In the fall of 2009, my dad asked me if I wanted to watch the pilot of a new show that he had just heard about: Glee, Fox’s original dramedy about a ragtag group of high-school outsiders who band together to make beautiful music. As a 13-year-old belter who spent her afternoons in middle-school musicals, I was Glee’s target demographic. As a 49-year-old lawyer without a musical bone in his body, my dad was far from it—he just liked good television.
We plopped down in front of his computer and watched the first episode, a cheery extravaganza that introduced the characters who seemed like mere stereotypes at the time: the Jewish diva, the flamboyant gay guy, the brassy African-American girl, the wheelchair-bound nerd, the shy Asian, the catty cheerleader, the soft-hearted quarterback, and the rebellious stud. When the episode ended, I offered my analysis: “That was fun, but it was cheesy. I don’t feel like I need to see it again.”
But later that week, in one of those sudden epiphanies that happen so often on Glee as an emotional song like “Don’t Stop Believin’” begins to swell in the background, I realized that I had to see that show again. Six seasons, 121 episodes, and 728 songs later, I have remained an utterly devoted Gleek to the very end. I have dressed up as Rachel Berry for Halloween, cheered my heart out at the season-one Radio City Music Hall concert, celebrated my 17th birthday by watching Jane Lynch take the Broadway stage, scrolled through endless Glee news articles and blogs, and downloaded CDs filled with Glee tunes. I have tuned in every week, sometimes Glee’s harshest critic but always its biggest fan, eager to follow the triumphs and tragedies of the multilayered, very un-stereotypical characters whom I grew to love.
Members of the cast of Glee (clockwise from top left), Mark Salling, Kevin McHale, Lea Michele, Dianna Agron, Amber Riley, Jenna Ushkowitz, Chris Colfer and Cory Monteith
Glee became an international sensation back in 2009, remained the cultural phenomenon of the moment during seasons one and two, started to lose momentum after graduating its primary cast in season three, suffered a severe blow with the tragic death of leading man Cory Monteith after season four, and endured a ratings decline until its cancellation in season six. But to me—even when new characters were forgettable, even when storylines seemed contrived, even when characters’ personalities became inconsistent—the magic of Glee continued to glow, episode after episode and season after season.
At root, the magic of Glee came from its entertainment value. The linchpin of Glee’s success was its mega-talented original cast, an endearing group of Hollywood newbies like Chris Colfer, Broadway veterans like Lea Michele and Matthew Morrison, and comedic heavyweights like Jane Lynch. They had meaty material to work with: creators Ryan Murphy, Ian Brennan, and Brad Falchuk cooked up unfailingly clever soap-operatic plots and an ever-expanding web of relationships that remained at the center of the action. The drama of the show was lightened by Glee’s whip-smart brand of humor: a mix of obscure pop cultural nods, self-referential jabs, and hysterical one-line zingers.
But the magic of Glee came from more than just strong actors and well-written scripts.
The magic of Glee came from the dignity and the relevance that the show lent to the arts. In a day and age in which the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) are trumpeted as society’s game-changers, Glee brought attention to the arts as a vital source of creativity and self-expression that needs to remain in our schools and communities. Glee made the art form of musicals cool again: I firmly believe that shows like Nashville, movies like Pitch Perfect, and television specials like The Sound of Music Live! would never have emerged had Glee not paved the way.
One of the most unique ways in which Glee supported the arts was by pulling together a spectacular variety of music. The show did the ordinary by including contemporary hits like Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” and Meghan Trainor’s “All About That Bass.” It did the extraordinary by weaving in ’80s rock ballads, ’40s jazz standards, Broadway classics, ‘60s grooves, and everything in between. What other show could have 15-year-old fans singing Tom Jones’ “It’s Not Unusual” and 70-year-old viewers humming Bastille’s “Pompeii”? What other show could land the 1937 showtune “The Lady Is a Tramp” on the 2010 charts? What other show could intertwine the Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and Barbra Streisand’s “Papa, Can You Hear Me?” into the same tear-jerking storyline?
The magic of Glee came from its unabashed desire to shed light on important political issues. Although at times the episodes could feel more like public service announcements than narratives, Glee never shied away from topics worth talking about, like eating disorders, teen pregnancy, texting while driving, suicide, obsessive-compulsive disorder, Down syndrome, gun control, underage drinking, and domestic abuse. Glee did its most groundbreaking political work as an unparalleled leader in the fight for LGBTQ rights. Ever since the fourth episode of season one, when Kurt (Chris Colfer) so touchingly came out to his father (Mike O’Malley), Glee made a difference in countless lives as a juggernaut at the forefront of equality.
Glee brought a tremendous number of LGBTQ stories to the small screen and bestowed upon those stories the same respect that it gave to the rest of its plotlines. Kurt began a fan-favorite relationship with Blaine (Darren Criss), and together they lost their virginities, confronted intolerance, broke each other’s hearts, and found each other again. Santana (Naya Rivera) struggled to come out to her school and her family and then embarked on a popular relationship with fellow cheerleader Brittany (Heather Morris). Superstar Rachel (Lea Michele) was raised by two fathers (Jeff Goldblum and Brian Stokes Mitchell) who used a surrogate (Idina Menzel) to become parents. Dave (Max Adler) started as a closeted bully, tried to commit suicide after coming out, and ended as a confident, out-and-proud man. Coach Beiste (Dot Marie Jones) transitioned from female to male. Unique (Alex Newell) insisted on being treated equally as a transgender student. Spencer (Marshall Williams) labeled himself a “postmodern gay teen,” a man who does not consider his sexuality to be one of his defining characteristics. In season six, Glee capped its history of progressiveness with a dual wedding in which Kurt and Blaine tied the knot alongside Santana and Brittany.
Glee’s commitment to advancing the fight for LGBTQ rights coincided with a profound shift in the public’s opinion of marriage equality. In 2009, when Glee debuted, the Pew Research Center reported that 35% of Americans supported gay marriage. In 2015, the year of Glee’s last season, CNN proclaimed that 63% of Americans support gay marriage. While several factors are responsible for this increase, shows like Glee deserve credit for changing the minds of many of the folks who make up the 27% jump. Glee led the pack of television shows that dared to present LGBTQ individuals as people just as worthy of love, just as deserving of joy, and just as full of music as any straight character.
In the final shot of the final episode of the series, Glee spelled out its own legacy. As Glee’s swan song, One Republic’s “I Lived,” drew to a close, the camera focused in on a plaque in the Finn Hudson Auditorium (one last tribute to Cory Monteith and the character he brought to life). Ending the series on a didactic note, the plaque advised, “See the world not as it is, but as it should be.” Glee presented the world as it should be: a musical place where the arts are important and what is right is worth fighting for. How meaningful that Glee used its concluding moments to ask all of us to see the world that way, too.
So consider this my love letter, my thank-you, and my farewell to an incredible source of happiness and music in my life for the past six years. I hope that Glee goes down in the history books not as a flash-in-the-pan hit that lost its audience after a brilliant beginning but rather as a fountain of talent, a savior of the arts, and a pioneer of noteworthy political statements. If Glee taught us anything, it’s that we could all use a little more friendship, a little more music, and a lot more glee in our lives.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons, Eddo, Wikimedia Commons, Keith McDuffee