Picture this: the year is 2009.
Young Nico is 12, soon to turn 13, years old, in the midst of his sixth grade year, still relatively enjoying the novelty of being in a new, bigger middle school environment alongside new faces from other elementary schools in the Ann Arbor district, still not stressed and overwhelmed by the anxiety, sleep deprivation, and social toxicity that will mushroom the following year.
Barack Obama has just become the forty-forth president of the United States. Iceland has just experienced its intense and dramatic economic collapse in the midst of the Great Recession, and newly elected Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, the world's first openly lesbian head of state, as prime minister. Michael Jackson's passing has fans the world over in mourning. Velvet tracksuits, multicolored tights, and leggings as pants are all the rage in fashion. Owl City's "Fireflies," the Black Eyed Peas' "I Gotta Feeling," Miley Cyrus' "Party in the U.S.A.," Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours," and Beyonce's "Single Ladies" hover at the top of the hot 100 charts and reverberate on radios anywhere.
And the first season of the hit TV show Glee has just started airing.
For the uninitiated, Glee is a musical comedy-drama series which aired on the Fox network for six seasons from 2009 to 2015, focusing on the adventures, triumphs, struggles, and close bond of the members of the show choir New Directions at the fictional William McKinley High School in Lima, Ohio. It follows the evolution of the group and its original members from a shaky beginning as a newly formed, rag-tag little bunch of misfits, which the school's cheer coach Sue Sylvester constantly tries to have disbanded, to a strongly competitive, talented, and high-energy powerhouse of excellent covers. The show features and covers numerous social issues in American society through the experiences of the characters and their relationships to one another, in ways which sometimes reflect the clumsier nature of social issues and how they were understood ten years ago - but always with a lot of heart, affection, good intention, and genuine desire for greater understanding and harmony among all people.
Many such examples are to be found with Kurt Hummel - talented member of the New Directions' original founding members, a consummate fashionista, and for much of the show, McKinley High's only openly gay student.
From coming out for the first time to good friend and fellow New Directioner Mercedes Jones, opening up about his sexuality to his quite traditionally masculine father Burt (to great acceptance - Burt later goes on to go out of his way to educate himself on gay issues and sexuality so that his son can come to him with questions like any straight boy could), and never being afraid to sing music, wear clothes, and experiment with forms of expression deemed traditionally feminine, to overcoming vicious bullying issues, and eventually finding a loving relationship with his first boyfriend Blaine Anderson, the other half of the iconic duo dubbed "Klaine" by many fans and shippers, Kurt's role in the show and gay representation in the media is not to be understated.
In the summer of 2018, a Klaine video popped up in my YouTube "recommended" list after I had just returned from my junior year of college studying abroad in Moscow, Russia and Turku, Finland. My curiosity piqued, I then spent the month I had at home before leaving for a summer program in Reykjavik, Iceland watching the first three seasons of Glee. The latter two for the first time. But I was surprised to find that the first season felt almost wholly familiar, like I was rewatching it, even though I didn't feel like I had watched it that closely when it was coming out.
Flashing back to 2009: At the time I had just received my first little netbook laptop as a Christmas present. But in spite of the greater mobility it offered to sit on my oversized beanbag in the quiet comfort of my own room, I still often preferred to spend my long sessions of perusing my new Facebook page on the computer in our living room, and often wound up at least peripherally watching whatever my sister was watching on TV as a result. Case in point with Glee.
At the time, she was closely following Season 1. And even though I seldom actually sat down on the couch across from her to watch it together, it looked and sounded nice enough to capture my attention and get me to rotate the swivel chair at my parents' desk where the computer stood to pay attention for a while. Perhaps no more so than when Kurt was on screen.
At the time, I had barely even begun to realize that I was gay. I knew very little about what it meant to be gay, or the history and community behind the label, and was not self-aware enough to realize that the feelings I was struggling with were closely tied to feeling uncomfortable in my own body, not understanding the feelings that I couldn't control that so much of society was telling me were wrong, and feeling out of place and unrepresented in such a straight world. But among all the other tensions of feeling lonely, weird, and not enough in the socially cutthroat environment of Tappan Middle School, my baby gay angst and anxiety were some of the top causes of the stress I was undergoing. Even without an exact handle on that being a big source of my confusion and issues, even thinking that my stress and loneliness were exclusively products of the social environment and how I fit into it, I couldn't help but feel like something was deeply, fundamentally different about me compared to many others around me, far beyond the unique interests and habits that had defined me growing up, which often differed from those of the other kids, especially the other boys, around me.
"Gay" at that time was not a word with a pleasant connotation, usually either used as a general synonym of "bad" or "sucky" ("that's so gay") which has thankfully greatly decreased over the years, or to refer to what it actually describes - homosexuality - but in a greatly overstereotyped and disdainful way. Even though I wasn't yet aware of my own sexual orientation, every time I heard the word, or so many other hurtful and nasty ones associated with it, echo down my middle school hallways, my chest would clench and I would go numb with fear.
When I turned in that swivel chair from the ever-important business of making copious amounts of Facebook statuses with positively atrocious spelling and syntactical construction of all sorts (because for some reason I had it in my head at the time that proper spelling and grammar online was not cool), it was for a reason.
I was captivated and mesmerized by Kurt. I loved his energy. I loved his extravagant and innovative style, his fearless desire to push aesthetic boundaries, his refusal to let himself or anything he loved be defined by meaningless and trite expectations of gender norms. I loved his powerful singing voice and how it seemed to soar effortlessly into alto high notes. I loved his covers and how he brought who he was and his heart and soul into all of what he sang (perhaps nowhere else more so than his cover of "Defying Gravity," which I listened to for years, mesmerized by his beautiful voice and empowered of his rendition of a traditionally feminine song, especially before important turning points and new chapters of my life, like when I went to Italy in middle school for six months, before high school, and as I was getting ready for my high school exchange year in Egypt that I'd dreamed of for years, imagining myself soaring high above the Pyramids of Giza as he hit his high notes - I still listen to it lovingly as a reminder of my periods of greatest drive and determination in life, as well as to find new inspiration). I loved his high-pitched, softer-spoken speaking voice, how relaxing and soothing it was to listen to. I loved how even though sometimes he felt alone, afraid, mistreated, or ignored, he never let himself be walked over, and always called people out on their bullshit and didn't let them stifle him. I loved how bright, optimistic, effervescent, gentle, loving and kind he was. Any time I saw him on screen, I would light up and be mesmerized without quite knowing why. As I was only just beginning to understand at the time, I saw myself in him, I related to him, and I felt connected to him.
I think it's important to acknowledge the fact that there certainly were moments on Glee when various issues were handled clumsily or even in very insensitive ways, or where there were humorous references to things that shouldn't ever be joked about. I will be clear in saying that I don't overlook or play those down. It's definitely important to keep them in mind (in a way, it's also kind of helpful and reassuring to see how far we've come in terms of perceiving those things in just a few years). But conversely, I don't think it makes sense to write off the show completely as being problematic and overlook all the things it got right for those missteps. There are also numerous instances of very important issues, relationships, conversations, and representation that the show absolutely nailed, and as many of those moments and relationships are deeply important to many people, they deserve to be wholeheartedly celebrated.
Was Kurt, for instance, a bit stereotypical? Oh yeah, no doubt about it. But even rewatching the show today, I often find myself forgetting it. Because he's so confident and fearless and self-assured of who he is that he doesn't let the stereotypes define him. He always brings his own unique perspectives, experiences, and approaches to everything that the does, and does everything that he loves with immeasurable passion. He is fiercely devoted to the people that he cares about. He is brave and determined in everything that he does. He is committed to growing, to fulfilling his dreams, to doing what he believes is best. But, in spite of all the pain and hardship of growing up as a feminine, openly gay man in a small Midwestern town, he also remains strongly connected to the place he comes from and conscious of his sentimental connection to it and how it's shaped him, as well as to making Lima and all the places that matter most to him there better. He's an unapologetic hopeless romantic, both in love and life goals. He knows who he is, and he shares that with his loved ones and the whole world in absolutely beautiful ways. He sang with drive and passion, bringing all of who he was and what he had lived into gorgeous covers of iconic songs.
The issue of representation for marginalized people remains a critically important one for this reason. Looking back on how I felt watching the first season of Glee as a twelve and later thirteen-year-old, I am conscious of how important it was to have a character like Kurt on-screen that I could look up to. Seeing him being who he was openly and fearlessly was deeply, deeply validating and empowering. Even not being fully conscious of who I was just yet, I looked at him and I felt calm. Seen. Heard. And like I had a future. Like I could hope for growth and love and community and pursuing my dreams just like anyone else around me.
And for that reason, I will always be deeply grateful to Glee and to Chris Colfer, the amazing actor and singer (and now best-selling writer of the Land of Stories series!) behind Kurt, for allowing me to come into my own as a young gay boy looking up to such a beautiful and inspiring character.
Young Nico is 12, soon to turn 13, years old, in the midst of his sixth grade year, still relatively enjoying the novelty of being in a new, bigger middle school environment alongside new faces from other elementary schools in the Ann Arbor district, still not stressed and overwhelmed by the anxiety, sleep deprivation, and social toxicity that will mushroom the following year.
Barack Obama has just become the forty-forth president of the United States. Iceland has just experienced its intense and dramatic economic collapse in the midst of the Great Recession, and newly elected Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, the world's first openly lesbian head of state, as prime minister. Michael Jackson's passing has fans the world over in mourning. Velvet tracksuits, multicolored tights, and leggings as pants are all the rage in fashion. Owl City's "Fireflies," the Black Eyed Peas' "I Gotta Feeling," Miley Cyrus' "Party in the U.S.A.," Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours," and Beyonce's "Single Ladies" hover at the top of the hot 100 charts and reverberate on radios anywhere.
And the first season of the hit TV show Glee has just started airing.
For the uninitiated, Glee is a musical comedy-drama series which aired on the Fox network for six seasons from 2009 to 2015, focusing on the adventures, triumphs, struggles, and close bond of the members of the show choir New Directions at the fictional William McKinley High School in Lima, Ohio. It follows the evolution of the group and its original members from a shaky beginning as a newly formed, rag-tag little bunch of misfits, which the school's cheer coach Sue Sylvester constantly tries to have disbanded, to a strongly competitive, talented, and high-energy powerhouse of excellent covers. The show features and covers numerous social issues in American society through the experiences of the characters and their relationships to one another, in ways which sometimes reflect the clumsier nature of social issues and how they were understood ten years ago - but always with a lot of heart, affection, good intention, and genuine desire for greater understanding and harmony among all people.
Many such examples are to be found with Kurt Hummel - talented member of the New Directions' original founding members, a consummate fashionista, and for much of the show, McKinley High's only openly gay student.
From coming out for the first time to good friend and fellow New Directioner Mercedes Jones, opening up about his sexuality to his quite traditionally masculine father Burt (to great acceptance - Burt later goes on to go out of his way to educate himself on gay issues and sexuality so that his son can come to him with questions like any straight boy could), and never being afraid to sing music, wear clothes, and experiment with forms of expression deemed traditionally feminine, to overcoming vicious bullying issues, and eventually finding a loving relationship with his first boyfriend Blaine Anderson, the other half of the iconic duo dubbed "Klaine" by many fans and shippers, Kurt's role in the show and gay representation in the media is not to be understated.
In the summer of 2018, a Klaine video popped up in my YouTube "recommended" list after I had just returned from my junior year of college studying abroad in Moscow, Russia and Turku, Finland. My curiosity piqued, I then spent the month I had at home before leaving for a summer program in Reykjavik, Iceland watching the first three seasons of Glee. The latter two for the first time. But I was surprised to find that the first season felt almost wholly familiar, like I was rewatching it, even though I didn't feel like I had watched it that closely when it was coming out.
Flashing back to 2009: At the time I had just received my first little netbook laptop as a Christmas present. But in spite of the greater mobility it offered to sit on my oversized beanbag in the quiet comfort of my own room, I still often preferred to spend my long sessions of perusing my new Facebook page on the computer in our living room, and often wound up at least peripherally watching whatever my sister was watching on TV as a result. Case in point with Glee.
At the time, she was closely following Season 1. And even though I seldom actually sat down on the couch across from her to watch it together, it looked and sounded nice enough to capture my attention and get me to rotate the swivel chair at my parents' desk where the computer stood to pay attention for a while. Perhaps no more so than when Kurt was on screen.
At the time, I had barely even begun to realize that I was gay. I knew very little about what it meant to be gay, or the history and community behind the label, and was not self-aware enough to realize that the feelings I was struggling with were closely tied to feeling uncomfortable in my own body, not understanding the feelings that I couldn't control that so much of society was telling me were wrong, and feeling out of place and unrepresented in such a straight world. But among all the other tensions of feeling lonely, weird, and not enough in the socially cutthroat environment of Tappan Middle School, my baby gay angst and anxiety were some of the top causes of the stress I was undergoing. Even without an exact handle on that being a big source of my confusion and issues, even thinking that my stress and loneliness were exclusively products of the social environment and how I fit into it, I couldn't help but feel like something was deeply, fundamentally different about me compared to many others around me, far beyond the unique interests and habits that had defined me growing up, which often differed from those of the other kids, especially the other boys, around me.
"Gay" at that time was not a word with a pleasant connotation, usually either used as a general synonym of "bad" or "sucky" ("that's so gay") which has thankfully greatly decreased over the years, or to refer to what it actually describes - homosexuality - but in a greatly overstereotyped and disdainful way. Even though I wasn't yet aware of my own sexual orientation, every time I heard the word, or so many other hurtful and nasty ones associated with it, echo down my middle school hallways, my chest would clench and I would go numb with fear.
When I turned in that swivel chair from the ever-important business of making copious amounts of Facebook statuses with positively atrocious spelling and syntactical construction of all sorts (because for some reason I had it in my head at the time that proper spelling and grammar online was not cool), it was for a reason.
I was captivated and mesmerized by Kurt. I loved his energy. I loved his extravagant and innovative style, his fearless desire to push aesthetic boundaries, his refusal to let himself or anything he loved be defined by meaningless and trite expectations of gender norms. I loved his powerful singing voice and how it seemed to soar effortlessly into alto high notes. I loved his covers and how he brought who he was and his heart and soul into all of what he sang (perhaps nowhere else more so than his cover of "Defying Gravity," which I listened to for years, mesmerized by his beautiful voice and empowered of his rendition of a traditionally feminine song, especially before important turning points and new chapters of my life, like when I went to Italy in middle school for six months, before high school, and as I was getting ready for my high school exchange year in Egypt that I'd dreamed of for years, imagining myself soaring high above the Pyramids of Giza as he hit his high notes - I still listen to it lovingly as a reminder of my periods of greatest drive and determination in life, as well as to find new inspiration). I loved his high-pitched, softer-spoken speaking voice, how relaxing and soothing it was to listen to. I loved how even though sometimes he felt alone, afraid, mistreated, or ignored, he never let himself be walked over, and always called people out on their bullshit and didn't let them stifle him. I loved how bright, optimistic, effervescent, gentle, loving and kind he was. Any time I saw him on screen, I would light up and be mesmerized without quite knowing why. As I was only just beginning to understand at the time, I saw myself in him, I related to him, and I felt connected to him.
I think it's important to acknowledge the fact that there certainly were moments on Glee when various issues were handled clumsily or even in very insensitive ways, or where there were humorous references to things that shouldn't ever be joked about. I will be clear in saying that I don't overlook or play those down. It's definitely important to keep them in mind (in a way, it's also kind of helpful and reassuring to see how far we've come in terms of perceiving those things in just a few years). But conversely, I don't think it makes sense to write off the show completely as being problematic and overlook all the things it got right for those missteps. There are also numerous instances of very important issues, relationships, conversations, and representation that the show absolutely nailed, and as many of those moments and relationships are deeply important to many people, they deserve to be wholeheartedly celebrated.
Was Kurt, for instance, a bit stereotypical? Oh yeah, no doubt about it. But even rewatching the show today, I often find myself forgetting it. Because he's so confident and fearless and self-assured of who he is that he doesn't let the stereotypes define him. He always brings his own unique perspectives, experiences, and approaches to everything that the does, and does everything that he loves with immeasurable passion. He is fiercely devoted to the people that he cares about. He is brave and determined in everything that he does. He is committed to growing, to fulfilling his dreams, to doing what he believes is best. But, in spite of all the pain and hardship of growing up as a feminine, openly gay man in a small Midwestern town, he also remains strongly connected to the place he comes from and conscious of his sentimental connection to it and how it's shaped him, as well as to making Lima and all the places that matter most to him there better. He's an unapologetic hopeless romantic, both in love and life goals. He knows who he is, and he shares that with his loved ones and the whole world in absolutely beautiful ways. He sang with drive and passion, bringing all of who he was and what he had lived into gorgeous covers of iconic songs.
The issue of representation for marginalized people remains a critically important one for this reason. Looking back on how I felt watching the first season of Glee as a twelve and later thirteen-year-old, I am conscious of how important it was to have a character like Kurt on-screen that I could look up to. Seeing him being who he was openly and fearlessly was deeply, deeply validating and empowering. Even not being fully conscious of who I was just yet, I looked at him and I felt calm. Seen. Heard. And like I had a future. Like I could hope for growth and love and community and pursuing my dreams just like anyone else around me.
And for that reason, I will always be deeply grateful to Glee and to Chris Colfer, the amazing actor and singer (and now best-selling writer of the Land of Stories series!) behind Kurt, for allowing me to come into my own as a young gay boy looking up to such a beautiful and inspiring character.
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