I May Be Gleeked Out

I admit it.  I’ve been a big fan of Glee since about the second episode of season one, but I may be getting close to my stopping point now.

Last season saw the graduation of most of the original class.  Despite thinking that I would miss them, I was excited to see if the show could survive a rotation to new cast members and their new stories.  I’m particularly a big fan of Samuel Larsen and Damian Mcginty (the first winners of the Glee project) and I was looking forward to seeing them featured in greater proportion.

So when this season began I was surprised to see a branched off storyline involving two of the graduated characters (Kurt and Rachael) in New York city, but since they were two characters I loved, I was pleased as well.

My pleasant surprise turned to dismay however, when instead of developing existing characters, the writers began to pile on new ones like a ravenous guy at a buffet overfilling his plate.  To make matters worse, the new ones who are receiving most of the air time, are incredibly boring.

Marley (who I referred to for a long time as “hat girl” because I couldn’t remember her name) is basically Bella from Twilight.  She’s unspeakably gorgeous and all the guys desperately want and fight over her, but she spends all her time in total, self-absorbed contemplation of her own inadequacies anyway.  But it’s okay that she’s vapid and shallow, because she’s so sweet.

I desperately want her to go away.

I’m slightly more interested in her evil counterpart Kitty, but mostly because she’s vaguely funny and fun to hate.  She still lacks the depth and bite that Santana or Quinn had.  Quinn was another character I thought was desperately under-utilized anyway and consistently portrayed in a horrible light, I frequently wondered if the actress who played her didn’t go home and sock the crap out of her pillow every week in frustration.

There’s a Puck-replacement character (his apparently secret little bother?  Um… okay) who is again only vaguely interesting.  They’ve also inserted the most current winner of the Glee project who manages to be about as intriguing as a slice of white bread.  I have no idea what his character’s name is because I fast forward through his dialogue.

And that’s it.  The overstuffed, bloated scripts are managing to give air time to basically these four, extremely boring new characters as well as some to Kurt and Rachael in NYC.  Everyone else is set dressing.

Samuel, my favorite actor on the show, can be glimpsed on occasion trying way too hard to be noticed in the back of group scenes or song numbers, and Damian is just gone this season without a trace.

Yes, there are still good things.  Yes it’s interesting that they added an overweight character in Marley’s mom – however, it would be lovely to see an overweight character whose allowed to have a single conversation that isn’t completely about her weight.  As with all other characters in media of that size, she’s not a character, she’s a fat character.  Every story in which she appears is about nothing but the size of her body.  And as always, for me, that’s just not good enough anymore.

Yes the Kurt and Rachael in NYC storyline is interesting and good, and Kate Hudson as the addition of an evil dance instructor is outright amazing.  Sarah Jessica Parker as Kurt’s boss at Vogue isn’t half bad either.

But overall it’s just too much.  Way too much going on to really focus on anything, way too much stupid camp, and way too much mean spirited humor.

Isn’t one of the main themes of Glee supposed to be that it’s not okay to bully anyone?  Yes, absolutely, unless they’re Christian in which case – enjoy!  I’m mostly referring to the persistent desire on the part of the writers to find the characters with the worst behavior possible and slap that label on them so that everyone can point, laugh and say, “look how awful they are!”  If they were doing that to any other religious group, well – heck there’s no point in speculating because they wouldn’t do that to any other religious group.  This has always been the case (I’ve even blogged about it before) but it’s actually managed to get worse this season.

This week’s past episode was vaguely enjoyable, and I realized pretty early into it that was because it was the Thanksgiving episode and most of the original cast was there bringing back their old magic.  Next week though they’ll mostly be gone again, leaving us with Hat-Girl, Puck-Jr, Danny Zuko and Faux-Quinn.

And I’m just not interested anymore.

I desperately tried to send feedback to the writers of the show, but after searching (and searching, and searching) could find no way to do that.  They seem to have a deep aversion to feedback from fans.

So I’m putting my disappointment in the only spot I can – here on my blog.

I’m sad and I miss my Glee.

Driving Me Crazy

Greetings All,

Being Carolyn is seriously tied up with her graduate class this semester and has had little time to write in her blog, I thought I’d step up and submit an entry.

This isn't about dieting, food, religion or politics. It’s about something that almost every single one of us does every day and can easily result in a life or death situation: driving.

Here in Pennsylvania we have two laws on the books, both which make perfect sense. The first, you must turn on your headlights if your windshield wipers are on. If the weather is bad enough to be using your wipers, then logically you should have your headlights on for better visibility for yourself and other drivers.

The second is, you must clean off the roof of your car after a snow fall. Again, this makes sense…especially if you've ever driven behind someone on the highway doing 60mph who hasn't cleaned off their roof. If it’s just snow, you driving behind a blizzard! But if the snow has hardened into ice, then you’re driving behind a potential guillotine or brick wall. Ice flying off of vehicles has been known to kill.

Even if these aren't laws in your state, consider adopting them as safe driving practices.

Finally, a reminder of a federal traffic law; one that is courteous as well as logical: turn signals. So many people just refuse to use them, not only making turns, but changing lanes as well.

I know most of the folks reading this blog are responsible, safe drivers and they don’t need these reminders. But don’t hesitate to get the word out to others. It’s a great topic of “water cooler” discussions in work and just small talk among people. Make an effort to educate folks…the life you save may be your own or someone you love.

Thanks for reading and be safe!

-Ted

Inspirational Person For Today

I know I've been a little absent about blogging lately, the end of the semester is kicking my tail a bit.  Additionally, my primary computer seems to have died, so I'm using a clunky spare.  That doesn't help.

However I don't want my site to go completely dead on me, and today I stumbled over this interview with Amber Riley (who plays Mercedes on Glee) and decided to feature her as an inspirational person of the day.

I do not always agree with Glee, I think they stereotype their characters way too much and this particular season I fear that the show has entirely jumped the shark.  However I'm still a fan, and I'm a fan of Amber as a woman who is living in a tough world.  I always liked that although they did discuss it, her role of Mercedes was never totally about her weight - it was also about her dreams, her fears, her romances, and all the other things that make a well developed character.

Hollywood Heavyweight

It’s actually kind of difficult to find a photo of Jennifer Lawrence’s figure that isn’t:

A)    Hyper-sexualized or

B)     Photo-shopped (because it’s a magazine cover) or

C)    A paparazzi photo (pics taken by paps while they’re hiding in shrubbery shouldn’t be distributed, it encourages them)

However I finally managed to locate a good one of her on the red carpet at the 2011 Oscars.  Undoctored.

The reason I’m putting Jennifer’s body on my blog is because I just read an article where she confessed that in Hollywood she is considered “obese”.  Granted, this is Hollywierd-obese, not real-life-normal-person-obese.  They two are very different things.

If you don’t know who she is, this is the actress who just catapulted to stardom playing Katniss in the film version of The Hunger Games (and yes, the book was better).  In her interview she doesn’t precisely use the term “role model” but she states that she doesn’t ever want to hear that a young girl tried to emulate her by starving themselves.  While training for her film role she wanted to look healthy and strong, and said that she will never attempt starvation dieting for her work.  Katniss looking healthy is actually a departure from the book, the character is supposed to be malnourished, but I support this alteration from the text if it means the actor not harming themselves ala Christian Bale in The Machinist for the sake of “art”.  I say kudos to Jennifer – she has good goals and I hope the pressure of her insane job doesn’t manage to break her of them.

My opinion on what Hollywood thinks obese looks like can be summed up pretty simply by saying: these people are out of their gorram minds.  I just wanted to give you guys a look at what fat is shaping up to be these days among up and coming young stars in tinsel town.

Have we really come a long way, baby?

I realize this is stating the obvious, but WOW she is beautiful!