Ryan Sheely and Matthew Wrather return, despite their best efforts, to overthink Gossip Girl and Glee, including epi-kiss-temology, Brechtian alienation, the use of the freeze frame, and sexual orienteering for the non-oriented.
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So apparently all I need to do is start thinking about leaving a strongly worded comment about how you need to do a new TFT episode and a new episode will magically appear. Now to go listen.
Yes, that was definitely a remake of the Dixie Chicks cover of “Landslide.” You can tell by the way they harmonized- it’s distinctive of the Dixie Chicks version, as well as the changes to the guitar licks and such. They Dixie Chicks did a lovely cover of it, but I found it disappointing that THAT was the basis for the depiction on Glee and not the original.* I actually didn’t think that song was appropriate at all for its use, even ignoring the fact that it was a remake of a remake, but I’ve felt that for a number of the songs this season. I’m not nearly as “into” it this time as last. I watch it because I sort of feel like I have to, for some reason. And I’m totally going to disagree with you, Wrather, on the quality of the covers- I think a lot of them have been pretty bad. That “Bridge Over Troubled Water” made me want to weep, but not for good reasons.
And while the cover of “Fat Bottom Girls” as a cover was, yeah, pretty great (Puck’s songs are always well-done), the context and purpose was crass and killed my enjoyment of it- I appreciate the quality, but didn’t like how it was used. The whole relationship between Puck and Lauren is totally objectifying- I was thrilled when she was offended by that song, but she suddenly changed her tune and is now totally okay with the reason he sang the song and why she was offended in the first place, namely his thinking of her as just a “fat bottomed girl” and not a human being. Had she continued to reject him, or had I been more convinced he liked HER and not just her curves, it wouldn’t be so bad. But, as it stands, the whole, “Baby, I love your curves!” thing as the basis and nucleus of their relationship is shallow and reduces her character down to a body type, not even a personality type. She’s the Scary Fat Chick (remember, she WRESTLES, too! >.<), and that's pretty much all we know. I realize there are a lot of things we don't know about characters that have been around longer, but really? Why do heavy-set girls and women in pop culture always have to work so hard to prove they're worth it, and in spite of their physical appearance? Or, if not that, then why are they portrayed as some deviant fetish object because of their size? And why the HELL do all those schlubby assholes on TV and in movies get the sexy smart women that stand by them no matter how much they mess up? It's infuriating for me that a heavy girl simply can't be the object of a guy's affection because she's a good person, etc., while men that clearly are NOT good persons need no justification at all for their success in romance/ whatever, I guess. Although I hadn't realized just how infuriating the whole thing is with respect to Glee until I started writing this little blurb… Hmm….
*The best version of that song that I’ve heard is the live recording from The Dance in 1997, and I actually think most of the live versions on there were better than the original studio versions, but that’s just me. There’s a real sense of further growth and maturity behind the live recordings- you can kind of feel how they’ve all grown up even more since the original recordings. All the drama and such in that band’s history, whoa nellie. But I should stop. Talking about music is so hard, after all… ;)