dizzyizzy01

Again, I didn't say the portrayals were always great. There were a lot of problems in the writing for the show for soooo many reasons. But if you knew the vast amount of casting notices that go around that just say "white/Caucasian", it was still pretty cool that a major network television show cast a couple of unknown Asian American actors. Diversity in entertainment is still severely lacking, but I don't think it hurts to recognize that Glee made some small steps in the right direction. There's obviously still a lot of room for improvement.

I mean they weren't leads, but Jenna got some pretty standout moments in S1. The vampire thing comes to mind. Mike got a major story line in s2. It wasn't perfect by any means and diversity in entertainment still has a long way to go. It's still more than a lot of shows had done in recent years. Not perfect by any means mind you, but it's a step in the right direction even if it was a small one.

S1 Kurt was an interesting character. I liked him. It doesn't mean one can't recognize that he did an intentionally shitty thing to another character, which was kind of is the very definition of stabbing someone in the back. Same thing with Santana, she was an interesting character, but she still did terrible things to other characters. Well I guess mischievous and calculating is an understatement also. He purposely tried to embarrass Rachel and deceived her into thinking they were friends. He played on a vulnerability he knew she had. That seems more than mischievous. There was an underlying intent there to do some emotional harm to Rachel. I can recognize Rachel has her faults. She gets tunnel vision with her ambitions. She makes questionable choices, but she comes through more often than not for her friends. It often feels like people can't recognize that Kurt plays a part in the antagonistic history between Rachel and Kurt, and he did some intentionally crappy things to her, especially in the early seasons. Rachel often has a lack of social grace. Kurt is often a self-righteous ass. These characters are ages 15-21(?) over the course of the show. They screw up and make mistakes. All of them. LOL. Fine. The amusement part was a side effect.

I know this will be an unpopular opinion, but as problematic as this show was at times (and boy were there problems), it really was groundbreaking in a lot of ways. I can see why Paley is doing one last panel for the show. It really did pioneer a TV musical model for the 21st century. It had a diverse cast (I know the way they wrote characters was problematic). When is the last time a prime time network show geared towards a young audience featured any African American, Hispanic, and Asian American actors in a meaningful way, had prominent gay & lesbian characters, transgender characters? The portrayals weren't always great. However, the show at the very least started more mainstream dialogue on a lot of these things, and I think on some ways made it more OK for other network television shows to follow suit. I'll be first to say that the show's writing left A LOT to be desired. There were significant problems in the way some story lines and characters were portrayed, but there is something to be proud of here. It was a cultural phenomenon. I'm not saying it was the only reason the TV landscape has changed significantly in the last few years, but you can't say it didn't contribute.

The way people can defend Kurt for doing a shitty thing is kind of amazing. He pretended to be a friend and intentionally messed with another person purely for his own amusement and to hurt the other person. That seems pretty damn awful in my book. And I caveat that I enjoyed that story line, but Kurt was clearly in the wrong here. Fair point with Sunshine, I kind of forgot about her, but she was a bit of a throwaway character. Although, I think sending someone to the wrong place for an audition isn't as cruel as pretending to be someone's friend and then doing something to intentionally hurt them. Anyway, I'll alter my statement to Rachel has never done anything intentionally shitty to the level of many of the other characters (Finn, Puck, Quinn etc.) and certainly not to the characters we're discussing right now (i.e., Kurt & Santana).

Becky really needs to go away. She went from being kinda a nice fringe character to utterly unbearable.

Santana's exact words in Trio "It's all a part of my master plan to psyche out Berry so I can play Fanny Brice." Santana is not a nice person when it comes to something she wants. She's pretty much the absolute worst, and with her history with Rachel, doing something behind her back, what do you expect Rachel to feel? Add on top what she said to Rachel when Rachel asked "why did you not tell be before?" Rachel never asked "why did you audition?" She asked "why didn't you tell me?". Yes, you recounted the backstabbing comment after you made a series of purposely skewed comments about Rachel, which started this discussion, but honestly, a lot people here don't seem understand what backstabbing is? You have to have an intention to deceive, which is what Kurt did in that makeover episode. Rachel never intended to deceive Kurt, Santana, or anyone else. She's made mistakes like any other character, but she's not intentionally malicious. Almost every other character in this discussion has been intentionally malicious.

The zero sum gain argument is such a flimsy justification to downplay what Santana did. Nobody auditions for an understudy part with the sole intention to forever be the understudy, and in Santana's case, she clearly states her intent is to psyche Rachel out so she can play the part. Rachel did Kurt wrong with the election by not giving him a courtesy heads up. Santana did the exact same thing with the understudy. That understudy storyline gave me one of my most favorite lines of the show though. Ghost Fanny was pretty classic.

Oh Yea. It's the not telling the friend your impacting that is the problem, not the actual action of going after the presidency or the audition. The main difference in the story lines though is that Rachel was ultimately apologetic and tried to help Kurt. Santana went nuclear on Rachel and went off on a vicious rant that led to more fighting. Santana never really apologized for going behind Rachel's back. I mean it was eventually wrapped up in a neat bow that Santana never cared about the role and gave it up, but she never really recognized why Rachel was upset in the first place and how her pretty awful words escalated the problem. I have no problem with it as a story. It was fun, but it is a good example of being intentionally duplicitous which is kind of a requirement to stab someone in the back. I thought the resolution of the story was nice too and made both characters very interesting.

I didn't even want to bring up the makeover thing since it was so long ago, but that was the first thing that popped into my head when "backstabbing" was brought up. Kurt's actions were the very definition of backstabbing someone. Rachel has never done anything of that sort to her friends. I can't even describe how much I don't want to see Sam and Rachel together, but there is nothing wrong with what Rachel and Sam are doing. Mercedes doesn't own Sam, and unless the spoilers are very wrong, Mercedes doesn't even want him and doesn't care that he's dating Rachel. There's no stealing of boyfriends. There is no great betrayal. People make Mercedes and Sam to be some great love as if they were together for years and years. In reality, they dated a few months in high school and a couple of months when they were 19, and when this latest series events occurs, I'm pretty sure they haven't been together for almost as long as their entire relationship.

Says Thursdays instead of Friday.

This is a pretty fair assessment and perspective. I don't disagree that if it truly got in the way of her dreams and goals she wouldn't necessarily sacrifice her desires for others, but I do believe what was said earlier was a complete characterization and a somewhat purposeful skewed interpretation of events.

None of the examples you provided come even close to what I think most people would consider "backstabbing". But either way, all these characters do shitty things at one point or another to each other and all of them do nice things for each other at one point or another often in nonsensical ways. I get it. You just don't like Rachel. However, you pretty consistently characterize things as she's screwing over her friends all the time and nothing else and that's not accurate. If I skew things the way you skew them for Rachel, I can easily make the case for any character that's gotten significant screen time of being a horrible friend.

OMG. I get you don't like Rachel, but way to skew things. I mean I don't consider any of those "stabbing someone in the back", BUT The Santana thing didn't even happen as a result of your supposed example of stabbing someone in the back. The understudy fight happened before she helped out Rachel. Rachel saying Kurt is a traitor is her being over dramatic. Nobody took her seriously, but whatever. I seriously don't understand what your definition of "stabbing someone in the back" is but not including them in a benefit concert seems pretty weak; also, that wasn't a Rachel only stance. Santana if I recall correctly was in on that also. We don't know how Sam/Mercedes/Rachel plays out yet, but you can't stab someone in the back by dating someone they apparently don't care about. It's not a well-written story line. Maybe Mercedes' POV isn't given enough gravity but don't put that as Rachel stabbing someone in the back. Rachel didn't freaking assign herself the solos/leads.

Rachel has not stabbed anyone in the back. The writing for a lot of those scenarios (Santana/Kurt/FG, Tina/NYADA. Quinn/Prom) have been and sound like they will be dreadful (Rachel/Mercedse/Sam), but Rachel did not stab any of those characters in the back.

Nobody's going to judge them if they have prior commitments. It bothers me when people complain about actors continuing to show support or appreciation for something that in totality really was a pretty fantastic job.

Oh come on now. Yes the show went off the rails and burned out ridiculously fast, but these actors know that they wouldn't be where they are without the show. The show opened up doors for them they would not have had otherwise, and trust me, they're grateful for it. And truly, if they all stay in entertainment, anyone of them will be lucky to be a part of something with the level of success early Glee achieved. It's not that big a deal to do a final farewell panel. Don't bite the hand that feeds you.

It's not necessarily the majority, but there are a few people that seem to believe that it's absolutely terrible to have found Santana's rant funny and I'm not even one that felt this episode was really funny at all. It's comments like this that make people feel like there's an implication that anyone who enjoyed that rant is homophobic: I didn't like the rant because I felt it was too long and the joke of Santana's rants are a bit tired, but it was a well acted scene and I enjoyed that. This overreach that the writer's crossed some unspeakable line is so bizarre to me.

But you're projecting your feelings about how Chris feels. I'm sure Chris can separate himself from his character. A lot of fans seems to have difficulty with that. Well the delivery, Rachel's background expressions, and Kurt's expression were funny. That I agree with. Kurt deserved to be taken down a peg. Santana went too far, but that's her MO. I just think the argument that the show is taking things too far in this instance as if something's suddenly changed is people seeing what they want to see. This is glee's style. If you didn't really like humor in this vein at least somewhat, it'd actually be pretty difficult to ever find Glee funny. People are reaching so hard I'm surprised nobody's dislocated a shoulder.

But it does seem to invalidate the idea that people find the same type of insult consistently offensive (something about a physical attribute one cannot change) regardless of who you direct it at. Darren can't change his stature. Lea can't change her looks. Very few people care about these insults. "Lady Hummel" is not an insult directed at Chris. Kurt's character is written as "one of the girl" a lot of the time. Whether you think that's ok is a different story, but that comment is directed Kurt's character. Nobody here seem to be celebrating Kurt's take down. I'm not anyway. I think Kurt was an holier than thou ass and Santana was her usual vitriolic self. I'm saying this is consistent with the show and Santana's character in the past. There's nothing different in this particularly instance, and I think people are grasping at straws to make the case that there is.

Doesn't the show consistently refer to Blaine as a hobbit? Nobody seems to care about that.... That is a difficult line to draw. You don't know the actor personally. I HIGHLY doubt Chris feels the show crossed a line with this particular insult because really is the teeth insult worse than making nose jokes about a girl who was told at age 15 to get a nose job? Or Asian-stereotype jokes towards an actors/actresses that have likely been type casted their entire lives? There are a lot more examples one can easily draw upon. I'm not agreeing that any of these jokes are particularly funny, but the show has consistently been about off-color humor for it's entire run. Nothing's changed with this particular episode.

Seems fair to believe that the dig is not directed at Chris then as others want to believe; it clearly seems part of the character of Kurt ;)

It's also a pretty awesome cast to be a part of.

If this the case, it further supports the point that the comment is NOT directed at Chris, it's directed at Kurt. Sais=/=Batons and Chris=/=Kurt. Btw, Kurt did baton-twirling in his cheerios audition in season 1 so it as a classic part of the character. Gawd, why do I remember this... When people dissect every line to this bizarre level of scrutiny, I think they're actively looking for something so that they can stake claim that it's an attack on the actor. Anyway, the ongoing discussion seems to support that at least for some, the biggest offense is that the rant was against a character one of their favorite actors portrays. For some others, the rant stands out for it's sheer length. Nothing was really said in this rant that goes beyond the pale of what Santana has said in the past. However, I do think that's a natural feeling though to be offended more when it could be perceived that the comments are directed at someone you like. And again, I don't think any of Santana's rants have been justified. The countless insults about Rachel, Quinn, Finn, Sam and others in the past have always been terribly offensive. People are cherry-picking if they think this particular one is worse than others.

That stuff is still part of Kurt's character though. Regardless of how these facets of Kurt's character was introduced, by his pen or the writers', they are still part of the character hence Santana's rant is still directed at Kurt and not at Chris. I think people are just reading into it as an attack on Chris. Baton-twirling is a talent he brought to his character on the show. Kurt in canon likes old people and was going to work with old people as part of his work study. It's part of the character of Kurt even though some of those characteristics apply to Chris as well. I think you're handicapping the majority of the show if you can't comment on things that apply to the actors in real-life. It's almost like saying characters on the show can't comment on Mr. Schue's terribly awkward rapping because Matt "Matty Fresh" likes hip-hop. Or commenting on Rachel's love of Barbra Streisand. Or Finn's awful dancing. There is actor/character bleed on this show. There's no getting around that. I do agree that Santana has a pretty awful personality a lot of the time, and if it were real-life it seems unlikely that any of these people (sans Brittney) would be friends with her.