Glee and Social Justice, 1st Edition
October 15, 2009
This is Part 1 in a series of how the television show “Glee” confronts social justice issues. Glee is broadcast on Fox on Wednesdays at 9pm EST.
Music Racism
On last night’s episode of Glee (Episode 7, “Throwdown,”), Mercedes makes a request that Glee Club sing something that is more “black.”
The situation brings to light some of the many questions that Glee asks us to think about concerning social justice. This week, let’s focus on race.
My first response to Mercedes’ request was to ask what makes music black or white? For Mercedes, it means something hip-hop or R&B, musical forms that are dominated by black musicians. She compares it to broadway showtunes, an industry that has traditionally been dominated by whites (although that has changed drastically).
What’s interesting about Mercedes distinction is that she thinks of music in terms of race. Certain music styles “belong” to certain races, and Mercedes points out that she feels the group is being biased towards one race of music – or what we might define as music racism.
This, of course, is dependent on us agreeing that music can be defined in terms of race. And if music can, can we also describe other things - like clothing or movies or expressions – as “belonging” to one race?
More questions abound from this. Can people dress/act/speak “across” their race? In Glee, the answer seems to be yes. Later in the episode, Mercedes stands up and declares, “I may be a strong, proud black woman, but I’m a lot more than that.” She’s a fashionista who wears what she wants with no reference to clothes that might be black or white or anything else. She speaks with a nondistinct American accent in average high school language. In fact, short of her desire to sing black music, Mercedes makes very few comments about race at all.
And yet, she brings it up. “Can we sing something that’s more “black?” Does it make a difference that the person making the request is “black?” What if someone like Finn or Tina or Kurt made the request? Would it stick out as more offensive?
And so Glee has brought up some interesting questions. William McKinley is a high school where it appears that the most commonly associated issues of racism and discrimination have been worked out. People are not being barred from joining Glee Club or being a Cheerio based on race. Glee Club soloist aren’t picked based on skin color.
But some of these tougher questions about race are being asked – and even if Glee is not asking those questions directly, I think there’s a lot to learn from answering them.
QUESTIONS WORTH PONDERING (and answering in comments!)
1) Can music, movies, clothes, or speech “belong” to certain races? What makes it that way? What happens when we try and step across those lines?
2) Does it matter who’s making the distinction? What if Finn, Tina, or Kurt made the request to sing “black” music?
3) Do you see this happening in your life? What do you think about it? Should it be stopped?
October 15, 2009 at 11:31 pm
I think you’ve raised some interesting points about racism and segregation in our society. It seems to me that in simply associating certain kinds of music with race (e.g. hip-hop with “black,” and so on), we are committing a form of self-segregation. Imagine if, instead of saying (or even thinking), ‘Could we sing something more black?’, she had said, ‘I don’t think we represent enough genres of music.’
For the sake of argument, I am assuming here that cultural differences are irrelevant (for example, the fact that salsa music is associated with Latin America) and that the students of this high school essentially belong to the same culture, regardless of race. From your description of this black character, it seems that Glee means for us to believe this.
On these assumptions, it would have been equally likely for a white character to suggest singing ‘black music,’ if only they didn’t use the word ‘black.’ However, I think this is unrealistic: a perfect world where everyone is color blind; an ideal we should strive for but may never fully reach. The fact of the matter is that despite the remarkable strides we have made in eliminating racism, there is still a racial component to culture (and thus, tastes in music, etc). This is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as there is no negative association with a particular culture’s music, and although I don’t watch Glee, I must assume that none was implied. I think it’s clear, though, that the lines are becoming blurred faster than ever.