Glee Recap: Karofsky

I watched last week’s episode of Glee twice. Once by myself and once with my partner. I rate this episode 70% good 30% bad. I usually read autostraddle.com’s recap of Glee’s episodes because we are usually on the same page. I used to read afterelton.com’s recaps but the blogger there is in love with Kurt and Blaine so I stopped reading it because I always want to vomit after reading it. Although this week was different, I read both reviews.

Afterelton.com’s recap was wishy washy and made Kurt out to be a hero AGAIN! The blogger person was also out of it after the first bombshell on the episode (which we will get to in a second). They also complained about Santana getting a lousy coming out episode. So I give their review two thumbs down, but then again their recaps always get two thumbs down so this subject is pretty moot (don’t you just love that word?)

Autostraddle.com’s review made complete fun of the episode including the issue’s it dealt with and called it an after school special. Again, where I usually give them two thumbs up this week they get two thumbs down and they also complained about Santana’s coming out episode being lousy. I guess I’m starting to realize I can’t read lesbian blogger Glee recaps anymore.

I’m going to give you the quick overview of the episode first and then I’ll let the show writers have a little piece of my mind!

Teen wedding plans, Karofsky gets bullied and tries to kill himself, cough syrup, Sebastian becomes good, more wedding crap, peanut butter, Regional’s, a random vampire guy, a choir dressed in medieval clothes, Kurt and Karofsky make up, wedding, pink dresses, parents bitching about the wedding, texting while driving…boom! Car crash and oh yeah Sue Sylvester is pregnant!

What can I possibly say about this episode? Like a lot of Glee episode’s lately they start out good, fizzled in the middle and end ok.

In this episode the main theme is teen suicide. Karofsky who used-to bully Kurt was seen during the last episode with Kurt at Breadstix, where Karofsky professed his love to Kurt (I literally threw up when this happened) of course pale, pasty Kurt said no, but we can be friends. Even though earlier this season we see Karofsky at a gay bar where he talks about how a lot of guys talk to him because “I’m what they call a bearcub.” I have to admit, my heart melted a little when he said that…it seemed Karofsky found his gay community. Apparently I was wrong…he wants himself a chubby chaser.

In the opening scene something happens with Rachel, Kurt and a mean Warbler. Blackmail happens and Blaine gets pissed and decides to blow off steam like most gay kids do in high school, by singing a song called Cough Syrup. Although this song was a really weird choice they cut in scenes of Karofsky walking into his new school’s locker room where the word FAG is spray painted on his locker. He turns around to leave and is pushed into a locker and laughed at by everyone there. Most people I talked to about this said “good, he got what he deserved.” Now, maybe if I actually liked the character of Kurt I might have felt that way too but what people are forgetting is that Kurt and Karofsky kind of made up, he apologized to Kurt I think at least three times and Kurt accepted. It made me really like the character of Karofsky because they made him aware of what he did was wrong. So we see Karofsky checking his facebook page and it’s filled with anti-gay posts and we watch him crumble. I have to say it was so hard to watch this part of the episode and I believe that is because Max Adler handles the role of Karofsky so well. He makes you feel for him, it makes you remember those times in High School when you thought the world was over and you didn’t know where to turn. You can’t help but feel for him and the moment he steps onto the chair you fear the worse. Then of course a commercial comes on.

We come back to a scene in the Principal’s office with Mr. Shuster, Sue Sylvester, Coach Bieste and Emma. Of course Will and Sue blame themselves for not seeing that this was going to happen. They realized they cared more about the fact that Kurt was being bullied and never really questioned why Karofsky hated Kurt so much. Then they cut to Karofsky’s dad finding him and again, the actor playing Karofsky’s dad was so good, it was hard to watch. Back to the office, Will Shuster says:  

"Guys, we were all hard on Dave, We thought he was going to hurt Kurt. I just never thought he’d hurt himself."

"It wasn’t our job to know," Principal Figgins says.

"Then whose job was it?" Emma asks.

Both Afterelton.com and Autostraddle.com brushed over Emma’s statement. I think her statement is a very powerful statement for this episode. It makes you ask the question, why do bully’s bully? How come we punish them and never really find out why they do what they do. It’s a huge statement and I think it’s something we all need to think about.

We learn that Karofsky isn’t dead but is in the hospital. A small part of me wanted the writers to actually kill of Karofsky, not because I hated him but to show kids who are considering suicide what effects their actions have on the people that are left behind. The part of me that was glad they didn’t really hopes that they do justice to the Karofsky storyline from here on out. I would hate to see this get put on the back burner (like the characters of Tina and Brittany are being treated lately).

Then Finn and Rachel make up after a fight and move their wedding up to right after regional’s! Yay! VOMIT!

Next onto the God Squad where they are dealing with the suicide attempt and Quinn asks for them to pray for Karofsky’s family instead of him. Then pasty Kurt walks in and says she has no idea what Karofsky is going through…now this is the only section of the afterlton.com Glee recap that I liked:

Kurt comes in behind her, and he doesn't like what he hears. "Quinn, please," he says, his looking stricken. "Sure, you had a baby when you were 16 and you had a bad dye job for two weeks, but seriously? The world never stopped loving you. And you’re going to Yale. You have no idea what Karofsky was struggling with." Really? That's it, huh? She gets rejected by her father and mother, thrown out of her home, bounced from baby daddy 1 to baby daddy 2 before Mercedes takes her in, gives her baby up for adoption, basically goes nuts and, I'd say, suffers severe post-partum depression bordering on psychosis, has to endure seeing her child with her new mother who is sleeping with Puck, and all this before she's 17 years old. And you think kids don't kill themselves over those things every day?

Kurt then tells us that Karofsky’s facebook still has anti-gay slurs on it such as “better luck next time.” Then Kurt also tells us that he blames himself because Karofsky has been calling him ever since they saw each other at Breadstix and if he just answered one call maybe Karofsky wouldn’t have done this. Now, the afterelton.com Kurt-Loving-Blogger says the Kurt’s character was still trying to figure out his feelings after being blindsided by Karofsky professing his love, of course I think that’s bullshit because if everyone remembers right after Karofsky leaves Blaine busts in the front door of Breadstix singing and Kurt was think Karofsky who? So, again I believe Karofsky’s suicide attempt had nothing to do with our pasty friend; it had all to do with being bullied.

Then this episode goes to the fizzling section. Mean warbler becomes nice because he saw Karofsky at the gay bar and this happened:

They're at the jukebox together, and Dave asks him, "So, how do you get a guy to like you?"

I remember Dave's fragile happiness the night he saw Kurt at the bar, when he said the guys there liked him.

And then Sebastian laughs and says, "You get a guy? Please."

"Why, what’s wrong with me?" Dave asks.

"First off, you’re about 100 pounds overweight," Sebastian tells him. "Quit waxing your eyebrows. You look like Liberace. In fact, just stay in the closet, buddy."

Can we say Karofsky…stay away from the twinks they will ruin your life!!!! Bears and Cubs are where it’s at! Okay, back to the crap…Mr. Shuster gives peanut butter to the Irish kid, Sugar Mahta and Brittany say something funny, then we go to regional’s with the dumb vampire guy/judge, McKinley wins regional’s, then we are supposed to go to the wedding right after but if you watched the episode it seemed like the wedding was a week later.

The next scene worth talking about is the Karofsky hospital scene. Kurt comes to visit him to cheer him up I guess…but believe it or not I actually liked this scene, Kurt apologizes for not taking his calls and Karofsky of course says “why would you after the way I treated you.” Dave goes on to say, "I made your life a living hell for months. But when the same thing happened to me, I couldn’t even take it for a week. I suppose a best friend telling me he never wants to talk to me again, my mom telling me that I have a disease… and maybe I can be cured… I don’t know what to do. I can’t go back to that school." Max Adler was so good in this part it made you want to say those three words that have become a staple in the gay community lately “It Gets Better.” Kurt tells Karofsky that Mr. Shuster asked us this week what were are looking forward to in the future. Kurt tells Dave to think about the future, to imagine a wonderful life for himself ten years down the road. He tells Dave to close his eyes.

"You’re sitting in a fantastic office. You’re some kind of successful professional. A lawyer, maybe."

"Could I be a sports agent?" Dave says, adorably.

"Sure," Kurt says. "You’re a big sports agent living in the city of your dreams because you left Lima and never looked back." We start to see the scene in a flash-forward. "Your handsome partner comes to visit you in your office and brings along your son. You’re taking the rest of the day off work because you’re taking your son to his first football game." We see Dave kiss his partner and hold their son close. "You lean over to your partner, and you say…" Dave fills in with, "I’m so happy right now." Again, Max Adler facial expressions were amazing. Although the bearcub in me really wanted his husband to be a bear or cub but I’ll take it because this was a good scene.

Let’s hope they do justice to this storyline.

Cut to the wedding…blah blah blah…parents want to object…Rachel is texting Quinn to hurry up…we see Quinn in her car texting back and bam! She get’s t-boned by another car. Honestly I didn’t see that one coming and I don’t really know where they are going with this!

Now I would like to address the two other recap blogger’s anger towards this episode because Santana apparently didn’t get a good “coming out” episode…I guess they forgot that amazing scene with Finn in the hallway, the scene in Sue’s office where she says “I haven’t even told my parents yet,” the amazing Adele mash-up she did and finally the scene following the song…so girls check the episode before you get angry.
With that being said, the regional’s section of this episode could have had an amazing Santana/Brittany storyline. The writers had a chance to explore Santana’s fears when she was closeted like Karofsky…or can you imagine Brittany running down the hallway towards Santana after she found out about Karofsky’s suicide attempt, making sure Santana knows how much she loved her and wants to make sure that no matter how tough society might treat them, that they will always have each other….or even better, Santana’s Grandmother catching wind of the Karofsky suicide attempt and coming to Santana’s house for a tearful reconciliation? The writers had a chance and I felt they kind of blew it; we could have waited for Regional’s!
So, I’m looking forward for Glee’s return in April to see if they recover from some of their bad writing mistakes this season and use the issues from this past episode to bring back the Glee we love.

Oh yeah! Sue’s pregnant! Random!!! But I’m sure I’m going to love what they do with it!

Here are some Max Adler moments from this episode:

Polyamourism, Unicorns and Queers, Oh My!

Before you read this blog please keep an open mind and don’t jump down my throat right away!!!!

There are things I completely understand in life such as Theater, Drag Queens, Nene Leakes from The Real Housewives of Atlanta (well anything reality TV anyway) and having fun. Thanks to my partner Chad I don’t have to understand politics because he sends me with a list of the people I should vote for and he can explain things like the Occupy Movement to me using Real Housewives as examples i.e.; Nene is camping on Kim’s lawn because Nene can’t afford good dishes and Kim got a tax break on them!

Since I came out in 1996 I have considered myself a gay man. All my lesbian friends were lesbians. My transgendered friends were either post or pre-op. My Bisexual friends were just warming up before they saw the light and came out. Life seemed easy with just GLBT. I knew people who were in threesome relationships, which usually ended horribly but I always labeled it a threesome. It was easy we were all at the Power Company on a weds, sneaking drinks in the bathroom, dancing to Madonna and guessing if the crazy person on the dance floor was on “E” or Coke…life was easy then.

Fast forward to 2012. Power Company is no more; well I’m wrong yes it is closed but it now takes the shape of “Therapy Thursday.”

There is a new movement in our community called the Queer movement. Now I remember the word Queer being used in a derogatory way just like the word Faggot is used. Although I’ve embraced the word Faggot…I often will go up to my friends and say “Word up Faggot?” Most of the response in “Not much homo, you?” I’ve embraced that word like other minorities have embraced a certain “N” word that shall not be named. I guess like them if we give it power to be hateful than it becomes hateful right? I’m not too sold on Queer. I would embrace Queer if I didn’t always immediately go into a British accent while saying “Word up my Queer little friend?” Believe me I tried it many times. I know a lot of people who are living the Queer lifestyle and when I ask what it is, I never really get an answer that matches each others explanations.

Of course I turn to my friend Wikipedia to get some info!

Wikipedia says: Since its emergence in the English language in the 16th century (related to the German queer, meaning "across, at right angle, diagonally or transverse"), queer has generally meant "strange", "unusual", or "out of alignment". It might refer to something suspicious or "not quite right", or to a person with mild derangement or who exhibits socially inappropriate behavior.

I of course laughed at this definition because it describes some drag queens that I know more than the queer people I know.

Wikipedia continues: Queer is an umbrella term for sexual minorities that are not heterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typify mainstream LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual) communities as being oppressive or assimilationist.
This term is controversial because it was reappropriated only two decades ago from its use as an anti-gay epithet. Furthermore, some LGBT people disapprove of using queer as a catch-all because they consider it offensive, derisive or self-deprecating given its continuous use as a form of hate speech. Other LGBT people may avoid queer because they associate it with political radicalism, or simply because they perceive it as the faddish slang of a "younger generation."

And finally…

The range of what "queer" includes varies. In addition to referring to LGBT-identifying people, it can also encompass: pansexual, pomosexual, intersexual, genderqueer, asexual and autosexual people, and even gender normative heterosexuals whose sexual orientations or activities place them outside the heterosexual-defined mainstream, e.g., BDSM practitioners, or polyamorous persons.

For some queer-identified people, part of the point of the term "queer" is that it simultaneously builds up and tears down boundaries of identity. For instance, among genderqueer people, who do not solidly identify with one particular gender, once solid gender roles have been torn down, it becomes difficult to situate sexual identity. For some people, the non-specificity of the term is liberating. Queerness becomes a way to simultaneously make a political move against heteronormativity while simultaneously refusing to engage in traditional essentialist identity politics.^[7]

I noticed the term Genderqueer coming up a lot in discussions so I had to look that one up too it means people are attracted to:

• both man and woman (bigender, pangender);
• neither man nor woman (genderless, agender);
• moving between genders (genderfluid);^[2]
• third gender or other-gendered; includes those who do not place a name to their gender;
• having an overlap of, or blurred lines between, gender identity and sexual orientation.

After I smoked two cigarettes because I had a slight headache from all the information I tried to understand but alas here are the questions I ask of you: How does a word like Queer become an umbrella for everyone? And when did being Bi mean 8,000 different things? If you look at all those terms it pretty much comes down to this:

Queer – Meaning men and women whether transgendered or not fall in love with a person regardless of their sex. Simple right? You would think but according to all the explinations I’m given there are 8,000 different variations and labels.

I know there are people out there who might read this and flip out on me but it’s an honest debate right? If you go to a club now and ask who is “Queer” usually very masculine woman will raise their hands and the very feminine women who are with them will raise theirs too. Now when a man raises his hand I usually ask them what kind of people they are attracted to and 99% of the time they say transgendered people.

Some people may say this is a wrong way of thinking and that we should all be allowed to chose what we do in an out of the bedroom and I completely agree with that statement. So here is another question: When I ask someone what does Queer mean why do I get 8,000 different answers when it basically comes down to the fact that you fall in love with a person not a gender. I mean that does sound a little like our old term for Bi-sexual right?

I try to think of it in a way that my partner would explain it. Nene Leakes like Kim, but she also likes her husband too. She also like Dwight who is pretty much a pre-op transsexual.

I wish it was that easy for me to understand and I normally would let go of it but since this Queer movement has started people keeping telling me that I’m Queer because Queer is an umbrella term for all of us! So, then if you look at other groups of people the “N” word should engulf all dark skinned people because it’s easier? It’s just hard for me to think of Queer as an umbrella term because it seems like a term for people who can fuck anyone they want because they are gender blind…I mean isn’t the term just, Slut! No because that would be an awful mean word…you know like Queer was when it was first termed. Maybe years down the line a group of woman will embrace the term Slut as an umbrella for being able to sleep with whomever they want.

There are also two other things that have come up in all of my research on the topic:

First the story of two women who have did not announce the gender of their child until he was 5. They wanted him to live a gender neutral childhood. He was allowed to wear whatever clothes he wanted including girl’s clothes and play with Dolls (not Barbies). I have no idea why they would do this but this was their choice but a person looking from the outside would say they made the choice for the boy to dress like a girl and be seen as a girl. In a way they have created a gender crisis for their child. Again I know you might be angry at this statement but I played with all boy toys (hehehe) as a child and played sports and it didn’t keep me from knowing I’m gay. These parents said we wanted our child’s identity to be self chosen. I have friends who have boys who play with dolls and girls that play with trucks and when they grew up they knew their identities because they were “Born That Way.”

Second: POLYAMOURISM (I know it’s spelled wrong…sue me) Now this one is touchy because a close friend of mine is dabbling in this and I support her 100% and she has explained it to me and we joke but I still don’t get it. I’ve also researched this and what I mainly come up with is: a man and a woman who are in a relationship welcome a third, usually a woman. I mean yet again, isn’t this a threesome? Although I did see an MTV real life episode about Polyamourism and it revolved around two relationships. One three gay guys. And another a man and woman welcoming a lesbian into their relationship. Of course they both ended horribly and the lesbian stole the Queer girl who probably was gay anyway. Also in that episode they used the term “Unicorn” which I thought means an animal that doesn’t exist but apparently it’s a Bi-sexual woman who comes into a male/female relationship which in turn means “Every straight guys fantasy of having two women.” By the way there is a website with instructions on how to feed your “Unicorn” – worth reading, trust me on this one.

So what does this blog come down to? Possibly losing facebook friends? Or finally getting my answers? I prefer getting my answers so if you read this and you have Queer friends please please please pass this along to them and tell them to write me, but if they do write me tell them not to call me Queer, it’s like a Christian trying to convert me!

P.S. – I use spell check and none of the new Queer terms come up…just saying!