In an attempt to explore popular culture a little more deeply, I present this new blog series: Lessons From Pop Culture

I want to take a few moments in time and explore the premise of FOX’s hit TV show Glee: It follows a “ragtag” group of high school students (and their teacher) as they try to ban together to bring their school’s glee club back to its former glory.

[I kept that short on purpose... because... well... if you have not heard of the show yet then maybe you are not suppose to be reading my blog (only kidding there).]

Let us explore some of the characters and why I have decided to explore them a little deeper.
- First, let’s go to one of the original glee club’s, Kurt Hummel (played by Chris Colfer): Kurt is not another pretty faced guy that can sing. During the original few episodes of season one, the creators reveal the slightly effeminate Kurt to be gay. While this was not a shocker I feel that we can still learn a couple of things. The first thing that we can learn is that no matter the decisions that a person makes about their lives, we are still suppose to love them. While, some of the glee members had some initial trouble with Kurt being gay, by the end of season one, all of them had embraced him as a major player to the show. (Creator Ryan Murphy has confirmed that for season two, Kurt will have a boyfriend… and he is not going for the low man on the totem pole either, it is rumored to be that this new character will be the star quarterback.) Another thing that we can learn from Kurt, is that all people need a chance to “show what they are made of”. One of the most memorable moments for me during the original portion of season one was when Kurt when head-to-head against Lea Michele’s Rachel Berry in a sing off of “Defying Gravity”. When it was all said and done, Kurt blew the audition piece so that Rachel could perform the song. Nonetheless, the glee clubs still gave him a chance to show how talented he was (and continues to be).

- The second character I want to look at is lead cheerleader Quinn Fabray (Dianna Agron). Soon after being introduced as a major-supporting character it is a revealed that the president of the school’s Celibacy Club was pregnant. A few shows on television have addressed the current rise of teenage pregnancy, but Glee showed a little bit of a different little to the matter. While MTV’s 16 and Pregnant and Teenage Mom explore this life-altering decision with real people, Glee explores it even differently than they do. Glee has the pregnant be the head cheerleader, which when the news comes out, the mostly-nasty cheer leading coach Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch), forces Quinn off the team. I feel that shows that pregnancy can alter a persons life, in a following episodes Quinn’s parents kick her out of their home for getting pregnant. (However, toward the end of season one, we see Quinn’s mother being the conduit of grace and love toward her daughter.)

- The final character I want to explore is Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch). While most of her screen time with either pity one-liners (“Your delusions of persecution are a telltale sign of early stage paranoid schizophrenia.”) or insults toward the glee club teacher (Will Schuester, played by Matthew Morrison), their have been moments of love and kindness as well. One particular episode that stands out to me is when she allows a character with a mental handicap on the squad when she typically only accepts the best of the best from the school. This moment was a pivotal for Sue Sylvester since from that episode on we can see that she plays this tough girl character so hardcore to protect not only but those people (and things) that she holds dear. (Later in that episode we see that play out when it is revealed she has a sister with a mental handicap as well.)

This is not the end of the road for Lessons From Glee, in my next post I want to explore the music and what we can learn about life (and trust me, it is pretty interesting).

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