I don’t get addicted to televisions shows simply because I don’t watch any shows that require me to be home at a certain time every week in order to enjoy them (no, I do not own a DVR). I’m a commitment-phobe when it comes to TV. I don’t want to invest myself or my time in any one show. I haven’t been involved with a prime time drama since Knots Landing. I don’t even watch a single sitcom. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying my television viewing habits are better than yours. Most of my favorite shows begin with the words World’s Wildest or involve exploiting someone’s mental illness in the guise of entertainment (Hoarders, Intervention). I just can’t be bothered with something where I need to get to know the characters and how they act or what they do or who they’re related to because I know damn well I’m going to miss a episode or two and when I come back to it I’ll be lost and give up on the show all together.
So how did I get hooked on Glee?
My daughter told me from the first episode: “Watch this, you will LOVE it!” Whatever. She’s a theater major. Of course she loves the show. I told her – in so many words – that I was too smug to get addicted to show about a bunch of theater kids singing, dancing and romancing. The whole season went by and I prided myself on not having watched a single episode. I scoffed at my friends who went on about it on twitter and their blogs. I made every effort to ignore their pleas, and my daughter’s – for me to watch Glee. I instead immersed myself in episodes of COPS of Broward County, enjoying the escapades of jail bound meth heads instead of watching a bunch of emo teenagers get all bent out of shape about their glee club.
Then it happened. I don’t know how it started. One minute I was downloading the first episode of Glee from iTunes just to shut my daughter up and somewhere between my introduction to Sue Sylvester and New Directions’ rendition of Don’t Stop Believing, I got hooked. I bought the whole season and started watching them, an episode each day.
Here’s the thing: I grew up on musicals. My mother was a connoisseur of all things Broadway and a good portion of the soundtrack of my childhood consists of numbers from the likes of Carousel, Oklahoma!, South Pacific, West Side Story and so many others. I was enthralled with musicals. I wanted my life to be like that. I wanted to live in a world where people broke out in song to express their feelings. I wished for musical accompaniment wherever I went, for my neighbors to sing in unison as we all took out the garbage at the same time, for a song and dance routine to spontaneously happen during a math quiz. Why couldn’t there be a “76 Trombones” in my life? Why couldn’t someone profess their love to me like Gordon McCrae did to Julie Andrews in Carousel? Why didn’t our teenage turf wars come with a soundtrack? I still ask myself similar questions, though I think about them in terms of popular music. Like dancing through the frozen foods aisle at the supermarket, everyone staring at the selection of frozen pizzas while singing “Lost in the Supermarket.” Or sitting in traffic listening to ODB’s “Baby I Got Your Money” and everyone gets out of their cars and starts dancing and acting out all the parts until the traffic starts flowing again. Or walking down the hallway in my office building while all the guys sing Cake’s “Short Skirt, Long Jacket.”
Of course, life could never be that awesome. But I have found in Glee a place to vicariously live out my dream of life being a musical. After watching the initial episode, saying I was in it only for the musical numbers, I found myself getting interested in the lives of the characters In the back of my mind, a little voice was saying “Don’t do it! Don’t get involved in a relationship you can not commit to!” but I was already pushing play on the second episode. By the time I got to episode four (Preggers) I had declared Sue Lynch to be my spirit animal and Glee the greatest thing ever. I wasn’t just committing to it. I was hopelessly in love. When Kurt broke out into “Single Ladies” on the football field I wanted to put a ring on Glee. I was smitten in a big way.
There’s no doubt about it, Glee is cheesy. It’s predictable, unrealistic and oh so flippant. But it’s flippancy is what I love. While there are issues tackled on the show that are serious in nature – teenage pregnancy, ethics, morality, adultery, premature ejaculation – Glee never makes the mistake other comedy based shows have made when dealing with these things. There’s no Very Special Episode that ends with one of the characters breaking the fourth wall to give you an 800 number you can call if you ever feel like you want to burst out into song to come out to your father. It does not take itself seriously. Sure, you find yourself caring about what happens to the characters, even wanting some of them to perhaps die in fiery car wrecks, but as in Arrested Development, you care about them only because their predicaments and how they play out entertain you. Quinn’s pregnancy and Will’s love life might be fodder for emotional vignettes if they were on other shows but on Glee, they are pure, hand-wringing, evil laughter enjoyment.
If Glee had taken the route of, say “Days in the lives of teenagers who happen to sing and dance” we’d have nothing more than Degrassi High with musical numbers. But the razor sharp wit, sarcasm and gleeful evilness of some of the characters keep it from being just another teen drama. The musical numbers bring it to another level of entertainment. There have been other television show before Glee that attempted the song and dance – Cop Rock, anyone? – but Glee will go down in history (ok, my history) as the only show that was able to give me a glimpse of what my fantasy musical-based life would be like.
And so I have done something I said I wouldn’t do. I committed to a serial television show.
My name is Michele, and I’m addicted to Glee. Do not attempt an intervention.