Glee: A Review

What is this? There are girls spinning in the air to rap music. Why are they in the air? Things aren't explained. The one thing we do know is that their coach is the forcible lesbian from 'Best in Show' who speaks like a drill sergeant. She compares everything about cheer leading to something dire and awful like waterboarding, guilting her players into more and more ridiculous poses and formations.

Where are we? Oh, right. The proto-typical all-American high school, with all the usual social hierarchies. You see, Glee choir is the lowest of the low; they are so beneath the hierarchy they are actually gnomes living in the high school's water pipes. Instead of Glee, they should be Gloom, because that's how they live: in a gloomy doomy subterranean social strata that shares space with rats and those who play Magic cards.

Cut to the young, impressionable teacher who just wants to make a difference in the world. He's given the opportunity to re-vamp the high school Glee club and goes about setting up a registration list. The candidates include a gay boy who wears Marc Jacobs and sings like a fifty year old woman, the world's most stereotypical black teenage girl who says things like "Hell to the No" (I'm still not sure whether this character is commenting on black characters or if this is FOX and I should just shut the hell up) and a wheelchair-bound boy whom characters push around and then just let go. There's also a pretty young thing who's meant to represent the Myspace generation, and who's obsessed with her own youtube channel.

But that's not enough! The Glee teacher must have a sexyface to represent the club, someone who will transgress social rank and provide sweet, sweet sexual tension on stage, someone like, like a football player! Yes, yes. Except all the football players think Glee's for fags (and they're oh so right about that, so deliciously right), but what about that one football player? The one singing in the shower? Oh sure, he's a bit bulky and tone deaf but look at that face, look at those muscles, look at that effortless air of masculinity! Weelchair boy and Marc Jacobs boy just won't do!

So. Jockboy is snagged from the locker room and dragged, naked, kicking and screaming, to the theater practice room where he is forced to sing Billie Holiday, or something. Together, we watch Glee go through the motions of their first rehearsal; a bumbling thing that would shame a community theater stage.

But they have ambition. And beneath those clothes are diaphrams of steel, and a steely resolve for soaring new versions of pop music standards.

But first the team must suffer through a rival's remix of Amy Winehouse's "Rehab," set to a jazz-pop tempo and choreographed like a Broadway showstopper: big, brash, hip. The players drop and fall to the ground and twirl their partners and tap dance and snap their fingers on either side of the stage like one long compilation of every musical theater number ever performed.

The Glee folks are shocked, terrified by their competition. "What is this alternate universe where Glee is actually a popular way to spend time?" they ask themselves, looking utterly humiliated. As the lone jock in the club walks out of the theater, a steel brass quartet provides the soundtrack to his befuddlement.

The next day, jock boy is cornered by his fellow football players. See, Glee is for fags, and he's not a fag, right? Of course not, he missed practice because he was busy, helping his, uhm, mom, with her, uh, prostate surgery. There were no sequins involved, no singing, no calls and response. Just prostates. He's off the hook, prostate surgery, plain and simple, right?

But here comes the real test of Jock boy's allegiance to musical theater geekdome. A handicapped member of the Glee team has been locked up in a portapotty. He's yelping. Team members are laughing, like evil hyenas bent on gay domination. It is the test.

Jock boy releases handicapped boy from the stinky fingers of the portapotty and sticks it to his team mates, telling them they live in bumbfuck nowhere and why don't they just lock themselves in a portapotty because that's where their lives are going to end up anyway - in a cloistered, miserable stinkhole. The team members look shocked. Jockboy has switched ranks. He's obvs a fag.

But, to us, it is clear Jockboy is going to carry Glee to fame with his adorable face and sweaty jersey and easily-styleable hair. It's obvious: he's the winning ingredient.

Jockboy and Myspacegirl have their first duet, to "Don't Stop Believing." Black girl, gay child, and handicapped boy provide back up doo wops and such. Of course, people from the school - rivals, teachers and randoms - are in the area and stop by and hear how amazing they sound and shake their heads and mutter to themselves about how it's not fair that their talent knows no bounds. And the emotional bonds of the club are strengthened the way folks are always strengthened when they inspire jealousy in other people.

But there's a problem with music teacher. See, music teacher don't get paid fer shit. And his wife, well, she wants the Crate and Barrel, Crate and Barrel or at the very least Pottery Barn, and all he can provide is Ikea or maybe dollar store Mexican candy, which isn't furniture at all! So what will he do? Will he quit teaching? Will he quit Glee club? But they just sang a cover of "Don't Stop Believing!" It was such a bad song, and now it's been sparkled with gay pixie dust.

And what of Myspace girl? Will she stop having drinks thrown in her face? Will her myspace page acquire nicer comments or maybe even online "buddies"? Just WHAT will happen? Will Marc Jacobs boy buy a new Marc Jacobs shirt? Will jockboy take his shirt off again, preferably on stage and while making out with a boy? Will lesbian drill captain have a change of heart and decide she wants to join Glee, and take off her shirt and embrace them all with sweaty abandon? What? That could happen! Oh yeah? WHAT THEN?! WHAT WILL HAPPEN?!