So, one of the "benefits" of being unemployed is that I have a lot of time to catch up on TV shows via Hulu. I'll probably write about a few of them in the next few days/weeks but today, I'm talking about "Glee".
It seems Fox has two kinds of sitcoms. Ones that are excellent if somewhat twisted, and ones that are just bad. Glee falls into the latter category. There's nothing good about it. Seriously. Nothing. The characters are bad stereotypes, which is somewhat excusable in the students, as my memories of High School make me think that most of us were, in fact, bad stereotypes at that age. But the adults are so one-dimensional and formulaic as to be unwatchable. The music is entertaining, but not terribly creative, and the over use of auto-tune is painful. So, as a show, it's about what you'd expect for a pop-culture, lowest common denominator sort of sitcom.
But the worst thing, to me, is the stereotypes. They make no attempt whatsoever to break the molds that we've seen a million times before. The one gay character is flamboyant, fashion-forward, and terribly effeminate. The one handicapped character is good natured and self-effacing, The popular kids are football players or cheerleaders and they're all stupid. The Jewish girl is a self-absorbed, power-hungry princess. People who believe in chastity are hypocrites and bigots. The list goes on and on. There's no imagination involved at all.
Compare it to King of the Hill, which could be full of unquestioned stereotypes. In fact, it practically begs to be and, in the early seasons the characters were much flatter. But as the characters developed it turned out that Hank was more open minded than even he would admit. Dale was a better parent and husband than most of us are in real life.
I know people will disagree with me, but after watching almost all of the first season, I can say "Glee" isn't worth my time. (Which is saying something, since the job market indicates my time isn't worth all that much.)
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