A Glee casting call for a Sarah Palin-type, recently announced, was thought to be part of Kathy Griffin's character. Ryan Murphy was coy about his alleged Tea Party, Christian character for the script, but said there was no similarity to Palin, the real person.
Reportedly, the script for the upcoming Regionals episode called for someone to play the role as Tammy Jean, a Tea Party candidate and home-schooler (classic Sarah Palin).
However, an inside source refuted claims that the character was anything similar to the real Sarah Palin. Yea, right! What does the show's creator have to say about this bit of a casting melt-down?
Murphy, when queried about his intentions to cast Griffin's character as a Sarah Palin type, said he was trying to build on the right wing attacks he's taken in the past.
In an effort to move towards a diverse audience with inclusion on many levels, Ryan Murphy once said that he wanted to create a character in Glee that Christian kids and parents can recognize.
But who anointed Sarah Palin as the standard by which all Christians can identify? Is she suddenly an honorary spokesperson for all things Christian?
As much as Murphy has tried to side-step the Glee casting call for Sarah Palin type rumors, if it “walks like a duck and quacks like a duck”, perhaps it's a duck, Mr. Murphy. Just saying, bro.
Okay try not to judge me too harshly here, but both my daughter and I are dyed in the wool "Gleeks." We watch the show together pretty much every week, along with her girlfriend, and it is quite the a bonding experience.
We both enjoy the humor and my daughter's singer/dancer girlfriend loves the musical numbers (Okay I confess, I kind of like them as well.)
As a fan of the show I am stoked by the idea of watching what they do with a "Sarah Palin-type" character. Especially one played by Kathy Griffin! (Can't you just hear Palin-bot heads exploding at the mere thought?)
In the past the creators of Glee have been accused of having a fairly obvious "liberal bias." (Why? Is there something wrong with that?)
For those of you unfortunate souls unfamiliar with this highly entertaining program here is but a taste.
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Hope she fakes a pregnancy. Didn't Tina Fey on 30Rock do something about needing to rush back home so a baby wasn't born i ncanada or something?
ReplyDeleteAhh, art imitating life!!
I would object to this characterization - Sarah wouldn't home school.
ReplyDeleteFor one, she wouldn't be qualified to teach, two, she's too lazy and would quit halfway through the first day.
She doesn't even make sure her kids get to school, much less instill the value of graduating or going to college.
Anon @ 6:45 a.m.
ReplyDeleteYES, it isn't just me, 30 Rock is always writing in a dig at that ridiculous woman and the circumstances she pretends applies to her.
I stopped watching Glee in Nov but I may just have to catchup and watch this shiz
ReplyDeleteIs Kathy G really going to be on Glee? ugh. She already killed SVU for me. The woman may be funny (kind of) but she sucks on legit tv shows. I hate this. They need to bring back Carol Burnett.
ReplyDelete“Here's the naked truth of what Palin and many of the Dobson/Falwell/Robertson camp believe:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominionist#Dominion_Theology
And since "g*d" has appointed Snowdrift Snooki to be President, no scandal or sin in her past has any relevance inside the delusional matrix masquerading as her cerebral cortex.
There is no room in Sarah's "real" America for the rest of us subhumans who don't share religious sentiment mixed nicely and conflated with every aspect of life.
We are all just to be pitied and reviled as outcasts for our recalcitrant attitude and refusal to submit to their vision of a theocratic Taliban
to me sarah is a skank. i'll take kathy any day!
ReplyDeletebill in belize
This is great news, she will be brilliant. Her satire is always unbelievably scathing. She plays dumb, but oh how smart she is. I just love her.
ReplyDeleteAs for judging you, Gryphen, there are many who have found that show to be worth watching. My daughter and her friends love it. I believe the show's success does reflect a sea change in the way our society treats any who before now might have been deemed "different". It is a welcome sign. It also particularly speaks to the awakening consciousness among our young people, which gives me hope.
Hope her character is called "Tucson Sarah," or whatever her character is named has "Tucson" in front of it. Love Kathy G.!
ReplyDeleteActually, the home-schooling Tea Party candidate is anything but "classic Sarah Palin."
ReplyDeleteSarah Palin isn't as much a Tea Partier as she is an opportunistic fraud, harnessing the anger of Tea Partiers for her own political advancement and financial gain.
We have Palin's mayoral and gubernatorial records. They do not reveal a Tea Party mentality.
As for homeschooling her children, the reason the Palin kids don't attend school is because they are already fully employed as Sarah Palin's political props and/or shields.
Real homeschooling moms do so because they want to have greater control of their children's education, whether it is on religious grounds or because they fear for the quality of the public education.
Anon at 6:52, I totally agree. I stopped reading at the home schooler reference. As a progressive homeschooler, such stereotypical portrayal of home schoolers as Christian fanatics really, really, really piss me off.
ReplyDeleteSometimes the left pokes itself in the eye by being just as small-minded as the right when it comes to out-and-out intolerance. You'd think with the growing number of progressive home schoolers, they'd know better. Apparently not.
My husband and I are total Gleeks! And we are looking forward to this episode. As with all Gleekdom, it will be way over the top, entertaining, and SO much fun. I was looking forward to Kathy Griffin, but had no idea of her "character development." Hee hee. Even bettah!
ReplyDeleteReferring to 30 Rock: Alec Baldwin's Jack Donoghy and his wife were in Toronto when she went into labor. It was hilarious as they tried desperately to get back to the US so the baby would be born there and be eligible to run for president. A snowstorm closed the airports and they hitched a ride to Buffalo in a mobile meth lab. But they never made it and the baby was delivered in Canada. (There were some great one-liners poking fun at Canada.) The best bit came at the end when the hospital refused to accept payment for medical services. Ultra-conservative Jack was apoplectic.
ReplyDeleteAs a Glee fan, I hope that the writing is very sharp for the Tea Party mom character. There have been many examples where the writing was OTT: crazy wife pretending a pregnancy (oh, where have we seen that before? Not believable at all. Hee.)
I am from the planet Earth and I am very, very old.
ReplyDeleteI have seen many, many things in my life so I don't agree with anyone's assessment that Glee is "over the top", "totally gay" or pandering to a gay audience in any way.
I have heard people characterize the show in those ways.
I first watched the show quite by accident this psst season. It seems I'm always late to the party of the day but I eventually get there.
I find the show quite entertaining. It has a mixture of interesting characters and some not so interesting characters as part of the cast. Now I'm a fan of the show.
In my view, the cast is for the most part superb in their roles, and the music is just great. The plot lines and sub-plots, such as they are, are a diverse mix of different things and usually interesting.
It's been great to have some big names in show biz show up as guest stars too. That alone pays tribute to the popularity of the show.
I intend to continue watching because it's a refreshing break in the week from the usual run of frequently crappy entertainment.
I'm not a Kathy Griffin fan yet because until recently I didn't even know who she is or what she does as an entertainer, but I welcome her as an addition to the show. If the producers think she will be a good fit, then she probably will be.
Have you personally refused to watch the show because in your mind you characterized it as gay or gay-oriented?
Then you're so misinformed! You need to watch the show if for no other reason than that a ray of enlightenment might break into your closed little mind.
That enlightenment is this: the show is about life! Life from the standpoint of kids learning how to live and face problems, deal with the problems, adapt and grow into adults. They face some of the myriad situations many of us have faced and dealt with already.
Once you realize this you will be all the better for it.
Have a great day!
@Morgan 8:20-- I agree.--Many "liberal progressives" home-school for reasons other than "conservative Christianity". I know parents who travel or volunteer in other countries, whereas home-schooling gives them the flexibility. Some have macrobiotic or artistic type lifestyles. Some have genuis children, who move through their studies quickly and end up in university studies at an early age and have doctorates at 22. Contemporary public school holds them back. Their reasons for home-schooling is for excellence in potential and exposure, not to protect them from the "bad elements".
ReplyDeleteGryphen... be a good uncle and tell us there are things in Frank's manuscript that will lead to charges being filed against Sarah...
ReplyDeleteI love this show! Go GLEE!
ReplyDeleteI had never watched the show before, but heard it was a fun show, so I watched it last week. Without knowing who was who or what anyone's agenda was or what the show is really about, I was lost and didn't enjoy the show. How would I get "caught up" enough to get the basics of the show to start watching it? Thanks!
ReplyDeleteMorgan 8:20 AM wrote: I stopped reading at the home schooler reference. As a progressive homeschooler, such stereotypical portrayal of home schoolers as Christian fanatics really, really, really piss me off.
ReplyDeleteThe strength of this statement prompted me to reread the article and earlier comments, looking for where somebody had written that home schoolers were necessarily, or even typically, Christian fanatics. Couldn't find it.
Can somebody help me out with a reference?
Absent that, is Morgan suggesting that Murphy is somehow not allowed to have a character who is a home schooler and who also happens to be "a character … that Christian kids and parents can recognize"?
Have the powers of reason in America become such that to counteract the stereotype "All A's are B" we have to push the idea that "No A's are B"?
By the way, in the one home-schooling family I am familiar with, the mother (and likely the father and kids—I don't happen to know) is an atheist and also happens to be a member of Mensa.
This will not be the first time Glee has been less than kind to Sarah Palin – in one of Sue Sylvester’s best quips to date. While reprimanding Santana and Brittany, the Jane Lynch character spat, “You may be two of the stupidest teens I’ve ever encountered — and that’s saying something. I once taught a cheerleading seminar to Sarah Palin.”
ReplyDeletehttp://www.celebdirtylaundry.com/2011/02/19/are-sarah-palin-the-tea-party-on-their-way-to-glee/
Glee is a fun show and I am glad it is so popular. It gives me hope that the next generation will be able to work together toward common goals in spite of their individual differences.
ReplyDeleteThat "conservatives" are having fits over the show speaks more about their "us vs. them" mindset than the show, which is a silly, fun soap-opera.
Ted,
ReplyDeleteI think you revealed yourself with the statement "in the one homeschooling family I am familiar with..."
The unfortunate truth is that progressive home schoolers are still outnumbered by the fundamentalist types who keep their kids out of public school due to their paranoia that they may learn about birth control, education or *gasp* multiculturalism.
Progressive home schoolers are growing, but as a home schooler more qualified to speak to this issue than you, I can't tell you the number of times people automatically assume the because we home school we are conservative Christians. I've taken it upon myself to issue a caveat upon telling folks we homeschool. "We home school, but we aren't fundamentalist Christian home schoolers."
I only wish I had a dollar for every person who replies, "Really? I thought only Christians home schooled." So there you go.
Of course, I live in the South where there are more fundamentalist Christian everything, so fighting stereotypes here is extra difficult. Finding a progressive group of home schoolers was impossible until the last couple of years when they stared springing up. Thank Cthulu for that. ;-)
Per your looking for a black-and-white statement in the article, your approach may explain why you ended up so hopefully baffled. It's a matter of association, as others here who also read my comment *were* able to understand. So yes, progressive home schoolers have every right to cringe when home schooling is lumped in with every negative, conservative stereotype that a show wants to lump into one of its characters.
If you can't comprehend that, then it's probably because you're not a progressive home schooler. But I forgive you, and not because I'm a Christian, but because I'm a nice person. ;-)
What people who throw around the "liberal bias" charge don't realize is that by doing so they are revealing that they are biased.
ReplyDeletePlease all: let's not highjack this thread to become a debate about "progressive home-schoolers." Maybe that's a topic for another thread on someone's personal blog? This thread is about GLEE!!!Thanks!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous @9:30am. I'm old also too, and I've never watched "Glee." But Gryphen's post, along with comments such as yours, inspired me to take a look at the show, so I rushed over to Netflix and ordered a DVD of Season 1.
ReplyDeleteCoincidentally, just this morning another inspiration came from my son, who is a seminary student preparing for the ministry in the United Church of Christ. (My husband and I are still amazed at his chosen career path, as my husband is a confirmed atheist and I'm at best an agnostic. Nevertheless, we're immensely proud of our boy.)
Today our son delivered the sermon for the seventh Sunday after Epiphany services at his church. He titled his sermon "Imagine," and he discussed the imperatives of 21st-century progressive Christianity. The liturgy featured a video clip of a performance of John Lennon's "Imagine" from the "Glee" episode "Hairography." And the cover of the bulletin for the service is delightful: It's a photo of an upraised hand--a la Snooki Snowdrift--with "Imagine" written on the palm, under the words "The Gospel According to glee.
When I was growing up my parents identified themselves as liberals. We liberals are the majority in this country. Just because the right constantly uses the term pejoratively, is no reason to accept it as such. When they say, "You're a liberal!" we should answer, "Yes. I am."
ReplyDeleteWhy must we get into a "discussion" about the merits of home schooling following this post? I bet there are better places to discuss that. ;-)
ReplyDeleteDitto Morgan. And religious or secular, REAL homeschoolers know how much time and effort it takes. Yes, homeschooling can be done in a bit less than a classroom schoolday,but there are still curriculum choices, grading and the thing $carah would be completely unqualified for , teaching.
ReplyDeleteTed, There have been quite a few slams here, on other threads as well about homeschoolers - painted with a very, very broad brush and a whoel lot of homeschool = fundernut paint. Not the case.
ReplyDeleteThis is for Susie at 10:04 this morning... (I apologize for getting carried away here!)
ReplyDeleteLike you, I never watched "Glee". Part of the reason for me is that it is a show on Fox, and I really didn't want to go there for ANYTHING! However, a few months back, my curiosity overcame me.
I read about the whole Glee phenomenon at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glee_%28TV_series%29.
Then, I went to the website at http://www.fox.com/glee and clicked on various links there.
Here are plenty of links that can catch you up, to some degree, or, pique your interest.
http://www.fox.com/glee/videos/
You can find bios on the cast at http://www.fox.com/glee/bios/dianna-agron/
One of the first episodes has the very few original glee kids singing Journey's song, "Don't Stop Believing" which you can see at http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9d28q_glee-dont-stop-believe_shortfilms. That song is something of an anthem for them now, I guess. But they have performed so many great songs that it would be hard to narrow down favorites, at this point.
Several of the actors play the guitar, one plays the drums, and that gets incorporated into the stories, too.
In all the reading I've done about this show, I have learned that every musician you see on camera is an actual card-carrying union musician, including the piano player, the drummer, the horns, the string players, etc. I guess they record in a studio, then perform their parts on camera for the taping of the show.
I ordered the full 1st season for $20 online, then bought the first part of the 2nd season locally. The second half of the 2nd season is out now, too, I think. Since I've become aware of the show this season, I've begun recording episodes via DVR.
It took me awhile, but I've become a ridiculously silly Gleek. I still hate Fox, but I loves me some Glee.
Thank you, Elsie; I guess I have my homework to do now! And as far as not liking FOX, there is a complete world of difference between the broadcast channel of FOX and the cable channel Fox. The broadcast channel has lots of good show and even basic evening news that is nothing like the fake and hateful "news" on the Fox cable channel.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to see a Palin-inspired theme, check out the very first season of Glee which included a fake pregnancy, teen pregnancy, teen baby daddy was named Puck (hockey reference), baby mama's parents were evangelical xtians.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of the signs of the apocalypse!
ReplyDeleteMorgan 11:16 AM wrote: I think you revealed yourself with the statement "in the one homeschooling family I am familiar with..."
ReplyDeleteWhat I was meaning to "reveal" was that I was perfectly aware that not all homeschoolers are "Christian fanatics". What do you feel I revealed? From the tone of your reply I take it that it was something bad.
Morgan: The unfortunate truth is that progressive home schoolers are still outnumbered by the fundamentalist types …
I know. The fact that I don't think the stereotype to be universally applicable does not mean that I'm unaware of its existence. In your next few paragraphs you were essentially preaching to—or rather, venting at—the choir.
Morgan: Per your looking for a black-and-white statement in the article, your approach may explain why you ended up so hopefully baffled.
All I was seeking to learn was what had set you off. I think you are saying that it was no specific statement. I have no idea what you mean by "hopefully baffled" but I can live with that lack.
If your original comment had been along the lines of, "I'm disappointed that Murphy isn't taking the opportunity to push back against the stereotype of home schoolers as Christian fanatics," I might well have responded that yes I was personally aware of at least one counterexample and was sure that there were many more, and ain't it awful that he's letting this opportunity go to waste.
Instead, the comment had a reference to eye-poking and accusations of small-mindedness, intolerance, and not knowing better.
I take it then that you feel Murphy is doing a bad thing—as opposed to failing to take the opportunity to do a good thing—by having a character who is a home schooler and who also happens to be "a character … that Christian kids and parents can recognize."
Morgan: But I forgive you, and not because I'm a Christian, but because I'm a nice person. ;-)
It's not clear to me what I need forgiveness for (in this context) but I can live with that too, also. :-)
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteI would object to this characterization - Sarah wouldn't home school.
For one, she wouldn't be qualified to teach, two, she's too lazy and would quit halfway through the first day.
She doesn't even make sure her kids get to school, much less instill the value of graduating or going to college.
6:52 AM
You forgot the most important thing to Sarah.
HOME SCHOOLING PIPER OR WILLOW DOES NOT PAY ENOUGH.
Piper and Willow can stay home and teach each other and if they have questions they can ask Bristol to google it for them. Bristol needs the practice since she going to avenge her mom and run for president someday.