Female Character of the Week: Rachel Berry

I often use my Female Character of the Week posts to praise characters that are well-written (and well-acted, in the case of movie and TV characters).  This post is less of a praise, and more of a plea.  On behalf of teenage girls and little girls everywhere, I ask the writers of Glee to please, please figure out what the heck you’re doing with this Female Character of the Week: Rachel Berry.

Name: Rachel Berry

Why I Like Her: I didn’t always like Rachel (Lea Michele).  I was initially put off by her character because it seemed as though she was getting every damn solo in the New Directions performances.  I thought the show was sending a mixed message by championing the members of the Glee club as equally talented underdogs, but acting as though the club would absolutely fall apart without Rachel.  I also resented her because I thought Mercedes (Amber Riley) and Tina (Jenna Ushkowitz) were equally good (albeit different) singers and wanted to hear more of them.  But soon enough, Rachel’s manic energy grew on me.  Even though she still needed to learn how to play nice with others and be less selfish, I appreciated that the show wanted us to root for a girl who was ambitious, daring, and driven.

In short, I liked Rachel because she was the improved version of Sharpay Evans from High School Musical. While watching that piece of drek, I kept wondering, “Why, exactly, am I supposed to root for Zefron and that Vanessa Hudgens chick for falling ass-backwards into music, when Ashley Tisdale is the one who actually works at her craft?” In Glee, they made the Sharpay character the heroine instead of the villain.

When She Went Wrong: In the first season, the show did a decent job with Rachel.  They wanted us to laugh at her and sympathize with her in equal measure.  We were meant to appreciate her talent, her drive, and commitment, while also laughing at her clueless behavior and believing she should become more of a team player.  Her awful, awful music video of “Run, Joey, Run” is still one of the funniest things this show has ever done:

But in season two, she became a jealous, clingy harpy.  Forget the Rachel who gladly gave up part of her Regionals solo to Santana, of all people.  Now she was the over-the-top diva who sent a rival to a crackhouse so she wouldn’t be part of the competition.  (As funny as “It wasn’t an active crackhouse” was, it was just too much).  Now she was the clingy girlfriend who didn’t want Finn to be on the football team because she wanted to be the only thing that made him happy.

Only a few episodes later, Rachel stopped being a brat.  She reached out to a lonely and depressed Kurt in “Duets,” implicitly forgiving him for being mean to her in the past.  In that same episode, she chided herself for being selfish and praised Finn for being kind and making her into a better person – never mind that Finn had just told Kurt, essentially, to act less gay and not sing a duet with another guy because it might make things awkward for everyone.  I had to watch Rachel talk about her selfishness and praise Finn for his kindness when she was actually the more selfless of the two.

It got worse.  Rachel found out that Finn had slept with Santana before they started dating.  She got upset.  Finn (rightly) pointed out that the sex happened before they started dating, and therefore, she shouldn’t be too upset.  He was correct.  However, he did nothing, nothing to defend Rachel when Santana publicly aired their dirty laundry in front of the rest of the glee club.  He did nothing to defend Rachel when Santana said, “You’re a blabbermouth and we all just pretend to like you.”  His response to that was only to, again, point out that she had no right to be upset because she was dating Jesse St. James at the time.  In the same episode, Will yelled at her in front of everyone when she was being a brat (which, to be fair, she was), but didn’t defend her when Santana tore into her.  By the end, I couldn’t even be mad at her for cheating on Finn with Puck, since he was the only one (besides Kurt) remotely nice to her in that whole episode.

Then we went on the Rachel Berry Apology Tour, where she tried increasingly desperate measures to get Finn to forgive her.  I get it – I know that Cheating Is Wrong, and Rachel shouldn’t feel entitled to forgiveness just because she’s sorry.  However, I had to watch several episodes of Rachel constantly talking about how Finn made her into a better person, and several episodes of Finn saying things like, “I love her even though she’s shorter than Quinn and has small boobs and won’t put out and is loud and annoying.”  The show wanted to make me believe that Finn was doing Rachel some grand favor by simply being with her at all, and that doesn’t sit well with me.

Things Are Looking Up?: In the first two episodes of 2011, we’re seeing some improvement in Ms. Berry.  Rachel adorably joined the football team (wearing the “1” jersey, of course) to help win the championship game.  She made a final plea to get Finn back, but decided to take his rejection as a good thing and focus on herself and her ambition.  She finally has two good friends in Kurt and Mercedes, and the show is acknowledging that she deserves friendship and isn’t a social pariah just because she’s loud and driven.

But the Glee writers are as inconsistent as the staff of The Vampire Diaries are consistent, so I beg of them: please, please, please continue Rachel on this path of single independence and developing friendships.  Do not reunite her with Finn.  I know Finn/Rachel is your endgame couple, but you’ve turned him into a hypocritical ass and I cannot take a resurgence of a relationship where a guy claims to love a girl but seems embarrassed to be seen with her.  At this point, I would be less insulted if Rachel got back together with Jesse St. James, the guy who used, her lied to her, and egged her in a parking lot.  Please, writers – you have Rachel on a good path now.  Please don’t let her deviate from it.