Fat Chick 101 Maneuver: Glee
So are you guys watching Glee? The awesome, Jane-Lynch-starring, musical-theater-celebrating, football-team-singing-Single-Ladies-scene-having, Glee? Which is on tonight?
If so, then you have noticed Amber Riley, who plays Mercedes, and is a plus-sized chick. Check out this post about her from All My Jiggly Bits.
Though in many ways the characters fall into the same old categories of high school drama, there are also things about them that I love to pieces. Amber Riley, who plays the diva-fabulous Mercedes is one of my favorite characters to date!
I was watching the season premiere a few weeks ago, and the first thing I said to myself was, “wouldn’t it be great if they gave the big girl a love interest? I’m used to seeing stupid TV where the big girls are always the best friend-like characters and are never viewed romantically. But, lo and behold, the very next episode Mercedes gets a love interest (although, ill-fated-ly, she falls for her gay best friend).
I agree that Mercedes is awesome, but saw this particular episode a little differently—Mercedes chased after her gay best friend because she didn’t think she could get anyone better. So the jury is still out as far as I’m concerned—will they give her a real plotline and a real love interest, or is she just the comic relief sidekick who did the standard fat chick 101 maneuver and fell in love with the gay guy?
Go watch the video of Somebody To Love (embedding is disabled) and enjoy not only the performance, but Mercedes’s glorious ending.
There was this whole plotline about how without Rachel, the Glee Club had no star, so they had to bring on Kristin Chenoweth. And as much as I love Lea Michele and Kristin Chenoweth, if Mercedes were white and thin (and, um, not cast as a supporting character on the show) there would be no issue here, people. Am I right?
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Celebrities, Glee, Music, Race & Ethnicity, Theater, TV, Video
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you are SO right! my friends basically had to tell me to zip it because i keep ranting about this very thing. uh, hello? why is rachel the only possible “star” when mercedes has this completely awesome voice??!! fat + black = occasional gospel-esque solo.
When I watched the series premier, I thought Mercedes WAS going to be the star, bc her audition was so totally freaking awesome. I will take her over Rachel any day, though she’s good too.
I’m not totally caught up, but I did see the episode with Mercedes going for her gay friend. I didn’t catch the insinuation that it was bc she couldn’t do better; I thought the cheerleaders were just trying to manipulate her into heartbreak.
I love this site and the show, so I was sad to have to look at Glee with a more critical eye.
I do think in the earlier episodes that they focused too much on Rachel, but they seem to be pulling back from that some and I hope that will only continue to happen.
About Mercedes falling for a gay boy, it happened to Cher in “Clueless” and it wasn’t because Cher was fat, so maybe if we look at past cultural markers we can see Mercedes’ crush as a rite of passage and not a sad fat girl story.
I look foward to what other people think.
Forestroad, if I recall correctly, I think Mercedes had an actual line of dialogue that was basically “yeah, I know he’s probably gay, but nobody else is beating down my door” that screamed LOW SELF ESTEEM FAT CHICK that really bugged me given how empowered Mercedes seems otherwise. I don’t know; I’ll have to rewatch to get the exact line!
And Katie, great point about Clueless!
Oh I love Glee! It’s totally my new guilty pleasure. I too though, sit and listen to Mercedes and wonder, why isn’t she the star? I’d love to see her have a love interest as well, but I’m afraid it would be one of those horrible, ‘he sees through my massive fat to the true me’ stories that I’m beyond sick of. Good new on that front though–Drop Dead Diva’s Tony seems just to be into Jane in a totally normal way. It pleases me.
I love this blog, but never felt quite so moved to comment… I totally agree, why on earth* did they feel they needed to get Rachel back when they have Mercedes?? It’s insanity. She’s a much better singer than Rachel, imo. She doesn’t have that irritating Les Miserables fake emotion phrasing that Rachel does.
(Rant ends)
*Other than the meta-reasons that the show might have.
Mercedes is amazing. I LOVED her solo last night!
I think if we examine Glee too much, what we find is that it’s really misogynist. Every one of the women is monstrous. I find myself wishing that they’d just either let Mr. Shuster be single or else let his wife be a normal person. It’s ok to show a couple getting divorced because they don’t have much in common–but it’s so not ok to go out of the way to justify a divorce through the wife’s crimes.
Even Emma and Rachel are slightly monstrous. Why can’t Emma be neat and fastidious without being pathological? Why can’t Rachel be a spoiled brat with good intentions without complaining whenever anyone else gets a bit of “her” spotlight?
I am a teacher myself, and I can tell you that the most brilliant students in my classes don’t mind when I call on other people. They know that it’s part of getting an education to listen to other people’s voices. And Rachel the high school student would know that too!
I can’t get on the misogyny train because Will is easily the worst character on the show. It can be argued that Sue, Terri, or Rachel are far worse, but at least they are aware that their actions are self-serving. Will doesn’t realize how destructive his actions are, sometimes even after they blow up in his face.
But back on topic, I love Mercedes. Her performance last night of “Hate On Me” was so good, and her closing notes on “Somebody to Love” damn near made me cry. (Maybe because it kind of looped around to the whole boyfriend thing.)
I do worry about her being pigeonholed musically because she’s “too black” to sing anything outside of R&B. At the same time, it could be considered her niche, like Rachel’s theatrical style(even though she did a good job with “No Air”)
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I absolutely love the show. And I try not to overanalyze it too much. What makes it great (for me) is that the characters are just so wrong, in the most outrageous ways. That’s what makes it funny and compelling to watch. It takes normal human weirdness and blows it up 100 times. That said, I thought it was cool that in her deranged, mal-intentioned way the cheerleading coach exposed Will’s (hopefully unintentional) racial bias. I hope this improves the dynamic in the group so that it’s not all dependant on the Rachel/Football star duo.
Uh, please ignore the wierd first line of my post above. Mistake!
Don’t forget that “Glee” was created by the same guy who created “Nip/Tuck”. His characters, even the seeemingly sympathetic ones, will eventually show their worst sides turned up to eleventy.
GLEE is my favorite new show, hands down. I’m not a huge Mercedes fan, but that’s probably because I’m a giant Broadway nerd and LOVE LOVE LOVE that Kristin Chenoweth and Lea Michele are on the show.
Also, Mercedes has to play the stereotypical OH NO YOU DIDN’T token black character, which is annoying. I can guarantee that if there are African American girls/boys in Whiteville, they don’t act like that. (I don’t think that there is some monolith of how black people act, either.) They could give her SUCH a better role.
I do like how Lea Michele’s character is Jewish. I don’t know if the actress is Jewish, but it’s so, so rare to see Jewish women acting and as the romantic lead. It’s always the Jewish guy with the beautiful blond shiksa.
When I was growing up in the dark ages (no pun intended) I had Denise, Rudy, Sondra and Vanessa Huxtable. All black females, not a neck roller in the bunch. All unique, well defined and totally awesome/flawed in their own way.
Mercedes is such a step back and a disappointment.
I can’t co-sign the “I love this show, but…” sentiment because unfortunately, I am not really able to separate out those things and taints the way I experience the show.
Are there fat, black chicks who can sing? Absolutely. Do they deserve representation on the screen? Of course. But when this seems to be the prevailing trope on television what exactly are we telling young black women about their role in life? There are lots of ways to be a white female in the media, and while most are problematic, still there is a range of representation available.
Women of color aren’t afforded the same opportunity and it’s really hard to get behind yet another warmed over version of this tired trope.
I mean c’mon, Sasha and Malia are in the damn White House. We can do much better than some throwback to the 70s.
But the point is Rachel is the lead in the show that has been the premise all along.
Mercedes could do no doubt but beside saying she ain’t know Beyonce she hasn’t tried to take the lead of the group.
I gave up on Glee pretty quickly. The pilot struck me as nothing but the “Pretty White Kids Hour” as the white-girl diva and her male counterpart are the leads, with the hodge-podge of “misfits” with amazing voices all have to play second fiddle.
I missed the second episode, but the third episode killed me. They have this love affair with the diva, who gets super-synthing, over-mixed audio with lighting effects and the whole shebang when she auditions, but the gorgeous and well-voiced Asian gets no frills, bells or whistles and gets downplayed as less than spectacular (when I loved her performance even more).
While it tries to sell itself as embracing diversity with their cast of characters, it is pretty damn obvious that the series has no real desire to focus on anyone who isn’t slender and white (or the venue for many a gay joke).
I am LOVING Glee, even as I recognize its weaknesses.
I hope they don’t focus too much on the “lead couple” because there are a lot of kids in that group who can REALLY sing and the idea that only Rachel can carry the lead is so obviously false. They’ve already done more with the others than I expected them to do, honestly (low expectations), but they can do so much more in highlighting ALL the kids and really letting them all shine.
And yes, I’d love to see Mercedes break out and have a real love life, get to sing in more than one musical style, be a little more complex character, and really get the screen time she deserves.
She’s a great character, she’s got a spectacular voice, and I hope they let her be a truly well-rounded character in all the various meanings of the word.
Okay, I love Mercedes and I love her voice. I think she is incredibly talented. In this scene, I think Mercedes fell for her best friend. Why not? I do hope they give her character a love interest that sticks. She portrays a beautiful, strong young women with an amazing voice.
strong black women = zzzzzz. it’s really a tired trope.
No, Krystal, it’s not “rare” to see Jewish women in acting, you obviously just don’t know who’s Jewish. Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ashley Tisdale, Amanda Bynes, Sara Paxton, Mila Kunis, Goldie Hawn, etc. are all Jewish.
Just on Glee alone, there’s Dianna Agron (Quinn) and Jessalyn Gislig (Terri Shuester), both of whom are Jewish. As for Lea Michele, she has a Jewish father and Italian mother.
Well, I see what Krystal means; the character of Rachel on Glee is overtly Jewish; she’s referred to as Jewish and wears a star of David. One of the plotlines of this week’s episode was explicitly about her and Puck being Jewish.
I don’t think the characters of, say, Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Sharpei were written as Jewish, even if the actors who play them are. I think that’s probably the issue that Krystal is referring to.
Well, you’re right, mo pie, however, Krystel did not make this distinction between actress and character.
There were some explicitly Jewish women characters in movies this year, in The Unborn, Adventureland, Adam, and Inglourious Basterds.
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it is great that the entertainment industry is moving toward more inclusive casts and that the writing is getting more diverse, but the fact remains that caucasian women on screen are rarely plus- or even normal-sized. that trait is reserved for women of color. latina and african american women on film can be curvaceous and fabulous. but the entertainment industry simply does not abide that in caucasian women. so – have then done anything more than reduce beautiful, whole women to mere caracatures? full-figured men have been given substantive roles for decades, regardless of their ethnicity. it is time for that same right to be extended to women of all sizes, regardless of their color.
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Personally I think that the character of mercedes is nothing but ordinary, really, I like to point out that I am neither racist, nor have anything against large sized individuals, but her singing is just the same as any other black girl singer, i am not saying that rachel is better, but i seriously cant get neither the supposed originality of the character (in my opinion its just another highschool fat girl with an inferiority complex) nor the response of the public to such an ordinary character.
Nip Tuck is a unique TV Series just like House MD.`.*