Why “Glee” is totally magical realism

In case you don’t know (it’s only a cultural phenomenon), “Glee” is a television show. It was created by the guys that did “American Horror Story” and “Nip/Tuck.” It takes place in Ohio in a dinky little school and focuses on a glee club, which I have since learned is another name for a show choir. I used to think it was a club for doing happy things together. Not really.  

1.   Students look older than teachers

Okay, so I know that getting child actors can be tough because you got to work around child labor laws (darn children!) but getting a 30 year old to play a 17 year old junior? Bizarre. And it’s not just one or two. I mean nearly all the students were played by 25 and uppers. Rachel Berry, main singer in the series? She started as a sophomore. She was 23 when they started filming. Not bad, I guess. The guy who played Mike Chang, Harry Shum Jr, was 27 at the beginning of the first season.

The freshman class!

I’m not saying this is a horrible thing (yet). But it’s weird. I know that a goal of the show was to make it as realistic and close to schools now, and that includes students that aren’t 24 and freshmen in high school. I was sexually attracted to Puckerman. I, a 16 year old girl, had a crush on an almost a 30 year old. Not only that, but when I went to high school after seeing this, I was majorly disappointed. Everyone in an actual high school of actual high school ages are puny and pimply and haven’t gone through puberty.

2.    I’m pretty sure it’s magical realism

Okay, I know that sounds crazy. This isn’t like mermaids and fairies and shit. But look at it this way. In the glee club, this one named New Directions (nude erections, let’s be honest),takes students who want to be stars or who feel rejected and gives them confidence and friendship. Well, there’s that first off. In high school. Okay, the magical part is when they sing. I know it’s a TV show. I know they’re trying to make money and sell tons of merchandise. I get that. But when you’re watching and students who have been practicing for a few days suddenly bust into a hugely choreographed Broadway showtune, you kind of get jarred. 

They're singing about getting your first period.

Here they are complaining about being pregnant or drunk or God-knows, and then they sing like perfect auto-tuned angels. There’s no way you are that good. I saw you yesterday, and you were shit. Especially in high school, that doesn’t happen. I’ve worked on plays for months and had them turn out little better than Carrie (the musical).

That has to be magic. Maybe it’s all a big metaphor. Making friends makes you great and confident and talented, but I’m sure that in actuality, Mr. Schuster’s kids are just as bad as they were when they began. So, long story short, club members are either blessed with perfect voices or purposefully horrible voices. I have stopped watching the musical numbers because we are inadequate.

3.   These people are treated horribly

If you’ve seen the show, you know how vindictive and mean the characters can be. Sue Sylvester insults people in very long (albeit funny) and well thought out sentences. I can’t remember the wording, but she told some poor boy that his nipples looked like they could be cream puffs if you dusted some powdered sugar on them. She has also told homeless people not to be homeless. She asked unattractive and fat people to stay home so she wouldn’t have to look at them. 

The worst part, though, is that everyone around her just accepts it. I’m telling you, this is a very corrupt version of our world. Sue gains tons of power. She made the principal a janitor and took his spot. She constantly screws up the glee club (but they always seem perfect, I don’t know why they get stressed) and is generally a meanie. Then there’s the evilness of those bullies.

4.   The bullies are horrible (and the school doesn’t care)

As part of being in a club where you perform in front of people, you are bullied. Mainly by football players (which is odd, because they perform in front of people, too) and the cheerleaders (who also perform!). You probably have or had a strict no bullying policy. You never saw blatant pranks happening in the halls, like dousing someone with a slushie (what’s up with the slushies?) or insulting them loudly. I’m sure it happens, but it would be a rare occasion. And when it did, they got in truble because they did it out in the open. In a hallway. During school hours. In a crowded place.

Maybe they had better things to do than their jobs.

Every time someone has acted out like that in my school they were punished. Conferences, suspension, expulsion, even the po-po. But here, the faculty doesn’t give a flying fuck. They let it happen. They don’t comment on it. I can’t sit there and watch people get publicly humiliated like that. It’s just total bullshit. I pressed a bagel with cream cheese to some guy’s face in elementary school and got in big trouble. And yes that’s a true story. Even at the most lax schools you don’t get away with that blatant bullying.

I know there's a ton more but I am stopping here because I want to. Comment if you agree or have any other ideas about this show. I think I got done with this show the minute there was a whole debacle over about a girl's fat mom.

Stages of Going (back) To The Gym

The Stages of Going (back) To The Gym

                It’s after the new year started. People have that idea in their heads that in order to make the new year awesome they need to work out. Inevitably, those people may start, but many will not make it to February. It’s a popular wish. And going there, it really does make you feel better. So why do people stop? Well…

1.     You can’t do anything longer than five minutes (without sounding like a squeaker toy)

Walk into the gym. You have the sweats that your stomach is sort of falling out of, a shirt you found in the back of your closet with stains from God-knows-what, and you are determined. You’ve got your blinders on and head to an empty treadmill. You’ve been on one before, you know how to work it. You clip it to your shirt and click start. You start speed-walking, feeling great.

                Then, you hear fast, hammering steps. You look to your left, and there’s a guy with earbuds in, running like the Flash without panting like a Labrador. 

Sexy.

Instantly, you feel less confident. Next to this guy, you’re a clueless first-timer. Oh well, ignore him. But then you have to speed up, so you feel a little better. So you run, and you feel great, but then you start breathing so fast the music can’t mask it. If you aren’t careful, someone is going to come by and ask if they need to call 911. So you slow down, but dear God, you’re breathing like a dog with its last breaths. The guy next to you is still sprinting.

2.       People accomplish the impossible.

So you leave the treadmill, try to steady your breaths, and walk with jelly legs to the weight room. It’s five, so the gym is crowded with good looking people with tans. You ignore them. There are so many machines, and they all look like well-made medieval torture machines. You go to one with a rotating chair that works your abs. You don’t want to look clueless, so you read the chart and then discover it’s written in some indecipherable version of English. Well, you got the gist from the pictures, so you go ahead and start. It’s on the lowest setting, thank God, and you start going, feeling like a regular.

You know what happens next? You know what happens next. You turn your head because you’re bored and you see some Adonis on a slanted board that only supports him from the waist down, and then, with sheer willpower (and great abs), bends his body downward in a perfectly straight spinal line and picks up a heavy disk. He then proceeds to lift himself up and lower himself down, like a graceful dolphin doing tricks at SeaWorld. You gape. That isn’t natural. People aren’t supposed to have to do that kind of thing. But there’s some buff guy, showing everyone up in the gym with his impossible feats. And he’s not the only one.

Every person who looks like they have just enough muscle to lift a sandwich starts lifting weights. Not the teeny ones, not even the 20 pounders. They’re carrying around the heaviest weights in the room like they’re waiters. Now your rotating chair doesn’t seem so impressive.

3.       You didn’t think you’d care, but you do care. You care too much.

You may be saying (as you sit at your computer or chair with a smart phone or hologram or whatever) that it’s a gym, and everyone is going there to get in better shape. That’s the core of it all, sure, and you wouldn't think you’d care what other sweaty strangers think of your decade old Duran Duran T-shirt.

Face it. You care, Ralph.

The problem is, there are too many beautiful people you want to bone in the gym, and some horrible part of your brain is making you uncomfortable so you don’t lose any chance you have to get some. You tell yourself that this is a place to better yourself. Your brain (or genitals?) tells you the guy doing crunches looks lonely. You can no longer appear weak to him. So your mind psyches you out and makes you self-conscious, because that’s a real turn-on (good job, brain). But then again, what if you run into…

4.       Your elementary school crush - he is gorgeous and on the rowing machine

You should have known this would happen, really. You went to a gym in the state! Of course you’ll run into that guy you were in love with all throughout your childhood. In your worst sweats (the absolute worst ones, the ones that were totally black but have faded into dark gray, and show your big honkin' pantyline) you see him, using those beautiful, toned arms to lift heavy things above his head. You’re on your own elliptical, trying to go fast enough that people won’t think you’re a pansy but slow enough that you don’t turn into a soaking red mess, and you keep looking at him.

In a dream world, you’d walk past with your butt in nice leggings, walking like it’s no big deal, and you’re listening to music. He would touch your arm, and you’d turn to him with a sweat-free face, and he’d say, “Hi.” But in the gym, he turns and sees you and you wave. You’re like a puppy that was left in the rain, your belly pudge has peeked from its cave, and you're too out of breath to mumble back a reply. For the rest of the day, you imagine being fucked right in that gym by him. And no one can work out when they feel like that.

Through it all, you still went to the gym. The first time is always the worst (if that's not true, totally tell me horror stories!). You got off your ass, and now you can rub in it people's faces when you mention it offhandedly during a conversation. "Yeah, I worked out last night," never fails to impress. 

Good job, dude. Now shut up about it and go to work.