I like quirky shows. I do. And I wanted to like Glee. I even sort of liked the pilot last season. I didn't love it, but I liked it well enough to commit to trying it in the fall. When it returned, I hated it. Oh, there are certain charming aspects, and of the three episodes I've watched since the fall premiere there have been moments that make me really want to like the show. But there's something about it that just rubs me the wrong way. I finally figured out what it is: This is one of the most misogynistic shows on TV right now.
Every single female on the show is lying, scheming, manipulative or just downright evil. The only exception is Emma, who is crazy, instead. Females are treated pretty poorly on TV in general, but I can't think of any other show where there is not at least one female who is presented in a more positive light. Even Dollhouse, which people love to accuse of misogyny, doesn't present the whole female population as either crazy or manipulative.
Now, if the show presented everyone, male and female, in similar lights, that would be another story. But the males on the show are all innocent, good people. Every lying, scheming woman, is lying and scheming to a man. Not the other way around.
So while there are reasons to enjoy the show, I'm glad I've pinpointed the reason why I can't. It's a much more definitively answer to give to people who ask why I'm not watching than just, "Half the time, it makes me want to throw my TV out the window for some reason."
Idiotic load of crap that doesn’t really belong on this site. Rachel and Mercedes aren’t portrayed as any of those things. One of the most villainous characters on the show is Puck.
I’ll ignore this and go about my day, thanks.
Rachel isn’t presented as manipulative, who will do anything to get things her way, including sabotage the Glee club? Ok. Whatever you say. She was the inspiration for this idea, actually.
What happened to this site being just about the numbers?
Sure, the women on Glee are flawed, but so are the guys. They maybe more “innocent and good”, but their either really stupid (Shue & Finn), a total a-hole (Puck), or cardboard cut-outs (Artie & Kurt), and some don’t even get to speak (the two token back-up dancers).
I’d rather be lying and scheming, which could be analogous with being ambitious and clever, than be the slow “good” guy. Either way, I’m loving the show because all of the characters are flawed in their own stereotypical way.
This sounds like an article I read on Jezebel.
Obviously you haven’t watched many eps since the three main male characters all committed acts of lying to further their own goals. Puck lied about having sex with his friends girl. The teacher blackmailed some students over grades to win a fight with Sue and the lead Glee guy fooled one of the girls so he could get her to return to Glee Club to help with padding his resume for college.
And the football coach manipulated the Glee football players to quit so he could get back at Emma and the Glee teacher for having feeling for each other.
Sorry I’m bad about names.
Sorry, I meant “may be” and “they’re”. I don’t want people nitpicking on typos to punch holes in my argument.
Julia, if you’re going to try and slam the writing of Rachel, while NOT criticizing any of the horribly negative characteristics that they’ve given male characters like Finn (indecisive, only cares about being popular) and Puck (only cares about sex sex sex), you’re not being fair whatsoever.
People will see what they want to see.
Like I said, I’ve watched three episodes this season. Puck barely showed up at all other than to try to be the good guy and take responsibility for his baby. Yeah, he slept with his best friend’s girlfriend, but he wanted to make it better.
Quite frankly, I’m not even sure who Finn is.
Finn is the leading male character in the glee club.
You know, just a thought, maybe you should watch more than three episodes before writing an article on something you know nothing about.
If this was about Gossip Girl or any other teen show on the CW, I would totally agree.
But I think the creative minds behind Glee are doing this on purpose to mock Gossip Girl, 90210 and similar shows in a very polite, but sarcastic way. That’s the type of humor in the show.
I also heard people say they hate it when characters on the show suddenly burst into song like they’re insane – well, it shouldn’t make sense. People try to look at this show like a teen dramedy – it’s actually more like a sitcom, like 30 Rock. People would haaate 30 Rock, if for some weird reason, it were a one hour show. They would look at it as a drama with comedic elements and they would be like: Oh, this show is so unrealistic – Liz and Jenna are doing insane, disgusting things to each other and they’re still BFFs and they act like nothing’s happened.
Glee is not trying to be serious. Or rational. Or realistic. It’s mocking the big cliche teen dramas have become these days. And I happen to love it.
We’ve had non-numbers pieces here (what tv shows do you watch?), even silly pieces (the magic 8 ball piece) here. If Rob and Bill want to give Julia some space to speak her mind ON THEIR OWN SITE, what’s wrong with that?*
I don’t watch Glee because other than it not being the kind of show I’d like anyway, its writing and characterization are terribly inconsistent. (In the pilot Will is terribly broken enough about leaving Glee to work elsewhere to support his family, but he hardly gives quitting another thought in the second episode all because Rachel insults him? Inconsistent.) And it’s too reminiscient of Popular, the other Ryan Murphy show I never cared for.
*Hey Robert and Bill, if you’re looking for more people to speak their minds here, I volunteer! You know how mouthy I can be!
Glee is pretty crappy, made it 20 minutes into the Pilot, and the commericals did the rest on turning me away. Another loser that FOX will no doubt renew to make room for a good show they will cancel.
I prefer the site to to be more focused on numbers and business stuff because we get reviews from a lot of sites already but then it’s okay to have this reviews occasionally.
Well, Betty in Ugly Betty is presented in a positive light.
I’m not watching Glee either but for different reasons than what you have.
This article was really not necessary, and I don’t understand how you managed to come to the conclusion when you only watched tree episodes. All the characters were not even portrayed and developed fully yet. They had character driven episodes after it.
Just to remind that Emma, Rachel and Mercedes are portrayed in positive light not negative they have some issues but still. All the characters on the show are crazy.
Having reviews or write-ups on shows is something that only adds to the rich wealth of content on the site already except when there as badly written as this was. This wasn’t very well thought out and reads as more of a personal rant than anything.
Santana, Brittany and Tina are not manipulative, evil, schemers and they never lie.
Some of you are pieces of work (to put it nicely). This wasn’t labeled as a review it was labeled “Why (Julia) is not watching Glee”.
You can disagree with her opinion without needing to attack her.
I watched three episodes of Stargate Universe and decided I didn’t need to watch another. Many people can make watch or not decisions based on ONE episode or even less. Three is a healthy sample!
You can look at a headline like “Why I’m not watching Glee” and know it’s not a ratings-related post. No article on this entire blog is “really necessary” if “necessary = “I need it to survive”. By that metric, no blog posts are necessary.
Wow. I’m a woman and reading your “review” makes me want to throw my computer out the window for some reason. IMO, this interpretation of the show is completely off base and most definitely not the type of content I want to see on this site.
Well I think Julia’s post was a bit unnecessary especially since she only watched the first 3 episodes. The characters were still being developed, and maybe if Julia caught up on all the episodes she wouldn’t come to the conclusion she wrote about in her post.
Please don’t go posting negative things about a show that has not only done great in the ratings, but also one that has a huge fan base supporting it.
This is a show about teens in High School so obviously the head cheerleader may be manipulative at some point, but in no way were Mercedes or Rachel or even Tina manipulative. Sure Rachel wants to be the lead all the time, but that’s just a high school girl striving to achieve something with her life. And the guys were manipulative in their own ways, but isn’t that High School life? And who cares if any of them were manipulative anyway? That’s just drama the writers tend to use for the episodes, since the show revolves around teenagers in high school…
Seriously, don’t shed negative light on the show if you only watched 3 episodes and not the rest of the season…either watch the whole season, or none at all…
@ robert
BURRRRRRN!
I gotta say, after watching an episode, i decided to return to my happy place of crime procedurals and quirky crime fighters