TV - US sing-a-long show Glee arrived on E4 this week. It's had a huge marketing push so I'm sure you already know it's a bit like High School Musical, except they admit they're losers.
In the opening character introductions, Rachel posts a video of herself singing On My Own on her myspace, only to receive comments like "please get sterilised" - which is pretty much how I feel about musical performers. I probably wouldn't throw milkshakes in their face, or lock them in a portaloo though, so they did illicit some of my sympathy.
There's gayness aplenty from Chris Colfer as Kurt, who was written into the pilot after his audition, as a male soprano. It also features out lesbian actor Jane Lynch as the villainous coach of the cheerleading Cheerios, who has been nominated for a Golden Globe for her role. She spoke about her high school experience to The Guardian
"As a student at Thornridge high school, Lynch described herself as a floater who coasted from group to group. Socialising on the fringe, she never made enough of an impression to warrant mockery, she says. It wasn't until later in life that she discovered she was gay, so she missed out on the taunting experienced by the gay character on Glee. "I didn't know what 'gay' was in high school," she says. "We used the word 'queer' when someone was weird – when I finally heard what it really meant, my heart sank, and I thought, 'Oh God, that's me'."
Lynch likes the way Glee holds up a mirror to minority issues. In its opening 13 episodes, the show addresses, among other things, teenage pregnancy, physical disabilities and issues of race and sexuality. "What I love about [the show] is it stays away from political correctness," she says. While most mainstream TV series shy from confronting some of these edgier topics, Glee tackles the development of social hierarchies, yet manages to express "different" as "cool". There is a playfulness that permeates the show's treatment of provocative topics, avoiding tired stereotypes while retaining its brutal honesty. "We have [the cast] dancing around in wheelchairs," Lynch says of one episode that forced the entire cast to wheel themselves around in order to relate to a disabled student. "And we have a father not real cool with his fruity son." In Glee, it's not the student from a low-income single-mother household who gets pregnant – it's the beautiful blond cheerleader from a wealthy Republican family.
Lynch herself barely thinks about being an openly gay actor in Hollywood. "I think if I were an ingénue – if I were Kate Winslet – it probably would hurt my career, but because I'm Jane Lynch and I'm a character actor, the world isn't projecting their romantic fantasies on me."
They are, however, projecting their values on to Lynch's private life. This past year saw a nationwide rejection of legalising gay marriage, stripping gay Americans of their hope for equal civil rights. "Shouldn't there be safeguards against the majority voting on the rights of a minority?" Lynch wonders. "If people voted on civil rights in the 60s, it would have never happened. It took somebody like [President] Lyndon Johnson going, 'F all of you! I'm going to do this.'" She pauses for a moment, then says, "Obama won't do it. He's a huge disappointment to me."
Now there's a woman who speaks her mind - let's hope Glee can push the boundaries too.
