Satire in Glee

Glee is a musical-comedy TV show known for its musical elements and exaggerated events and dialogue. The first time I watched Glee was back in 2015, when I was just a 14-year-old girl looking for a funny show to entertain me.

Back then, I was too young to properly understand the mature jokes or the more serious storylines that the show (rarely) has. Fast-forward to 2020, after we had gone into lockdown due to COVID-19 during the summer, I decided to rewatch the show in order to see if it was as good as I remember it to be. Long story short, it was even better. Not only had I gotten attached to some of the characters like Santana Lopez and Quinn Fabray, but I’ve also come to appreciate the satire that is clearly the basis of the show.

Over the years, people have criticized Glee for its ‘problematic’ scenes, quotes, and stereotypes of several characters. However, what people don’t realise is that the entire show is basically a satire. Satire is using humor and irony as a form of ridicule and mockery, specifically when it comes to more serious topics.

Take the main characters for example, the determined and considerably annoying female lead, the jock, the mean head cheerleader and her two sidekicks, the flamboyant gay kid and etc. At the start of the series, all of those characters play into the role they were written as, with the overuse of stereotypical actions and quotes that can be seen in old high school movies. There is also the case in which the popular kids throw slushies at the Glee club members, as they are considered to be ‘losers’, practically taking something serious like bullying and turning it into a comedic gig for the show.

An example of this is S03E03 ‘Asian F’, where one of the Asian characters on the show, Mike Chang, receives an A- on his exam, which is referred to as an ‘Asian F’ by him and his girlfriend Tina Cohen-Chang.

Another example could be Kitty Wilde’s entire character. She is the new head cheerleader after some of the Glee members graduate, and her character is written to be extremely mean and insensitive towards her fellow Glee members, specifically the minorities in the club. Smaller examples of which the show mocks itself include coach Sue Sylvester pointing out that despite their ‘money problems’, they waste a lot of money on costumes and props for performances that don’t even leave the practice room, as well as a running gig of prioritizing sports over arts in the school.

While the show includes some significantly questionable moments, as well as some more serious storylines such as teen pregnancy, ableism, and LGBTQ+ characters struggling with coming out and other problems, it also manages to keep the setting of the show incredibly lighthearted and comedic.

I think that the main reason for Glee’s success is that the show doesn’t take itself too seriously. Despite some of its controversial moments and quotes that go too far, at most times, the show calls its own faults out, and includes self-aware jokes that allows the audience to laugh along without being too offended by it. It also includes extremely well written and complex characters that went through great character development throughout the series and important issues that a lot of people can relate to. The best example for both of those points is Santana Lopez, who starts out as a background character and one of head cheerleader Quinn’s sidekicks, to becoming part of the main characters and having her own coming out storyline.

That is personally why I love this show as much as I do, because of its hilarious quotes and over exaggerated events, the characters and their individual storylines, as well as its self-awareness and ability to make jokes about serious topics without being too offensive (most of the time), not to mention the incredible covers that are sometimes even better than the original songs themselves.

This is one of my favourite Glee performances. The song they cover is ‘We Are Young’ by Fun, and it’s at the end of the first half of season three where the main group split up and competed against each other in the competition. I love it because it’s so wholesome and loving, and shows that despite all of their differences and disagreements, they’re all just one family.