Hey, Girl you're on TV.

Looking at the list of new shows this autumn, it seems that there is a significant increase in the number of shows with main female protagonist.Not only this but many of the first lot to have a full season order are members of this new bunch. Side note one of the first to be cancelled was The Play Boy Club. But probably best not to read gender into this given it was straight up just terrible television.

This summer Bridesmaid's significant box office success was heralded as a sign that media (specifically comedy) with a female slant can make money. This idea has apparently been adopted by television. Looking at a shows like New Girl and 2 Broke Girls and their commercial success I'm conflicted about what it suggests about representation of women in entertainment.

I don't hate either of the shows, but I'm not sure that their depiction of females speak to any real progress.

Firstly 2BG, which lets be honest is an odd (and by odd I mean bad) show. I jump from half liking it, to not being able to believe that it's actually getting made. Yes I laugh every now and again, mainly thanks to Kat Dennings putting more effort in than the scripts deserves. But she can't do anything to make up for the fact the show does spend most of its time being casually racist and throwing in more rape jokes than seem absolutely necessary. Which is obviously less than ideal. Although the women do have actual conversations about things that don't involve men, they also spend a lot of it conform to the typical gender conventions. Yes they talk about vagina's, sex and the like. The delivery of which, even though its been 13 years since Sex and the City started showing, still feels weird and forced. Its written and performed like they want every time they say it to be subtitled with See What We Did There, Look How Avant-Garde We Are. Not that I'm saying SATC a beacon of progressive gender but still 13 years later is this stuff meant to be shocking or worth noting. Surely it would indicate progress if vagina wasn't still a punch line. Although this comparison to SATC does link to one of my favourite things about 2BG is the fact that Caroline is continually wearing the same clothes and necklace. In the last episode we even saw her wear the pair of shorts she bought in an earlier episode. This kind of continuity and the fact a women who is meant to be broke has a limited wardrobe is nice to see. If she had a different outfit each week it would be going against the ethos of the show. Not that their insanely large apartment in Brooklyn really goes with idea of broke-ness. Seriously it has a back yard, one that a horse can walk about it. That said it's not really shown to be big enough that I don't believe keeping Chestnut there is anything other than animal cruelty. What's the American equivalent of the NSPCA, because I feel it warrants a call.

On to New Girl, which although I haven't posted about since the pilot I've have been watching. The awkward reality is that I keep on wanting to write about it, but then I think to do that I really need to re-watch the episodes before I do. But I can never be bothered to get around to watch them. This isn't a good sign is it? The main issue was the awkward simultaneous occurrences of me watching the pilot and reading an article in the New Yorker by Mindy Kaling about women in film. In it she presented various stock females characters. Here is one, which I'm loath to quote because it will show why Kaling writes for the office and I don't. But that said I can't possibly begin to describe this in any funnier or better way. So I won't.

“The Klutz.

When a beautiful actress is cast in a movie, executives rack their brains to find some kind of flaw in the character she plays that will still allow her to be palatable. She can’t be overweight or not perfect-looking, because who would pay to see that? A female who is not one hundred per cent perfect-looking in every way? You might as well film a dead squid decaying on a beach somewhere for two hours.
So they make her a Klutz. The hundred-per-cent-perfect-looking female is perfect in every way except that she constantly bonks her head on things. She trips and falls and spills soup on her affable date (Josh Lucas. Is that his name? I know it’s two first names. Josh George? Brad Mike? Fred Tom? Yes, it’s Fred Tom). The Klutz clangs into stop signs while riding her bike and knocks over giant displays of fine china in department stores. Despite being five feet nine and weighing a hundred and ten pounds, she is basically like a drunk buffalo who has never been a part of human society. But Fred Tom loves her anyway.”

That is essentially Jess, word for word. Well as long as you replace Fred Tom with her 3 roommates and whatever romantic interest gets added later. Obviously whoever he is, he will have a much less awesome name. So now watching New Girl all I can hear is Mindy's words dancing round my head, crashing into china as it goes. Sometimes is seems so completely accurate and well timed that I wonder whether its all a big meta ploy. I'm just waiting for them to announce that New Girl is just people playing on the Klutz convention and they know how ridiculous and played out this kind of female character is. If this happened my affection for the show would increase by a solid 34%. I won't hold my breath.

When you acknowledge the fact that both these shows are consistently getting better ratings than 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation, its a little disheartening. Especially since both of the latter shows are better written, funnier and more engaging. They are also both shows have female lead characters than are more interesting, developed, real depictions of women hood in the 21^st century than any show with girl in the title. At the beginning of this current season, for example, we saw Leslie Knope break up with Ben because it would make her running for office problematic. This kind of non-man related thinking and taking control over ones own life in a pragmatic way is often rare, even in shows with lead female characters. It seems that to a certain extent we, as a television audience, are wiling to watch prime time sitcoms with women as long as they aren't too clever or deviate too severely from the expected ways women are meant to behave. Baby steps I guess.

Season 3 of Community (so far)

I have an tendency to get into television shows by random and oddly timed ways. How I Met Your Mother, Community, Doctor Who, Archer, Psyche, Parks and Recreation and Bones are all shows that I have heard about a particular episode and decided to watch it for kicks. Which then invariably leads on to watching ALL the episodes. This is ok for things like Archer and Community, which I found half way through season 2 both times. Less ok for HIMYM which I didn't discover till almost the beginning of season 5. So much back log. Seriously I caught myself up to it during a particularly cold December weekend when I was alone in a poorly insulated house with no central heating, where I did nothing else really but watch it and refill my hot water bottle. Totally worth it though especially this season as HIMYM seems to be really going for broke in the awesome categories. But more on that later maybe.

Back to Community. I don't actually remember what the first episode I watched was, maybe the Dungeons and Dragon episode? What ever it was I loved it a lot. And so the whole catch up cycle began. There are so many things that make Community one of favourite shows. But my favourite thing is probably the fact it doesn't take itself at all seriously. The writers have realised that you don't need be to be serious to be deep and effecting.This can be seen perfectly in the opening musical number of Biology 101. Although I desperately hope that their promise to be more normal, less crazy and less weird than the first two years combined where empty threats because I would not be ok with that. The whole number is just like the show, the right side of meta, self aware without being smug (see Jeff and Annie's “We're going to sleep together”). I've just heard that there is going to be a musical episode for the Christmas special. I'm pretty excited about this. 

What's great about Community is the deep effect ion I feel for all the characters. I love the Dean, so much and his Dean based puns. Although if he keeps wearing that suit I for one will be very Changry. I loved watching him crumble under John Goodman's Vice Dean. It's also good to see that Pan Sexual Imp being added to the opening credits, because he deserves to be after all the work he's put in over the last couple of years.Troy, Troy, Troy, Troy. I have a significant love affair with Donald Glover. What I love about him is even in episodes that about aren't about him directly he still just manages to be hilarious during every little exchange he gets. His hand slipping in from the side and taking the lid of the cup when Annie was freaking out was perfectly done. Also his doing a Georgian accent despite knowing that its the country not the state, was great. But the MVP for moment of subtle awesomeness goes to the moment involving the candy cigarette in Remedial Chaos Theory. Such a small delightful moment.

His and Abed living together can only bring spectacular things. Also I'm significantly looking forward to see what Annie being added to the mix is going to bring. Abed's freak out about not having a new favourite TV show was almost as good as Troy's Levar Burton freak out in Season Two. Well not really because that was so good it hurts a little inside. Although's the study groups reaction and attempts to help was brilliant to see.

My only complaint in the first episode was the continued discussion of whether Pierce should be in the group or not. Are we still talking about this, although it did seem to be settled in the second episode. This used to be an issue with Chang, but now he has a job as Security guard complete with badge saying- “Hows my Smile?” But the after that the episodes seem to have put these issues to bed. Which is good to see this development.

That said the only bit of Geography of Global Conflict that I didn't totally love was the whole Britta story line with Chang. It just didn't make me laugh in the way the rest of the episode did. Also it was odd that it was mainly completely separate from the rest of the action. It felt like every time we went to that story line we had to take a step back. I realise that it's good to see her tackle the issues of who she used to be and who she's going to be. It suggests that this season is going to be one of growth for the gang, as do lots of whats happened over these first two episodes. The third episode could perhaps be seen to go against that idea. It may have shown them as having grown into a group but there was still a level of internal bickering what seems a little unnecessary or a back step. The forth episode however got us right back on track. I think I'll wait to the end to go into a full discussion of the forth such are the strength of my feelings for it.

The third episode was a bit of an odd one. I found it funny but it seemed a little disjointed. This was kind of explained Dan Harmon's post explaining that it was meant to be the forth but given the extra time the original third one needed to produce they had to swap the running order. Although I laughed a lot at their mistreatment of Todd the final shot was slighting heartbreaking. That ending added a cruel tinge to the episode as a whole that was a bit disconcerting.

The Annie and Jeff romance is an interesting one. It's been suggested and referenced a fair bit throughout the two seasons. I'm not sure whether they've managed to make it stay on the right side of creepy. That said I'm a sucker for televised romance so I'm up for it. I'm really hoping that they are actually going to work through some of the issues that have been presented between these too. I'm totally aware that at least some of the reason for this is the damage done to me by Hollywood. Without romantic resolution there is a part of me that is not fully satisfied. Also Troy and Britta? Oh yeah I can see that happening. This could also be seen in Remedial Chaos Theory when with the moments in a couple of the timelines. I thought Martin Starr totally owned it as the model UN teacher. His locket which he eventually took out and talked too was great. Also that joke about knowing the actual name of the person who first set up model UN completely reminded me of the joke in Archer the other day "Who am I? Carl Lannsteiner? Discoverer of blood groups?". Side note I love that Archer joke more than I can say. It might be my favourite joke of the entire television season.

Now to the forth episode. I'm going to find it hard to talk about this without just shouting about my love from the rooftops. In many ways this is my problem with reviewing Community in general. I like it just a little bit too much. I find it slightly hard to see through my love and affection for the thing as a whole. The way the time lines shifted the relationships and when stuff works and when it works was wonderfully done and a joy to watch. It was interesting to see that Troy seems most integral to the group, if he goes all hell quite literally breaks loose. Was the message meant to be, be nice to people and let them sing Police hits if they want to? We should always let people sing Roxanne if wanted. That said I'd be sad to think, we were meant to assume Jeff is the cause of all the conflict in the group. He's just got furthest to go in accepting himself. What was great about the episode was it got funnier and better as it went on. Each time Pierce referenced Eartha Kitt was funnier than the last, because of all that went before. The repetition and replaying of ideas were so well done that it made the episode build and build until the end, which I genuinely found moving. It totally made up to the mean edge to the group from the episode before which is why I think it makes more sense in this order to a certain extent. Although they really should have taken out Pierce's Eartha Kitts reference. But apart from that if this had been before I think I would have really hated Biology 101 as it would have seen as such a step down in quality and development.

The end point is, and I think will always be for Community reviews, god damn I love this show.

Characters the heart of the show or show heart of the characters?

 One of my favourite TV reviewers Todd VanDerWerff at the AV club reviews both Glee and Community. We don't always agree (see his rather positive review of Asian F) but what we do share is a love of comparing Glee and Community. In fact he got me started on it, I say that like it's a class A drug, although it is fun. Here is a section of his review of the Community season 2 finale For a Few Paintballs More-

“I’m not going to argue that Leonard, say, is as well-developed a character as any of the main seven (or even as well developed as, say, theDean), but it’s also sort of clear that the writers COULD do a whole episode about Leonard and Vicki teaming up to solve mysteries with Quendra as their quirky secretary who speaks exclusively in rhyme. They’ve clearly got a lot of affection for everybody that exists in this universe, and the finale is the best expression of that so far. The main character here isn’t Jeff or Britta or Annie or even Greendale itself; it’s the student body and how it comes together to face an external threat. Community is a show that’s endlessly inventive, sure, but unlike other pop culture mash-up shows, it’s also open to all points-of-view and deeply humane. The jokes are great, sure, but the show—even at its clunkiest—really believes that every person that goes to Greendale, even if they seem to exclusively say “Pop pop!” is worthy of our time and attention. When I say the show has “heart,” I don’t mean that it shoehorns in a little speech from the characters about what they learned at the end of each episode; I mean that it really does seem to view all of these people as equals, as potential leads to their own stories.”

When I first read this I immediately thought how different that was to the way Glee treats it's characters. Most of the time it feels like the characters on Glee are used as methods to further illustrate the message of the show, rather than people in their own right. This is especially true for secondary and guest characters. People like Holly Holliday are only there to further Wills progression or teach the kids something that will make them more empowered. Did anyone else snort when I said Will's progression I know I did. That man has no progression. I do realise that this complaint (if it is one, more on that later) could perhaps be levelled at Community in terms of guest stars, John Goodman was there to develop the Dean's storyline (that and be hilarious). But Todd's right that it really isn't true in regards to the regulars and background characters at Greendale. Whereas this applies quite strongly in some respects to lots of the main members of New Directions. While Kurt and to a certain extent Finn have back stories that we know about and understand that further develop their characters others mainly don't. I was going to put Rachel in the list of people but then I thought that actually no her character doesn't have anything much outside the “I WANT TO BE A STAR” motivation. And even when they do try you can't help but think it isn't going to change anything. Example will our new knowledge of Mike's back story going add much to him? Doubtful. Many character arcs are mainly about the replaying the message about the importance of the arts and how they help you accept yourself. Obviously it's a great message but it's the only one Glee has. Sure it's got different varieties of it. Music helps you accept your sexuality, music helps you face the reality that you're a pregnant at 16, music helps you realise you are beautiful. It even helps your parent accept you want to be a Dancer. Wow is there anything music and musical theatre can't do...sort out Greece's financial crisis? Again I'm not disputing musics importance in people lives but it's not the be all and end all of the human experience.

But I'm getting distracted. Back to characters. I think it's true that if we had a episode of Community about Magnitude or Star Burns I'd totally buy it. But even having like a third of an episode about Mike (a character thats been in the main group since the beginning) I didn't feel like we a) learnt anything or b)it really worked and perhaps more importantly I don't totally believe that it'll ever be mentioned again. When development does happen, even to the main group, more often than not things are then dropped for weeks, sometimes seasons, sometimes forever. Seriously how many times have we had Emma admit she needs help and look like she's going to start down the road to recovery, fecking loads thats how many. How many times have we got further than this step, never. Even in Archer, a show that in many ways relies on the fact that at the the end of most episodes the setting goes back to zero, manages better continuity than Glee lots of the time. This seeming refusal to remember things like what the characters did, where motivated by and decided episode to episode shows a distinct lack of interest in treating them like actual humans. It might sound stupid but that perhaps is the main difference. Glee treats its characters like just that characters whereas Community treats then like people. People have thoughts, ideas going on that we the audience don't see but it bleeds into what we do see happening. With Glee it's all on the surface, sometimes it feels like some of the characters don't have a thought we don't find out about. When they're not on camera they cease to exist. We hardly ever see Star Burns but I completely can see him and his everyday life. What does Artie do when he's not sitting in the choir room, I'm less sure. According to Tina he making short films, also I vaguely remember that once he talked about video games. That's it, what does Finn do come to that. Talk to sandwiches? Does that fill his hours?

This sounds like a negative thing because surely the idea of a narrative show is that it should be based on well rounded developed characters. But in many ways main characters with too much depth and individuality goes against what Glee is trying to do or the role it is trying to play in it audiences lives. A role which is utterly different to what I imagine the writes of Community are trying to do. Glee to a certain extent is a show designed to help the audience live vicariously through its characters. So they are meant to be a base for the audience to add their own sense of self too. Obviously all art forms should aim to create characters the audience can connect to but there is a difference between connecting with and living through. The reason Glee has such ardent fans and people love it so strongly is because it pulls them in. They live through the characters and yes perhaps sometimes do come closer to accepting them selves. If it helps anyone do this then surely that's a great thing even if it means that sometimes the characters come across a little lacking in depth. The audience brings the depth. Community on the other hand doesn't have an overriding message and it's aims are less overt other than to have fun. Not that it's all fluff but its very self aware and smart (smart-arse might be a better phrasing). Perhaps that's it's message -“Look how smart I am!”. Could you get a more self conscious half an hour of television than Paradigms Of Human Memory- it might be difficult. Spoiler alert, though, I loved that episode because I love smart arsery and wanky self aware humour. But with this idea at your core if you didn't have characters with heart (to steal Todd's word choice) a show would fall flat and be meaningless. Glee doesn't need all its characters to have heart, the show and its the ideological basis is the heart.

To develop this idea of self awareness and the comparisons to the two shows I'm going to start with a line from Community that I think demonstrates this really well. In Applied Anthropology and Culinary Arts, Fat Neil's girlfriend says (or near as damn it) as Shirley goes into labour

“To think we almost got through a whole class that wasn't about them”

This is of course the principle layer of acceptance the audience needs to make with any television show let in a large institution. With all shows centred around schools or similar you only ever get to know a small group of people and the rest become an amorphous blob. So everything that ever happens at the school happens through the eyes of the group. In reality of course life is like this. At school or university your complete frame of reference is you and your social group but of course you know that all the other students are living their own lives and having their own adventures. With Community we get glimpses of this, when we discover in the same episode that in a previous episode Abed had helped delivered a baby on campus. Life goes on outside that study group and the writers of Community know it. Glee again never mentions this. I really want to there to be an episode of Glee that plays on this idea. In my head it would start with a song by the glee club at a school and a student would say something similar to Fat Neil's girlfriend and then the rest of the episode would be about their school experience maybe now and again see glimpses of the New Directions members or as the random walked past the choir room we would hear a snippet of a song. Glee portrays high school as difficult but only really for the ones we see. Other students we get introduced to could be struggling with issues (or clearly are). But we never really acknowledge that properly or see them deal with them. An admission that high school is difficult for everyone would be nice. If Community did a show where we spent time with random's at Greendale, I would love it and I think they'd do a really good job at it.They've proven they are good at gimmick episodes e.g. Paradigms Of Human Memory (did I mentioned that I loved that episode?) But it doesn't feel as necessary as it does for Glee. Partly because I think Glee needs at least a little self awareness and humility to make it a slightly more endearing as show. It needs to admit that everyone is fighting their own kinds of battles and not everyone deals with that through music and thats ok. Sometimes it feels like its suggesting that the arts cure all and everything should go to hell, that's not true and I'd like it say that just once. Obviously I'm not suggesting it should show everyone all the time that would be stupid and you'd never have enough time to do it justice.

I'm aware that this reads like I'm saying Community's great and Glee sucks. I'm really not Glee's aim is a good one and it does help people but it's needs to gets its head out of its own arse. Glee is a statement show with a blatant agenda and message. This is a completely legitimate thing for a show to have but Glee needs to balance it better It's painfully obviously smug about its agenda lots of the time but also I think if you'd asked it (personifying the show momentarily) it would claim ignorance. If people said Community should also take its head out of it own arse and stop being so pleased with its self, it would be hard to argue. So yes both are smug, but why I forgive Community more than I do Glee is what I think Community knows its a smug git of a show. This admission should make it worse but personally I like that about it (The hipster in me talking perhaps). Glee pretends it better than the rest of us but it's not, not even a little bit. 

Glee-Asian F

This was hyped as the BEST EPISODE OF GLEE EVER. It obviously wasn't, but I imagine many people liked it a whole lot. If you were willing to watch and think very little then it was an hour of well produced, well staged, and well performed television. My main issue with it was the fact that the four main storylines weren't really designed for me to ever love it but still, I don't think it's entirely my fault. Lets go through the reasons one-by-one, just to try and keep my ideas vaguely contained thematically.

A) Rachel vs Mercedes.

My disliking of storyline is, at least in part, linked to my hated of ambition and competition- I am never going to enjoy a Diva-off. This I realise more my issue than everyone else's but Mercedes not accepting the double casting just seemed petty and stupid. Yes it's always been the Rachel Berry Show but just suck it up. A year ago you wouldn't have even got this far. Yes Mercedes, one day you can give Rachel the (metaphorical) kicking she probably deserves but not right now. I obviously approve of Mercedes having more confidence, but the difference between confidence and arrogance seems lost on the writers. You can believe in yourself and not be a total bitch (I thought we learnt this in Night of Neglect-apparently not).
Even with Rachel's very high bar, Mercedes won the biggest bitch of the night. Side note- did this new arrogant cow persona need to be instigated by a boyfriend (whose name I still don't know); can't women ever become confident by their own means?

Her joining Shelby's 'reject Glee' also seemed a bit of a tired routine. People have been leaving New Directions because of disagreements with Will, and others, so often that it beggers belief the writers think they can still get away with it. Example: Santana's back this week with only the most throw-away comment to her being very dramatically told to leave in 3x01. I feel like we should have grown out of this petty bullshit at this point in the show; why can't half these people stop being so flighty and tempremental? Is this meant to be what teenagers are like? Maybe they are; I hope I wasn't, although it really wasn't at all that long ago that I was one. I can't ever remember behaving like these kids do most of the time. This continual infernal bickering was wearing thin last season, I really can't face much more of it.

The whole Dream Girls role play thing was bloody weird wasn't it? By the end of it I was kind of into it, but I did spend the first half of it being like “wait what, really?” Maybe it would have made more sense if I'd seen Dream Girls.

B) Mike's Dad getting Changry (sorry being watching a lot of Community recently).

I like Mike getting some back story and it's always fun to see him dance. His audition for Riff, with help from the rest of the team, was great. That said, this whole "my parents don't understand my art thing" is also tired as hell. But it was nicely done. Although it again suggested that being a dancer would be the only way he could feel special. For the second time in as many weeks we have had the idea that working in the arts is the best thing ever and that everything else is shit and not special and for losers. How is being a doctor not special? You can save lives- that's pretty fucking special. This awkward entertainment elitism has always popped up in Glee but they seem to doing an even worse a job at hiding it. At least pretend you give a shit about anything else. Also I'm calling bullshit on the idea that Harvard would consider Glee club  detrimental in the application process. I don't buy that even a little a bit.

Also, was anyone else kind of concerned about Mike's mental health after Tina egging him on turned out to be a hallucination? Is he hydrating enough? While we're on the subject of Tina, surely her talking about Principle Figgins and his “Spicy Curry Blood” is like 8 levels of offensive and racist? Like for serious, what the hell- that is just straight up not ok. It also seemed totally unnecessary. I imagine that it was decided that it was there for humour, but the humour from that scene was linked to the fact Figgins thinks vampires are real. That's humour enough- we don't need random racism to make it funnier. I like close to the knuckle humour, but Glee isn't set up in the kind of way so it doesn't work. Especially with a character like Tina, if Sue had said it that would much better because she's generally pretty offensive to most people, and her statements are never meant to be anything other than funny jokes. Tina isn't that character at all; it doesn't make sense that she would joke about that so it's just offensive.

C) Ginger Pride.

Look, I just don't like Will; simple as that. He's not a good teacher and he's not a good person most of the time. He's crazily self involved; he really does think that everything revolves around him. If you're girlfriend is massively repressed and OCD surely it's a relatively safe bet that she has a difficult relationship with her parents. Also bearing in mind that she was not subtle about her love for him throughout the previous seasons, why would you automatically assume she was ashamed of you? Fix You would have worked for this storyline if it had just been Will singing it to Emma in their bed room, but the whole of Glee club doing it in clichéd white clothing thing did not work- talk about hammering the message home. Christ it was as awkward as the end song of High School Musical 2.

Also how weird was it him showing her his porn collection which he seems to hide in a weird wicker basket with a fold out lid? What person has EVER had a specific wicker box thing to put their porn in? No person- that's who. What was the point? just to yet again remind her that they haven't had sex? To let her know his sexual kinks for when they do? “Oh you subscribe to Nipple Clamps Weekly good to know!”.  Also, I'm not loving the fact that the women has a secret wedding stash and the man has the porn; women like weddings men like sex, when will these stereotypes die? That said, prizes for storyline that upset my feminist principles the most goes to....

D) Girls Run the World?

The more I think about this, the angrier I am about it all. In theory I should love this, I'm a women and I'm all about empowerment. But if this is empowerment, then frankly women kind should send patriarchy a post card saying “Well Done you win! Now we're off to make you dinner”. Sure, the song is fine in its message, but watch it with the sound off and it's just another dance routine seemingly designed to turn men on; the moves and the clothing are totally geared to the heteronormative male audience. How was this empowerment? How was I meant to come away from this with anything other than a sense of dread about the state of the world? Its basic message seemed to be "girls if you want a job in politics you need to sell your body and sexuality" (and I mean female sexuality through a completely straight male frame of reference) because that's all you have to offer. What are Britney's ideas about how to change the school other than have a women leader? No idea? A fact that apparently doesn't matter.

Female strength is equated to women accepting sexual objectification of themselves. It's admitting that the oppressors of women have been right all along, and the we can't beat them so we might as well join them. I notice how most of the crowd shots during this scene are filled with a much higher number of women than normal. It's like they've realised the flaw in the routine, tried to compensate and failed miserably; watching all the women dance along just made me more sad. The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing women that this dance (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p80pq_2iKCk) counts as empowerment and women taking control of their own sexual self.

Also, it's not equality if women are only voted in because they are women and men have fucked up so far. Having a uterus doesn't mean you are automatically going to be a better leader. Equality means gender should not be a feature; women should be respected and treated the same as men. Yes, I would like more women in roles of political influence but I'm never going to vote for a women purely because she's a women; that's also doing us a disservice. Brittany's campaign manifesto of "vote for me because I'm a (hot)women" is meaningless and her victory would be shallow unless she had actual policies and had won on an intellectual playing field. Given the three options of Kurt, Rachel and Britney. I would clearly vote for Kurt, not because I believe in male supremacy over women, because he is a) sentient b) a good person, most of the time.

On a different note, I didn't spend the whole hour shouting at the computer- there were some bits that I genuinely loved. Seeing Kurt grow enough to admit Blaine will be a better Tony, the flower zig zag scene was very sweet. That said, it was nice and realistic that during the scene where everyone found out their roles while he congratulated Blaine he was still every so slightly visibly disappointed. I actually loved that whole bit, each character was completely believable in their reaction and that little bit was probably my favourite contained scene in the whole episode. When it comes to best lines/character, there was a clear winner- Beiste, because well knock me for six if she wasn't the best thing in this whole episode. If I was going to do a list of quotes I loved, they would all be her! This character is really coming into her own with a consistency in her warmth and subtle depth which sometimes seems awkwardly rare on this show. She seems to be one of the few genuinely nice characters and easily in the top three I would want to spend time with. It would be great we could eat delicious creamy pasta and talk about the tragedy of Ace of Cakes being cancelled.

Also, I didn't notice until the promo for the next episode came on that we hadn't seen Sue throughout. She was not missed. Don't get me wrong I have some serious love for Jane Lynch but Sue has slipped into farcical caricature. Her hatred of Will, Glee and now the arts in general have been run into the ground. Just stop; let Jane Lynch go onto other things. Speaking of that promo- was it trying to suggest that Shelby and Puck might be a thing, that better not the fuck happen. If it does, wow, I can't describe how much I don't want that.

When I first finished this episode I quite liked it, now after thinking about it and writing this I kind of hate it. I do realise that there is distinct chance I'm taking this way to seriously. But then sometimes I think Glee asks us to take it that seriously and then when it fucks up it try to dismiss it by being like “well it's only a fun singing show” It can't be both, well it could, but right now it seems incapable of doing so.