As Glee continues to steal hearts, dollars, and ipods everywhere, it also continues on its own self reflective journey. Oftentimes while watching, it is quite clear that the show itself is on the same journey as its characters. A journey to destabilize genre television labels and blur the boundaries of realism and spectacle imagination. In other words, figure out what or who (in the case of character) it is and just how it can become what or who it wants to be.
The Role of Camp in Glee
More specifically, Glee catches itself in moments of intense, humorous, and mostly awesome moments of musical manifestation. Its writers somehow manage to create perfect moments for specific songs to be done in Glee fashion. For example, this episode has Cory Montieth's Finn spontaneously (then segway into glee club rehearsal) singing Rick Springfield's 'Jesse's Girl.' Clearly, this was either premeditated with the naming of the character Jesse St. James or just fell in the writer's lap. Either way these instances allow, and in some ways force, Glee to smile at itself and wink at its audience. It would be too easy to label this moment, and the show as camp. In itself, 'camp' is a complicated and contextual term that simply cannot be limited by the mere definition of excess or theatricality. Especially when with Glee camp is so clearly used consciously.
Rather camp, which will be dealt with again in the upcoming Lady Gaga episode, is used a very specific way in this show. Glee's stance and use of excess is done particularly to disrupt gender binaries and conventions. Historically in film musicals, particularly those of the Hollywood studio era, camp developed as a way through which the image and its intentions could essentially be opposites. Therefore, Finn's singing of Jesse's girl is not only clever and camp through its placement within the narrative, but it also represents the show's use of performance and theatrics to reveal classic gender roles it wishes to disable. Once again, as Finn is singing Rachel (Lea Michele) is dressing after a doctor's visit. Somehow her visit about her strained vocal chords requires her to be in full hospital robe and with her friend, not a parent. This detail maybe small, but it emphasizes the heterosexual binary opposite of Rachel and Finn. A binary, that is also explored through the male musical performances in this episode.
The Struggles of Men
Right off the bat, Puck (Mark Salling) feels his bad-assness and (essentially) his masculinity is at stake after an impromptu shaving of his signature mo-hawk hairstyle. His attempt to rekindle this popularity and manliness is through dating. But not just anyone, the new popular girl in school. Thus Puck attempts to reassert his stance through his binary opposition with Mercedes (Amber Riley). Yet his choice of song, Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart's 'The Lady is a Tramp,' seems to suggest that Mercedes is not of the same mold as him. Yet Puck and Finn narrative, with both singing numbers invested in camp, reiterates heterosexual binaries.
However, the show itself seeks to disable them. Through Kurt's (Chris Colfer) storyline, specifically in the episode, it is clear that Glee struggles with this purpose as much as Kurt does. When asked by his teacher to pick a song that best represents who he is, Kurt uses the opportunity to portray the Kurt he believes his heterosexual father wishes for. Not only does this allow Kurt to sing unlike himself (John Mellencamp's 'Pink Houses' to be exact), but it blatantly illustrates this binary struggle. His camp performance of the song reinforces that these binary concepts are limiting. Not only in artistic expression, but in life. In other words, Kurt does not fit into these binary structure so long in place. And it is this resistance of convention, this gender parody, that allows Kurt to fully embody camp. And sing a song like Stephen Sondheim's 'Rose's Turn' from the Broadway musical Gypsy with a sense of empowerment. Kurt and his importance in relation to camp in this show will surely be significant in the Lady Gage episode. So only time will tell how Glee will use camp to its advantage, and hopefully not its disadvantage.
Nicola Jones - Growing up in New Orleans Nicola never had any inkling at being part of this thing people call the entertainment business. Now, after ...
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