Santana Lopez, you have my vote for prom queen.
I didn’t always appreciate you. In the first season, I saw you as a tired archetype, a lesser imitation of previous great female characters who ran their schools with an iron first and reclaimed the word “bitch” with little more than a steely glare. You were no Cordelia Chase. You were no Nicole Julian from Popular. You were barely even Sandi from Daria.
But somewhere along the line, I started to warm up to you.
I don’t remember exactly how it happened. It may have been the time when you took Finn’s virginity and told him, “It’s exhausting to look at you.” Perhaps it was the time when you and Brittany starred as angels in Rachel’s “Run, Joey, Run” video. Or it might have been as recent as last week’s episode where you threatened Karofsky with razor blades in your hair.
Whenever it was that I first began to appreciate you, the love was cemented this week. I watched as you put two and two together regarding Karofsky’s sexual orientation and felt proud. I gleefully clapped when you decided to use Karofsky as a pawn to win Brittany’s heart; doing the right thing for Kurt was only an afterthought. I giggled when you threatened Karofsky with exposure unless he did what you wanted – bullying the bully was delicious poetic justice.
And you won my heart forever when you admitted, “The only straight I am is a straight-up bitch.”
Santana Lopez, I humbly apologize for having ever doubted your awesomeness.
As for you writers, I have a few quibbles with you: – Having my new hero Santana Lopez make fun of the other Gleeks was amusing, but I cringed when she suggested that Tina go in for an eye “de-slanting.” It crossed a line of “amusing satire and mean girl-itis” to “just plain racist.” On the other hand, I didn’t think you crossed a line when Santana made fun of Rachel’s nose or Artie’s legs, so maybe the problem is with me, not you. I’ll get back to you on that.
– My heart was warmed to see Kurt return to McKinley, and it was overheated and delighted to see Blaine serenade him in front of the whole school. Kurt was ostracized for being gay, and now he returns to have his dashing, sexy, hobbit boyfriend profess his love through song with hundreds of witnesses looking on. However, they did NOT KISS. I hope you’re only saving their next kiss for the prom episode.
– I assume that you only had Will Schuester wear a “butt-chin” shirt because the words “condescending mansplaining jackass” couldn’t fit. If Will Schuester tried to cure my autistic brother’s OCD by trying to force him to eat unwashed fruit, I would have shoved those blueberries up his ass. But you redeemed yourself by showing Emma receive responsible advice from a decent therapist. You showed some surprising responsibility with this storyline, admitting that even a marriage to Hot John Stamos couldn’t cure her problem.
– Again with the Quinn of it all. I suppose this was an attempt to give Quinn “depth” by revealing she – gasp! – used to be fat and have glasses! Her desperation to reclaim her glory days was all a massive cover-up for her insecurity at having been fat and unpopular! Funny, I thought her desperation to reclaim her glory days was all due to massive denial about having been pregnant, ostracized, and giving up her baby last year. *shakes head* Writers, writers, writers. You didn’t have to give Quinn a “fat, with glasses!” background to give her depth. She already had depth. What she didn’t have was consistency. Quinn already has plenty of characterization to work with and Dianna Agron is a capable actress. This attempt at “depth” is very after-school special.
Final thought: A more tightly written, enjoyable episode than most of season two has had to offer. The solos and duets continue to be stronger than they were last year, with Cory Monteith sounding better than ever on “I’ve Gotta be Me,” Chris Colfer sounding like an angel on “As If We Never Said Goodbye,” Lea Michele and Dianna Agron harmonizing beautifully on “I Feel Pretty/Unpretty,” and Darren Criss and the Warblers melting my heart into a puddle of goo with “Somewhere Only We Know.” But the eponymous closing number, “Born this Way,” still failed to live up to the New Directions performances in season one. We haven’t had a group number of “Don’t Stop Believing” or “Somebody to Love” quality in a long, long time, and I miss those performances.
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I LOVE Santana. Santana and Brittany have been my favs since they revealed their relationship (I think it was somewhere in season one, or maybe early season two). The episode where she realizes she’s a lesbian and is in love with Brittany was so great — one of the only great moments I can remember in season 3. And she was mostly awesome in this episode too, minus the comment about Tina’s eyes. I’m in the same camp as you — that comment came across as just racist, while the other jabs at Artie and Rachel didn’t seem so bad for some reason.
I wonder why…maybe it’s because she has a history of disliking Rachel and Artie and she’s insulted them many times in the past, whereas she’s never really had much beef with Tina, so it seemed like it just came from nowhere?
I agree that her mutual history with Rachel and her jealousy of Artie made those comments easier to swallow. Also, Artie HAS, many times, wished for his legs to work and Rachel has wanted to change her look, so Santana’s comments weren’t technically false. The Tina comment, though, just came out of NOWHERE.
I loved their version of Born this way and the t-shirts were quite awesome
Great… this show just learns how to manipulate us.
I am not sure it’s a good thing.
The show can manipulate me like a puppet on a string. Every time I think I can’t stand it anymore, they do something to win me back. So I expect next week’s episode to suck.
I would like to contribute to the discussion, but basically all I have to say is: YES. Agree with every word. Though – did you notice that Lauren Zizes is apparently a time-traveler? She’s even more awesome than I thought…
To be honest, I am completely over Lauren ZZizes and have been since the Valentine’s Day episode. I don’t enjoy watching Puck be her lapdog. If Quinn had humiliated Lauren the way Lauren humiliated Quinn, we’d be horrified, but because it’s the fat girl doing it, we’re supposed to cheer her on. She’s become just as much of a bully as Santana, except that Lauren seems to care exclusively for herself while Santana at least cares about Brittany (and Kurt, sort of), and the New Directions criticize or ostracize Santana when she’s being a bitch while they compliment Lauren when SHE’S mean and self-serving. I liked her a lot when she was a minor character who thought glee was stupid, but she’s been too much for me lately.
It was a crappy thing for Lauren to do, but I found the whole Quinn story so dumb that I kind of mentally switched off there. When Glee does storylines I find crushingly stupid, I just try to forget about them as quickly as possible. Anyway, I’ve always loved Santana despite/because of her bitchiness, so I guess I just have a bit of a thing for the bitchy Glee characters. (See also: my enduring love for Kurt, even though he’s constantly sanctimonious and patronizing to everyone else.)
OK, I am kind of bewildered here.
So they can’t show mean girls dealing with each other?
And yes, it’s different when a pretty, skinny girls does something bitchy and when something bitchy is done by someone who according to the stereotypes in our society has be utterly sweet and nice as a way to compensate the fact she isn’t mainstream attractive.
No, I don’t think that it makes it OK, but I just wanted to point out that yes, there is difference, because the reasons behind her actions would be different.
Actually both girls are insecure but the society treats differently their insecurities. 🙂
Or at least this is how I see the subject.
Lastly I do enjoy some mild level of bitchiness else I can’t believe we are watching teenagers who are growing to be somewhat working parts of society. I am surprised we are not seeing any dickiness on guys side. I reember high school so much differently than just jock jerks and skinny mean girls. This is not a movie, that have the time and options to explore the subject quite a lot more and make the characters more interesting.
Come on show..
It’s not that they can’t, or shouldn’t, but in this case, it felt hugely unnecessary and redundant and distracting from a storyline that had real meat to it: the Quinn and Rachel story. Quinn has been mean to Rachel for years and it’s something we’ve actually seen on the show before. During their “I Feel Pretty/Unpretty” duet, they seemed to be reaching some kind of understanding with each other. It would’ve been a much more satisfying conclusion to see Quinn reach some kind of accord with Rachel and apologize for all the times she was mean to her. But no, the show instead decided that it needed Lauren Zizes to do something wacky, because Lauren Zizes hadn’t done something wacky yet this week, so it let Lauren Zizes do something wacky.
Mean girls being mean to each other can be fun to watch. I liked the Quinn/Santana fight from the season premiere. But the show EARNED that moment. We’ve never seen Quinn be mean to Lauren before, so it wasn’t fun, mutual bitchiness – just one being mean to the other. Sure, we could *assume* that Quinn’s been mean to Lauren because Quinn was a Mean Girl, but it’s lazy writing since we’ve never seen it before.
Being marginalized yourself doesn’t make it okay for you to marginalize others. Lauren doesn’t get a free pass on treating people however she wants just because she’s not mainstream attractive. It’s not okay for Santana to treat the people the way she does just because she’s a closeted lesbian and a woman of color, and it’s not okay for Becky Jackson to go along with Sue’s mean plans just because she has Down’s Syndrome. And importantly, the show doesn’t try to make us think that it’s okay for Santana or Becky to be mean. Santana is presented as having mixed motives and the club treats her with mixed reactions. Becky is mostly cast in a villain role. Lauren, on the other hand, gets to belittle Puck and be nasty to him, while he takes it and eagerly asks for more. She gets to humiliate Quinn in a way that I’m sure she’s been humiliated herself before, and gets to hear Quinn wish she could be more like Lauren for carrying herself with confidence.
In short, the writers are trying to sell me on the idea that Lauren is awesome because she’s just brimming with self-confidence, when what they’re SHOWING me is that Lauren is just as much of an opportunistic bully as Santana or Quinn. That disparity is why I’m so tired of her.
Maybe I don’t read enough in it but this unreasonable reaction of the characters made them a bit more real for me.
You are absolutely right in every line but…. people do no always do something because they have strong reasons. Sometimes they do it because they can.
I don’t know, your arguments sound quite logical to me and as I said, I agree with them but also people are tad more complicated and chaotic.
Maybe they are turning Lauren into a puppet and just plain “no reason, just cause we can” were the reasons behind her actions. On the other hand… I enjoyed the situation. I have to be honest here, the whole show has the main idea to pull the leg of the viewer. The amount of cases in which the 4th wall has been busted and the characters act as if they know they are characters, that’s what is disconnecting the show from the reality. It’s clear it’s not a real high school, that it’s not a real life situations (well… some of them). The whole thing has a string of parody in it and maybe that’s the reason that I find the situation with Lauren as normal, because she is not just a character in a show, but a piece of a puzzle which is still ongoing.
Ok, that came out quite long, sorry for the novels I have been leaving here lately. 🙂
When I’m at school, eating dinner, taking a shower, etc., all I think about is Glee. Oh my god. Santana is like this diva who you wish you were even though she’s such a bitch, because she’s so hilarious and awesome. It seems like EVERYONE falls for Santana (girls too!). (If you haven’t seen season 2 finale, stop reading) When Santana sings Songbird to Brittany, I just… well… words cannot describe how amazing that was (her singing and the whole message).
My point:
Glee is amazing, especially Santana.