I love Glee. I think it's awfully problematic in a lot of respects, and it rubs me the wrong way when the show presents itself as being somehow outside of, and above, stereotypes and prejudices, without really doing anything to prove that claim. The treatment of Artie (a paraplegic student who uses a wheelchair) is particularly bad - but I could get into that another time. Nevertheless, I love the show. Look, a recent episode featured rival glee clubs settling a score via a Michael Jackson showdown. For that alone, they kind of own me.
However, I just watched last week's Valentine's Day episode, and I can't stay silent. A very brief plot point involves a religious student confronting his latent homophobia. Sounds great, certainly topical, but unfortunately the show, like so many other cultural products, refuses to make a firm statement on the matter, retreating instead to classically postmodern relativism and weak-kneed resistance. In the episode, a new student at McKinley High, a formerly homeschooled, guitar-playing, hippie-Jesus freak boy who is the son of a Bible salesman, joins a group called "The God Squad," made up of himself and three other students, all glee club members. They decide to raise money for charity by performing singing telegrams for kids at the school. When asked by a female student to perform a romantic song for her girlfriend, however, the Christian student is given pause. He doesn't know if it's appropriate, with his religious beliefs, to sing for gay students, as he's "never met any gay people before." The other three "God Squad" members tell him that their version of Christianity is not homophobic. The group's leader has the final word when she states that she "doesn't want to hurt anyone," but she also doesn't want to "make anyone uncomfortable by forcing them to do something they don't believe in," so maybe the group shouldn't sing for Santana and her girlfriend at all. This is a problem.
This line of 'argumentation' is nothing more than the expression of postmodern liberalism, which when forced to confront a situation instead ducks uncomfortably from side to side, claiming that it only wants to avoid causing offense. Homophobia is not okay. No matter what the justification. It is offensive. It is more than okay, it is in fact absolutely necessary, to make unequivocal statements against it. It is okay to say, firmly and loudly and over and over, that it is wrong to treat some people differently because they are gay. It is okay to say that it is wrong to be homophobic, and that your friends who feel differently will not accommodate you if you are a homophobe, even when you claim religious justification. The goal is to destroy and eradicate homophobia, not to make a world where almost everyone is 'okay' with gay people, but where those who are not are never made uncomfortable for this position. It is okay to make homophobic people uncomfortable, because there is no place for homophobia in our world, and how else are we going to change it if we're afraid to "cause offense"?
In the end, the new student, thanks to "thinking and praying" realizes that it's okay to sing for gay people after all. And the song was great. Nevertheless, a culture which tells us, over and over again, that all opinions are equally valid, that's afraid to make too many strong statements, lest we exclude those perfectly good people who just happen to hold one or two deeply objectionable opinions, is a culture in trouble. Glee is not the only example of this. You can find it almost everywhere you look.
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