A Note About Glee

I watch it. I watched it this week with Sara, who asked, Mom, are you going to blog about this? (as I had my face buried in a pillow, sobbing, when Sue went to visit her sister).

I love Sue Sylvester. She is the best character on television. Maybe ever.

I love Mr. Schuester and his mash-ups, Kurt and his dad, sweet Finn, the Cheerios, the hot guy with the mohawk :)...all of it. With the exception of the pregnancy story lines, and the show not being appropriate for young teens--who are watching in large numbers (I have to censor quite a bit with Sara)--there isn't much I don't like.

People have been talking about Glee all fall, and while some people can't get enough of it, others are critical. The show is meant to get people talking...and thinking. The people behind the show know just what they're doing. That became clear in this week's episode. (Click here for a review of the show.)

Regardless of gender, level of ability, social strata, sexual preference, diagnosis, age (and so on), all people are people first, and want to be treated like everyone else.

In life, just as in high school, people form opinions about others without all the information, without truly understanding all the facts. All people want--and deserve--to be seen, and to be treated with compassion.

*This week's show featured two actresses with Down syndrome. I know many people in the Ds community were aware of this prior to the show and watched because of that. Like most everyone else, I was curious how Ds would be portrayed, and how it fit into the story. It was hard for me to see that Sue's sister was in a nursing home, and I didn't love that others (without personal experience with Down syndrome) might assume that all people with Ds end up in nursing homes, or remain child-like and dependent. (The relationship between the sisters was genuine and touching, though, so my emotions were all over the place...hence, the sobbing...hard to process.) The younger character with Ds was a vibrant teenager, perhaps to show another aspect of life with Down syndrome today (I do wish she would have had her own money to buy the darned cupcake). As with everyone else, there is enormous diversity within the Ds population. Both characters are realistic and representative of individuals with Down syndrome. It will be interesting to see where they go with this.