glee, madonna, and me

I’ll try to make this my last Glee post. I know I’m irritating the show’s fans, and I know in the end the main problem is that it’s just not a show for me, but it has enough going for it that I’ve stuck it out even though I probably shouldn’t bother.

I’ll cut to the chase, the performance of “Like a Prayer” that closed the show (and that apparently went unwatched by many DVR users after American Idol ran over and pushed Glee forward a few minutes in the process). I should admit upfront that “Like a Prayer” is my favorite Madonna song, and, as I argued awhile back, the more I like a song, the less I like hearing it on Glee. There are a lot of versions of “Like a Prayer” by Madonna … I’m partial to those that begin with her plaintive query, “God?”, sounding not just like someone about to pray, but also like someone on a first-name basis with the deity. The video of “Like a Prayer” is, to my mind, one of the greatest music videos ever, although my opinion should be taken with a grain of salt, because I’m old and for the most part I don’t “get” videos. But don’t take my word for it … it won the Viewer’s Choice Award at the ‘89 MTV VMAs.

More to the point, the video is just as confrontational as its reputation. The Catholic imagery, burning crosses, primal American race fantasies, and the mixture of sex and religion is still startling. In 2005, MTV listed “100 Videos That Broke the Rules” … “Like a Prayer” was #1. The next year, MTV viewers voted it the “Most Groundbreaking Video of All Time.”

The Madonna episode of Glee spent a lot of time talking about how the spirit of Madonna’s art was so powerful, it changed people’s lives. But the episode just rode on Madonna’s coattails … it was, in the end, a sadly conservative presentation. “Like a Prayer” was devoid of pretty much everything that makes it great in the first place. If you didn’t see it, trust me, there was no rule breaking, no groundbreaking, nothing confrontational or transgressive about Glee’s version of the song. It was presented just like most of the songs on Glee, in, to state the obvious, a Glee Club version. This is why in the end, this show isn’t for me. Simply put, I do not believe every popular song ever written is best presented in a Glee Club format. Glee’s “Like a Prayer” wasn’t any closer to the core of the song than if it had been performed by a barbershop quartet. To say nothing of the way they chopped the song in half, turning a six-minute epic into a three-minute commercial for positivity.

I suspect this will be the last time I watch Glee.

Comments

[Chris]

Maybe you could use this week's Friday music post to showcase some of the groundbreaking videos, starting with Madonna's "Like a Prayer." =)

I totally get your criticisms here. For me, the show is just silly. I don't really care about many of the characters. I only watched the first four episodes of Season One, and only those because I rented the DVD from Netflix. I recorded last night's because I was curious, am a Madonna fan, and the Material Girl herself said,

"I thought the Madonna episode of Glee was brilliant on every level. The dialogue and the entire script was genius. I completely appreciated the layers of irony, especially when all those macho boys sang 'What It Feels Like For A Girl.'

I also loved the fantastic performances of 'Vogue,' 'Express Yourself' and all the messages about the boys being respectful to girls.

The entire cast was amazing. They're all so talented. I especially loved Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) and Kurt Hummel's (Chris Colfer) characters. [Show creator] Ryan Murphy did a great job bringing all these elements together.

[Daughter] Lola loved the show too. I wish I went to a high school like that...If only."

I don't necessarily agree with her, but if she liked it, well...

[Steven Rubio]

Interesting idea about the videos and Friday's music post, except Madonna was only 17 years old in 1975 and hadn't made any videos yet :-).

[Tomás]

You make me want to start watching the show regularly just to stop in protest. Seriously. Everything you say makes perfect sense to somebody like me, who is semi-surrounded with "Glee" lovers but hasn't been able to tolerate more than 30 minutes of it. There are other things that annoyed me about it, but this musical dynamic stands out as something of a failure of the show for people who like music more than in a pop/consumerist kind of way. I suspect, however, we are in the minority.

[Steven Rubio]

You know who they need to get to direct an episode? Craig Ferguson. Granted, the only movie he ever directed looks kinda icky (I've never seen it, although I probably ought to). Still, it starred Charlotte Church in her film debut, a Glee move if ever there was one. And there is more wit in one of those goofy mime-with-puppet musical openings he trots out on occasion than in a month's worth of Glee episodes.

I feel a cheap-and-easy blog post coming on ...