It is a nostalgic look at our experiences in our senior year at high school.
Tweens are not buying the products advertised on Glee or in GQ for that matter.
The prudery expressed by Prof. Sullivan when she remarked on Lea Michele sucking on a lollipop shows that she doesn't get the joke. Lea Michele is the antithesis of Rachel Berry. She (Lea) is enormously attractive and would be hugely intimidating to any high school boy but all actors in the show pretend that she is some dowdily dressed, ugly Betty - to borrow a metaphor from another show that casts a beautiful actress as a frump. And yes, it is a legitimate source of humour as it reveals how little we understood ourselves in our teenage years.
Glee holds up a mirror for us, as we try to decide whom we best can identify with from among the stereotypes the cast represents. Reductio ad absurdam.
GQ is not a public magazine as Prof. Sullivan stated. It is a privately-owned business just like the Alberta Report. If you don't like it, don't buy it. But even the Alberta Report can still teach us something. GQ sells to its customers what they want to buy (as does AR) and they are all adults, notwithstanding the mother who claimed last week on CBC news that she was afraid lest GQ end up in the hands of her 8 year old son. It would be funny if it weren't so pathetic. Real high school girls wear less on the beach. Better not let your kid go to the beach, mom.
Glee presents for our consumption, tongue-in-cheek references to truths from our youth that we can all relate to, such as when Puck tells us frankly, what he really wants from his life, unedited by taste or inhibition, when Britney & Santana misbehave like comic book caricatures of teenagers, or when Rachel speaks her mind, and reveals the crass insecurities we all experienced. The upside is we adults can discuss the matters raised because Glee broke the ice,
Thanks to you Glee, GQ and to Michele, Aragon & Monteith and to CBC Radio for giving us food for thought.
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