Where's Our Queer Fairy Tale?

Glee, as it does every week, has everyone talking. This past episode definitely had queer folk across the country smiling, yet crying. Feeling joy, while also feeling anguish and anger even. Last night's episode of Glee had Kurt spying on a nearby all-boy private school. While Kurt pretends to go undercover, he meets another gay teenager, and viewers finally see Kurt engaged in the beginnings of a queer romance. The all-boy Glee club performed Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" and it is definitely the buzz of Tweets and Facebook statuses (video after the jump).

This performance left me smiling, and thinking that this is the beginning our queer fairy tale -- finally available for young queer people struggling to understand their same-sex attractions and/or gender variance. The queering of Katy Perry's song brings me back to the times in my life when I felt attractions and crushes towards other men, but 1) didn't have a language to talk about said feelings; and 2) didn't think it was acceptable to feel that way.






The mainstream media has a long history of portraying homosexuality as a comical device. Misrepresentations of homosexuality in the media has certainly contributed to misunderstandings and oppression against lesbians, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals. Essentially, the media has created a cultural optic that has controlled the image of homosexuality. Furthermore, the mainstream media has also de-sexualized the homosexual.

The fact that gay folk are able to engage in sexual activity without the intent or possibility of procreating is somehow threatening to the dominant majority. For that reason, we've mostly only seen flaming, flamboyant effeminate faggots parading around on TV, not having sex. This is the image of queerness fed through the mainstream media. Apparently watching straight folk have sex on television isn't at all threatening -- while also not teaching safe-sex practices, so what's the real threat here?

What Glee has done is reclaim queer sexuality through Kurt. This episode shows that we feel, we romanticize, we crush, we're sexual beings. This can very well be our fairy tale, boy meets boy, and boy sings to boy in a way that makes our heart melt. But our fairy tale doesn't come without hardship. Glee also shows the violence that still takes place against LGBTQ folk, even when we have the courage to be out in our communities. I'm interested in our this relationship between Kurt and Blaine develops. It is about time that young queer people can turn on the TV and see someone that they can relate to; that they can see a queer-positive relationship they can look too as their fairy tale.