Dear Tina,
I’m not sure what my reputation was in high school. My graduating class was 992 so I imagine that a majority of those people didn’t really care what I was doing as they could the entire school year without even seeing me in the hall. I did have the unfortunate experience of having someone in my grade who had the same first and last name as me. This would have been a non-issue if she wasn’t also an active participant in the high school’s theatre department. Freshman year we both auditioned for The Miracle Worker and the Sunday before the cast list was posted, during a choral concert, my teacher came up to me and said “You know as teachers we get to see the list ahead of time.” Then she winked at me. Come Monday morning I find that my doppleganger was cast as Annie Sullivan and I was left off the list entirely. Now almost a decade later I have a degree in Acting without an intent to pursue the art so…I showed her. I mention this because in tonight’s episode of Glee, teachers and students alike struggled with how to control the way others perceive them, if they notice them at all. While Sue Sylvester and Mr. Schuester are devestated by the ridicule they are facing caused by a leaked home video and manwhoreishness respectively, most of the glee kids argue that it is better to be known for being bad than to have no reputation at all. As the tagline for the movie Chicago said, “Why be famous when you can be infamous?”
After Sue sends Kurt and Mercedes to her office to fetch a hormonal replacement something or other, the two discover a private video of Sue dancing to Olivia Newton John’s “Physical” in an uncharacteristically jovial fashion. When the two show some of the others in the choir room, Finn encourages them to put the video on YouTube for the entire school to see. With a little additional encouragement from Rachel’s senior boyfriend Jesse, “I’m with Finn. You guys need to stop being such asses and start being bad asses.”, the devious bunch uploads the footage and it goes viral. Immediately suspecting the glee kids, a humiliated Sue calls a meeting with the principal and Mr. Schuester demanding the suspension of the entire glee club. Normally a teacher’s hurt feelings would not be grounds for suspension but lucky for Sue, while strolling the halls, she came upon the grossly inappropriate Glist: a ranking of glee club members based on a hotness quotient of sexual promiscuity. It is quickly confirmed that it had to be written by someone in the club based on a piece of evidence involving a library password that didn’t really make sense. Either way, it is now up to Mr. Schuester to figure out who is behind the mess before everyone suffers the consequences.
Cue this week’s theme! Find a song with a bad reputation and make it good again! Followed by a “think that sounds lame? Watch this!” moment brought to you by Matthew Morrison rapping his way through Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby.” I tell you now, that song’s reputation is DOA. Even Ryan Murphy can’t save it. Still, encouraged by the assignment, a majority of the members take this as an opportunity to prove they are not who everyone thinks they are: Rachel is more desirable and Kurt and co. actually exist.
Alone in the choir room, Kurt, Mercedes, Artie, and Tina kvetch over the disappointing news that they weren’t even on the glist. It’s one thing to be ridiculed, it’s another to be forgotten altogether. Together with Brittany, who was on the glist but would like to see her ranking moved up a few notches and happened to be sitting in the choir room after taking all her antibiotics at once and forgetting how to leave, the group conceives a plan that will have the entire school talking. That’s the last time anyone is going to fail to judge them on their sexual appeal! Clad in parachute pants, they enter the library and stage a guerilla performance of MC Hammer’s “Can’t Touch This.” They note the abundance of students in the library, a crucial element to their scheme, yet perform the entire thing to the librarian. Questionable. After a red herring of disgusted facial expressions, it turns out the librarian was quite pleased with the show and invites the group to perform it again at her church, the plan a total failure. As Kurt so aptly put, “We’re as menacing as muppet babies.”
Rachel, we have known from the beginning cares first and foremost about her career followed by her popularity in close second. Rachel was fortunate enough to make it on the glist, but not so pleased to learn that she was ranked last, earning a score of negative five. Rachel gets in touch with Artie and his friends in the audio visual department with plans to turn her “bad reputation” assignment into a video extravaganza featuring more screen wipes than you can imagine. Performing the 1970s song you love to hate, “Run Joey Run”, she prefaces her presentaton with the warning “I do realize that some of you are not well versed in the complex vocabulary of the filmic arts. I expect that this video will go over the heads of our less cultured teammates [cut to Brittany]…I hope you enjoy my bad reputation.” As the movie progresses we learn that she has cast Puck, Finn, and Jesse in the role of the male lead–a man desparately in love with the female counterpart–and each is under the impression that they were Rachel’s only co-star. The three feel manipulated as it becomes clearer they were only used as a device for Rachel to improve her repuation and be seen as someone to be sexually sought after. As Finn summarizes the feelings of the trio right before he stormed out of the room, “Is your stupid reputation worth more than your relationships?”
A lesson many of us learned too late in high school, it turns out, it is not. More alone and unpopular than ever, Rachel even fails to salvage her romantic relationship with Jesse. In the last scene, Jesse tells her that he had looked into her reputation before they started dating and was told that she “was kinda sneaky hot but that was canceled out by a compulsive need to be right and a strange affiinity for sweaters with animals on them” but inspite of all that she could still be trusted. Now, after this stunt of hers, he is afraid that she has caused irreversible damage and he’ll never be able to see her in the same loving light again. It is painfully familiar for all adults to watch a high schooler struggle to find the balance between being liked and being herself. We all want to believe that we are perfectly fine the way we are but there is no time that refutes this ideal more than high school.
Olivia Newton John and Molly Shannon both appeared in the episode with fairly unmemorable performances. Proving once again that a guest star on Glee might as well be a bum off the street if they’re not going to entertain us with a sensational musical number. Watching ONJ reenact her “Physical” music video with Sue didn’t feel fresh and only served to remind me why I didn’t like that song in the first place. I would have been much happier with a revamped version of “You’re the One That I Want” featuring Sue in a black leather catsuit. For examples of how to avoid disappointing the audience of television’s hottest new show, tune into the future episode starring Neil Patrick Harris.
Song of the Night:
Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Taylor
Rachel closed the episode with a poignant rendition of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” that was in fact enormously more impressive than the original. Accompanied by the three men she betrayed and featuring a mash up of scenes from glee club practice and ballet class with Jesse, it was a beautifully stylized portrayal of how lost Rachel is in this world of rank. While the competition in this week’s episode was bleak, due to theme, to judge the song on its own would be to recognize the amazing harmonies and fabulous last note brought to you by Jonathan Groff (Jesse). Also, I wish my hidden talent was the ability to dance ballet on point. You win Lea Michele, you always do.
Brittany Line of the Night:
When Kurt and co. enter the library, the following dialogue is exchanged between wheelchair bound Artie and Brittany:
Artie: I’m kind of getting cold feet here.
Brittany: Can you even feel your feet?
30 Rock Quote of the Day:
Liz: You’re not going to come to our crappy poker game are you?
Jack: No I’m not.
Liz: Good.
Jack: I bluffed. Yes I am coming.
Dear Tina 