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Mar 8

SHOUT - Glee, Gender, and Unity

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The name of this episode is “Girls and Boys on Film”.  And Will decides on that there will be a competition, boys versus girls.

So on multiple levels, we’re starting out with a separation of girls and boys.  Doing stuff like this is common and typical.  Competitions can be fun, but when you’re facing off people based on gender, it reinforces divisions that are already in society.  It’s also exclusionary because it’s binary-focused.  What group are you supposed to join if you’re not a boy or a girl?

That issue is more subtle, because we have no characters who identify outside of the binary.  We do, however, have characters who play with gender expression and roles.  Which is where Blaine and Brittany come in.

As far as we’ve been told, Blaine and Brittany are cisgender.  Blaine identifies as a man and Brittany identifies as a woman.  This is important to them.  In season 3, Brittany bases her campaign for president on girls.  And Blaine is very adamant that guys can also be divas.

But it’s also true that they are…I guess the best way to say it would be gender non-conforming.  Brittany runs for Prom King, wears suspenders, sings Celebrity Skin in a way we expect a man would.  Blaine asked someone out for his old school’s Sadie Hawkins dance, he asks questions in a way typical of girls, he easily sings songs by women and men.  They are cisgender in a definition sense, but they also play with gender, and don’t exist completely inside the categories of [men] and [women].  It matters that Blaine is wearing a pink vest for this number: something traditionally masculine but with a feminine color.

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So let’s talk about their dialogue right before Shout begins.

Blaine: guys, Brittany and I were just talking-
Brittany: and we agreed, though we love that it’s mash-up week and that it’s girls versus boys-
Blaine: it sucks that the guys and girls can’t do a number together.  so we were thinking just as a warm-up, we should do the guys versus girls, in the same number, to kick things off.
Brittany: and then the girls can kick the boys’ butts.
Blaine: uh, or vise-versa.

We’re building on characterization here: Blaine and Brittany are both competitive and ambitious and want to kick butt.  We saw that in Call Me Maybe.  But their problem is that “the guys and girls can’t do a number together."  Because that’s exclusionary, and alienating, and not helpful at all.  They didn’t get to decide the competition rules, so they’re doing what they can outside of that.

Blaine says that they’ll have the guys versus girls within the same number, but when you watch Shout, there is no competition going on.  There is celebration, and dancing, and collaborative dance steps.  At the end, Artie comments that it wasn’t a competition.  Because gender isn’t a competition.

Blaine and Brittany use their magic to begin the number.

Blaine: You know you make me wanna (ND: shout!)
Kick my heels up and (ND: shout!)
Throw my hands up and (ND: shout!)
Throw my head back and (ND: shout!)

Okay, so in Glee!world, singing is expressing yourself and dancing is being yourself.  And Blaine wants to do both those things.

Brittany: Come on now (ND: shout!)
Don’t forget to say you will
Don’t forget to say yeah yeah yeah yeah

And Brittany wants him to do those things too!  And take a look at the choreography: there are two lines, led by Britt and Blaine, but this is another clue this ain’t a competition: there are boys and girls in both lines.

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And then we have a Cheerio and a random extra open the doors for them: THIS IS IMPORTANT.  One is a cheerleader, and one appears to be presenting as masculine.  UNITY.

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(ND: say) Blaine: Say that you love me
(ND: say) Say that you need me
(ND: say) Say that you want me (ND: say)

Blaine’s asking for people to say they love, want, need him, which is consistent characterization since forever ago, so.

Brittany: I still remember
When you used to be nine years old
Blaine: Hey, I was a fool for you
From my bottom of my soul

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This is the point where they enter the astronomy classroom.  You know what happens in the astronomy classroom?  Romance stuff!  Tina and Mike made out under the stars, they discussed the Sadie Hawkins Dance, Sam hit on Quinn, etc.  And romance is something that is highly, highly gendered.

So they take over that classroom.  And leave with a bunch of the students.  And remember, Blaine and Brittany are both queer: so it’s like they’re taking people away from mandatory straightness.  Is this a stretch?  Maybe, but it’s still there.

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[Sidebar: just in case we forgot Britt is disabled and Blaine’s multi-racial, Brittany is paired up with Artie for the dancing and Blaine is paired up with a POC.  This extra’s notebook opens the astronomy classroom scene: it has notes about the Crab Nebula.

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I tried looking up stuff about crabs, and there’s a lot of interpretations for crabs in media.  But one of them is cycles - and Braine takes them away from the astronomy classroom and society’s cycles.  So.]

Blaine: I want you to know
Brittany: I wanna know
Blaine: I said I want you to know right now
Brittany: I wanna know
Blaine: You’ve been good to me baby
Brittany: Good to me, babe
Blaine: I said I want you to know right now
Brittany: I wanna know

Now they take over the library.  And we get a shot of Sugar, Unique, and a random extra.

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THIS IS IMPORTANT.  This extra appears to be FAAB, but is dressed in a way that is pretty similar to Blaine’s style.  We don’t know who this person is, but we know they are sitting by Unique, a transgender girl.  Braine and their crowd of people head straight (lol) toward them and get them all up to dance and groove.  We could have had another ND person sitting with Sugar and Unique, but it’s an extra.  Maybe they are non-binary, maybe they are trans, maybe they just have their cool style.  We don’t know.  And frankly, it doesn’t matter.  What matters is they join in to dance.

Blaine: You know you make me wanna (ND: shout!)
Lift my head up and (ND: shout!)
Brittany: Throw my hands back and (ND: shout!)
Blaine: Come on now (ND: shout!)
Blaine and Brittany: Take it easy (ND: shout!)

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It’s during this part where Braine sings about wanting to be and express themselves again that we see an adult come into the scene.  She is dressed in a skirt and is really unhappy.  Now, skirts are not bad, because we have people in Braine’s crowd in dresses and skirts, but what happens here is that she looks displeased, and tries to get them to calm down.  Which turns to

Blaine: A little bit softer now (ND: shout!)

And this repeats a lot, until they get out of the library, and the person who isn’t happy with them playing with gender.  And you know how they get out of the library?  By doing a soldier crawl.

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Because gender expression is a war.  It shouldn’t be, but it is.  Blaine knows this best of all; Sadie Hawkins.  Violence happens.  Abuse happens.  He also knows the importance of passing and safety, so of course he’s the one to tell people to make it softer.  He wants them to tone it down, so they don’t get in trouble with the librarian.  Be safe.

But then they get out of the war zone.

Brittany: A little bit louder now (ND: shout!)

And this repeats.  Because Brittany wants people to be themselves no matter what.  This leads to her outing people and such, which is bad, but again it’s consistent characterization.

So they take over the cafeteria, where they can be as loud as this want.  And everyone joins in.  And it’s here, where Blaine is safe, that he can tell them to be loud about who they are.

Brittany: Hey-ey-ey-ey (Crowd: Hey-ey-ey-ey)
Blaine and Brittany: Hey-ey-ey-ey-ey (Crowd: Hey-ey-ey-ey)
Blaine: A little bit louder now (ND: shout!)

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And we see so many people joining in.  And again; we don’t know their names, gender identities.  We just know they’re people who get this little piece of time, thanks to Blaine and Brittany’s magic, to sing and dance about gender.

Brittany: Jump up and shout now
Blaine: Jump up and shout now
Blaine and Brittany: Jump, jump, jump, jump and now shout!

Be yourself.  Express yourself.

And take a look at what happens at the end - Artie comments that it’s not even a mash-up.

And it’s important that it’s not a mash-up.  Because mash ups are about taking two things that might necessarily go together and bring them together.  And there’s nothing to bring together right now, because there is no separation.  Society wants to separate boys and girls by gender, but there’s nothing to separate.  There is no way to draw a line between masculine and feminine, because as Blaine and Brittany prove, they are constantly overlapping.

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Artie isn’t upset about this.  He smiles about it.

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And Brittany and Braine know exactly what they were doing.  And no, it can’t last forever, but they carved out a little space for gender inclusivity.  Because this is their war, but they don’t want it to be a war.  They want unity.  They want to sing, and dance, and express themselves, and be themselves.

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And it’s kind of awesome that this message got to be Glee’s 500th performance.