I am filled with GLEE
I should be working right now, and I will as soon as I'm done with this, I promise. I've been feeling the need to post something a bit more frivolous lately.
In the absence of my new favoritest TV show, Kev surprised me with the Glee DVDs last week. So now I'm enjoying them in my increasingly-infrequent spare time (i.e. - exactly once so far. Sigh.) But the show has brought two things to mind that keep bugging me. I'll start with the silly one first. Young M.C. Bust A Move. One verse just bugs me to death. (Uh, they perform the song in Glee, that's the connection. I'm not just randomly running around spouting off about old songs out of nowhere.) Anyway, here:
Your best friend Harry has a brother Larry
In five days from now he's gonna marry
He's hopin you can make it there if you can
'Cause in the ceremony you'll be the best man
Okay, HOLD ON. What? "Your best friend Harry, has a brother Larry, in five days from now he's gonna marry." Okay, I'm on board. "That's awesome, Harry. Tell Larry I said congrats.
Oh, wait, you want me to come to the wedding? Uh...today's Tuesday, the wedding's this weekend? Er, I guess, I didn't really have any pla...best man? Wait, can you repeat that? Your brother. Who is not my friend, but the brother of my friend. Wants me to be the best man at his wedding? IN FIVE DAYS."
Does Larry not have any friends of his own, and is now reduced to borrowing friends from his brother like you would a t-shirt on laundry day? "Dude. I am COMPLETELY out. Help me out here, or I'll tell mom about you sneaking in after curfew last week." Why isn't Harry the best man? And why only five days notice? Weddings that involve tuxedos and attendants are generally in the planning stages for a heck of a lot longer than five days. What happened to the other best man? There had to have been another one, and something awful happened to him. The song also mentions a bridesmaid, which would indicate groomsmen. Why didn't any of the groomsmen step into the best man position? I'll tell you why: they saw what happened to the original best man and they want no part of it. I bet that's why Harry won't be the best man either. This is a scary song.
Yeah, so on a more serious note. Glee has a Christian family, and I really hate the way TV Christians are portrayed 95% of the time. Quinn's parents put on their smiling, pious faces for dinner and refuse to acknowledge that anything is ever wrong. Then when they find out Quinn is pregnant, they give her a half an hour to pack and get out, and walk out of the room without looking back. Quinn's face when she was crying, and saying she was scared and she needed her daddy to hug her and tell her it was going to be okay just broke my heart. But when her father just stared at her all stonefaced, refused to touch her, and left the room, it made me angry. That's not Christianity, and portraying it as such is as bad as any of the other ugly racial or religious stereotypes that people get so up in arms about.
To be frank, when Kurt told his father he was gay, his father displayed a far more Christian attitude than Quinn's parents. He was upset, and said "this is not what I would have chosen for you", but in the end he gave his son a hug and reassured him that he was going to continue loving his son no matter what.
That's Christianity. Our kids are going to screw up, and walk down the wrong path, sometimes in pretty big, scary ways. The best we can do is pray for them every day, and show them the right path as they are growing up. Ultimately, they will make their own decisions, and they won't always be the right ones. They're in God's hands, nothing they do comes as a surprise to Him, and our job in all this is to love and guide them. Turning your back on your child who has made the wrong decision is not Christianity.
Okay, rant over, back to work.
