“But provide what exactly? The understanding that money is the most important thing? Or the idea that the only life worth living is one that you’re really passionate about…?”
High school band geek me just got a thrill of nostalgia tonight.
Sure, the musical numbers are clearly pre-recorded and lip-synced ‘on stage’, sure the people are prettier than anyone was in high school, and the speeches are tv-ified and not entirely realistic. But that doesn’t so much matter with Glee, a show that premiered tonight on Fox, but we’ll be waiting until the fall for the whole season. However long that turns out to be, but I’m crossing my fingers.
What Glee does so very well is capture the earnest feelings of the teenagers who largely feel relegated to whatever high school caste they’ve been placed in since they got there, but who yearn to feel like they’re so much more. Who are certain, within, that they are so much more than just that, but don’t know how to show themselves and everyone else that.
And our protagonists, the six lonely members of the Glee club, start to learn in this pilot that important lesson in life: that it’s actually about how happy you are and what matters is your pride in what you do.
Let me wax nostalgic and maybe a little philosphic. It will surprise absolutely no one who knows me that I was a nerd in high school. Even worse, a band nerd! In a small marching band. Oh, and I didn’t even play an instrument, I spun a flag (twirling is what you do with a baton!). We were mocked a-plenty, but even our band director took the time out of a rehearsal one night when that happened to tell us it didn’t matter what anyone else thought of us. We were working hard, and dammit, they sure didn’t mock us when we were cheering and playing for the same team at the games. And much like the teacher who takes on the Glee club, Will, I’ll never forget that thrill of performing with a group I loved, no matter what anyone else thought of us. Our Thanksgiving Day performance my junior year, ending with “Sing, Sing, Sing,” is something I’ve never forgotten and never will.
Glee does an expert job of capturing that feeling in both the students and the teachers. Will, married to his high school sweetheart and teaching at his old high school, is clearly feeling lost. He’s not connecting with his wife like they used to, she’s pressuring him not only for a baby but to provide for them more than his teaching job allows, and he’s grabbing at strings to fulfill his responsibilities and also fulfill his own dreams. Emma, his adorably OCD and clean freak colleague who obviously habors a crush on him, encourages him to stick with the work he finds fulfilling, because isn’t that what’s important in life?
Of the glee club kids, we only get a close view in this episode of two of them: sophomore performing arts superstar Rachel (she has two dads!), who’s been groomed to seek performing success and fame since birth in an almost obsessive way. She’s like Reese Witherspoon in Election, but slightly less off-putting and creepy, and so far not weirdly obsessed with her teacher either. Her fears that her chances of making it and doing something with her life are quickly fading away when she’s all of 15 or 16 is convincingly played with all the fervor of a true sophomore in high school–THIS, what’s happening now, is the biggest deal there is and ever will be! And that, along with damned determination and considerable talent, throws her into the spotlight of the Glee club (quite willingly).
Then there’s Finn, the not-terribly-bright football star who gets duped into joining the Glee club, but once he’s there, he finds it speaks to him more than football ever has. Finn’s backstory speaks to a kid who wants so very much to be there for his widowed mom, and never to let her down–another very appropriate and relatable teenaged sentiment. He’s more talented than he would’ve thought, and when he tells his scornful teammates, screw you, we’re all losers anyways, and I can do football and glee club at the same time, it’s a turning point.
The most believable turning point for an actual teenager? Not so much, but this is TV. So it happens, and despite the words, what he’s saying is delivered with convincing conviction. He returns to the Glee club with an idea for a song that spells out the theme of the show in what would be heavy-handed if it weren’t so awesomely sung and choreographed: Don’t Stop Believing!
As the kids in the glee club (“New Directions”) belt out a heartfelt rendition of the Journey classic, Will, who had told them he was quitting to find a more lucrative job for his now growing family, walks back into the auditorium and his mind is changed. Here they are, putting their hearts and their vocal chords into it with or without him–the least he can do? Make sure it’s with him, dammit.
Was Glee perfect? No. But it was fun. It reminded me of the things I loved and hated alike in high school, and how I’ve always thought they made me a stronger person in the long run. It reminded me of the certainty within the uncertainty that I think you can only feel at that time in your life. When everything is the biggest deal ever–even if it only lasts for one song.
And since no one will be surprised to know I’m a big fan of musicals and have been in my fair share of those as well, the musical aspect of this was a huge plus, too! Now excuse me while I go check out those iTunes downloads of the songs from tonight’s episode.
