyrics or dialogue. There’s also something quite universal about it, as almost all of us have regrets or imagine what would have happened if we’d done one thing differently or if we could say something to our younger self. The song ‘He’s my boy’ is sung by Margaret after being shouted at by Jamie and it’s very touching and effectively conveys the unconditional love that many parents feel for their children or children who are in their care, no matter how complicated the relationship is or what they say or do, as for many parents, they might always see their kids as children who need looking after, even when they're adults themselves.

 Another show that I saw that summer which is also based on a true story, is a Canadian musical called ‘Come from away’. It was a relatively short show that didn’t have an interval but it left quite an impact. I saw it with my Grandma’s sister, Morag and her lovely daughter, Fiona and Fiona’s husband, Justin, who were all kind enough to take me to dinner and the theatre, which was very sweet of them. Even though 'Come from away' is very different from ‘Jamie’, it has a similar vibe of not ignoring the upsetting, heart-breaking parts of life but maintaining a predominantly life-affirming, positive message. At the time, I was out visiting family in Ontario in Canada and we saw the show at the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto. It was written by Irene Sankoff and David Hein and was first performed in 2013. It tells the real story of what happened during the 9/11 attacks, when 38 planes (and around 7000 people) had to land in a small town called Gander in Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada. From the premise, it might sound like an impossible or depressing situation and it’s true that songs such as ‘Me and the sky’ explore the heart-breaking complexities of feeling that what you love the most can cause loss, pain and destruction as well as being a really cool, empowering feminist song. However, there is something so hopeful and inspiring about the musical, which is what sticks with most people who’ve seen it, as everyone comes together and forms a new community and develops a deeper level of respect and appreciation of each other. Almost all of the characters are based on real people and they all have their own personal stories and experiences, which the others are considerate about as they grow to trust each other. The show deals with themes such as death and loss but there’s also a big focus on community and friendship and even a hint at a romance with songs such as ‘Stop the world’. Even though it’s mostly a love song in the musical, some people might say that ‘stopping the world’ is what COVID-19 has been doing since 2020, which doesn’t sound as romantic. 

However, in real life and in these musicals about real stories, there’s always going to be heartbreak, sadness and despair but there’s also always going to be love, hope and goodness and even when things seem hopeless, love should still find a way of winning and outweighing the bad.

Here’s what we miss about ‘Glee’ (and what we could have done without)

The next show for the blog would have been the production of ‘Spring Awakening’ that I saw at the Dundee Rep in March 2018 with my amazing bestie, Rebecca. However, it’s not a show that I know very well and I’m not very familiar with the songs and I didn’t think it would be right to talk about a show that I’m not knowledgeable about. Therefore, as the title says, this post’s mainly going to focus on the comedy musical drama, ‘Glee’(2009-2015), as Lea Michele(who played Rachel in ‘Glee), Jenna Ushkowitz(who played Tina in ‘Glee’) and Jonathan Groff(who played Rachel’s love interest, Jesse in ‘Glee) all appeared in productions of ‘Spring Awakening’ before being in ‘Glee’. ‘Glee’ is a TV show that centred on a high school glee club/show choir in Ohio and focused on the lives of the students and faculty at the school and a bit about life after graduation, with lots of musical numbers. In this post, I’m going to talk about some of the parts of the TV show that are still good and genuinely funny and the parts that have not aged so well. 

The Positives: LGBTQ + rights (part 1) - While this might come up in the section on things that haven’t dated well, on the whole, I think Kurt Hummel’s coming out story in season one was handled pretty well and back in 2009, when the show started airing, there were a lot fewer LGBTQ + characters than there are now so it was really great and important to have characters like Kurt* and to see his Dad, Burt, being supportive was great too, as they were both pretty good characters. Kurt’s main love interest, Blaine, was also part of the main cast from season two onwards and, like with the cheerleaders Santana and Brittany, Kurt and Blaine’s love story got just as much screentime as the straight couples and was very important to the show as a whole. ‘Glee’ also had trans characters as well in the form of Unique Adams, who was originally from the rival show choir, and Sheldon Beiste, the football coach.

Body positivity - While the show could have been better on this, as some of the characters made fatphobic jokes and Mercedes had a whole plotline about ‘tater tots’, overall, the characters who weren’t super skinny weren’t treated as lesser or unattractive or as a walking punchline and got to be strong, confident, accomplished characters who were happy with themselves and the general idea of the ‘Glee club’ being a place where everyone is welcome and accepted was a good idea in theory even if the execution was sometimes less than perfect.

 

The negatives: Biphobia – While the show had many LBGTQ + characters and relationships, it didn’t always have the best attitudes towards bisexuality and sadly wasn't the only TV to have biphobic elements as 'Will and Grace' and 'Friends' contain biphobic lines and quotes. For instance, in the fifth season of 'Glee', when Santana starts dating Dani, she references her ex-girlfriend, Brittany, who’s bisexual, by saying that she doesn’t have to ‘worry’ about Dani ‘straying’ to be with guys as Dani’s a lesbian. Dani also tells Santana that she ‘should be with a 100% sapphic goddess’, which seems to imply that bisexual women are not as good as lesbians and that they’re likely to be unfaithful, which is a very false, unfair stereotype about bisexual people. Also, in season two, Blaine kisses Rachel, one of the lead characters, at a party and wonders if he likes her. When Blaine starts to wonder if he’s bisexual, Kurt, who’s attracted to Blaine, basically tells him that bisexuality isn’t a real thing which is so harmful and wrong but for some reason the show doesn’t really present him as being in the wrong, despite his biphobia. For instance, Blaine realises that he’s gay and Kurt is almost suggested to be right which feels quite uncomfortable given the extremely biphobic comment. 

LBGTQ + rights (part 2) – Santana’s coming out in season three was quite different to what Kurt experienced in some ways. For instance, one of the male leads on the show, Finn, basically outs Santana at school one day and calls her a coward for not coming out even though everyone knows that Kurt was bullied for his sexuality. The whole plot with Finn and Santana related to her coming out arc makes me uncomfortable as Finn basically pressures her to come out and doesn’t let her pick the lesson plan or let her do what she feels is right for her in her own way or her own time. 

I’d also like to say that just because I think that Finn outing Santana was unforgivable, it doesn’t mean that I’m on board with Santana bullying and body shaming Finn, as that’s obviously not ok, but outing her was completely inappropriate and so wrong. It also doesn't help that, as he always is, Finn was framed as a hero and a great guy who we’re meant to root for, but the truth is that Finn was never as nice a character as the show wanted us to think he was. To name just a few examples, he used a homophobic slur when talking to Kurt and an offensive slur about Sue’s baby, Robin, who had Down Syndrome and while he wasn't framed as him being right in these instances, the show didn’t really address how serious and awful it is to use offensive slurs and continued to present him as a decent, heroic guy. 

Even the song he sang for Santana when she came out was arguably a bit inappropriate, as he sang ‘Girls just want to have fun’, which seems a bit flippant despite everything she was going through, including her abuela not accepting her sexuality and being outed by a homophobic candidate running for local office.

Will Schuester- Will was a teacher at the school in ‘Glee’ and ran the main show choir, the New Directions, and I’m probably not the first person to say this but he was a really inappropriate character. It’s a bit similar to Finn’s character in that Will was always presented as this amazing man and the world’s best teacher despite being a pretty creepy guy who’d make anyone uncomfortable if they spent time with him. In fact, it’s probably worse with Will, as at least Finn was still a teenager and could have learned and grown as he was sometimes called out but Will never faced any consequences for even his worst actions. To begin with, he got Finn to join the club by spying on him in the shower and gaslighting him by making him think there were drugs in his locker and that’s arguably just because he wanted the popular jock and/or a straight, white guy in his show choir. He also didn't even speak Spanish, despite being a Spanish teacher and he often perpetuated lazy, offensive stereotypes about latinx culture, and when Santana, who's Latina, rightfully called him out for it, he was condescending and basically said she didn’t know what she was talking about. He was also selfish in his relationship with the guidance counsellor, Emma, as he seemed to expect her to follow him wherever he wanted to go to follow his dreams and didn’t let her have a say in planning their wedding but also didn’t really help her plan it even when she was extremely stressed. Even when the show wants to present him as being supportive, he's often not very supportive at all as he doesn't ever really take how she’s feeling or what she wants into account. However, one of the worst things he did, as well as enjoying watching teenage girls dancing a bit too much and giving almost all the solos to Rachel and Finn and often ignoring Mercedes, Santana, Quinn, Tina, Artie and Mike and most of the other students, was what he did to Marley. Marley was a shy, sweet, singer-songwriter who joined the Glee club in season four. In season five, Will reprimanded her for not going along with an assignment as she was asked to dress as Lady GaGa for a number but she dressed up as Katy Perry instead as that made her feel more comfortable than the seashell bra she was asked to wear. It’s so wrong that a grown man would reprimand a young girl, especially one who’d had an eating disorder, for not wearing a revealing outfit that made her uncomfortable, it’s just so inappropriate and gross as it was good that Marley was getting more confident and didn’t want to change for anyone and I respected her for that. There are countless other terrible things that he did and the worst part is that unlike Sue, the infamous cheerleading coach, he wasn’t framed in a negative light, and was praised and portrayed as a wonderful, heroic, decent guy. 

Some of the other problems are to do with how the show tried to discuss serious social issues, which was admirable for a comedy, but sadly the way they dealt with theses issues wasn’t always the best. For instance, when Ryder, one of the season four newbies, talks about being sexually assaulted, the other boys talk about it as if it’s a good thing that boys would want and while they are slightly chastised for this, they don’t really learn anything or apologise or see why sexual assault is always a big deal and why it was so wrong to react that way. Also, the handling of the romantic relationships wasn’t always great, as almost everyone cheats on everyone and we rarely got to see genuinely healthy relationships on the show. For instance, with two of the main characters, Puck and Quinn, the implications surrounding the time Puck got Quinn pregnant are quite troubling, as it’s shown that he got her drunk  to coerce her into having unprotected sex with him while she was dating his friend, which is more than a little concerning. It was also quite uncomfortable when Blaine got drunk and tried to pressure Kurt to sleep with him when he didn't want to. There also weren’t really any strong, supportive, fleshed out friendships between the female characters and while Rachel is very talented, the fact that she’s one of the leads means that she gets away with being extremely self-obsessed and rude and doing some pretty awful things, just for solos.

Thanks so much for reading this post, hope you enjoyed it. Excited for you to see what the next post is…

*not that things are perfect now in terms of representation but they’ve come a long way since 2009.