There’s far more to Glee than the so-called ‘curse’

I’m convinced that Ryan Murphy hit the TV sweet spot with his 2009 show Glee. Melodramatic musical-theatre kids plus teenage hormones plus people expressing their feelings through song equals great TV.

I was 12 when the comedy-drama series about the ups and downs of a high school show choir debuted, and I was hooked. Glee was poppy yet edgy, at times ridiculous, and blindingly earnest to the point of parody.

The series gave us over-the-top Barbra Streisand renditions and a Lady Gaga tribute episode, complete with pitch-perfect recreations of her most iconic costumes. There were some truly deranged storylines (fittingly, teacher William Schuester was originally written as a meth addict), from fake pregnancies to a student who finds Jesus after seeing His face on a grilled cheese sandwich (a “Grilled Cheese-us”, if you will). And a host of unexpected celebrity guest appearances from Gwyneth Paltrow and Britney Spears, to Neil Patrick Harris and Jeff Goldblum.

On top of all of this, Glee showcased genuine talent. Lea Michele (love or hate her, you can’t deny talent), Darren Criss and Amber Riley are all brilliant vocalists who have since enjoyed successful careers on Broadway and beyond.

The other thing about Glee is that it put front and centre a breed of teen that hadn’t been properly examined before. Sure, nerd culture had become mainstream thanks to the movies of Judd Apatow and shows such as The Big Bang Theory, but the musical-theatre nerd had yet to be handed the spotlight.

If you haven’t already guessed, I was a musical-theatre kid. I wasn’t a talented one. I couldn’t sing, act or dance, and yet I adored everything about musical theatre. I loved the feeling of being part of something: the pre-show jitters, the pomp and pageant of the actual show.

Heavily involved in choir, band and musical theatre, I could relate to the specific uncoolness that comes with the performing arts when you’re in high school. The members of the Glee Club, especially in the earlier seasons, are frequently “slushied” (a trope of the show where bullies throw a slushie in the face of their victims), locked in portaloos, thrown in dumpsters and mocked.

While I was never bullied, I was intimately familiar with the feeling of embarrassment (something that, as an adult, I now believe to be character-building). A closeted scholarship kid at a private school where the incomes of most students’ parents were far beyond those of my own, I certainly knew what it felt like to be an outsider. And like the members of the Glee Club, the performing arts were where I could feel accepted.