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09th Jan 2022

Glee started a ‘Wokeness Epidemic’ says conservative publication

Kieran Galpin

Ah yes, the cultural pinnacle that is Glee

According to a Hollywood Consultant and a conservative news outlet, Ryan Murphy’s Glee started a ‘Wokeness Epidemic’ and also birthed cancel culture.

In a staggering 6500-word article from conservative publication Human Events, Glee is branded as seemingly starting the identity politics ‘trend’.

The source for this impressive catalogue, we hear you ask? Well, it just so happens to be a five-year-old Tumblr post because great journalism always starts on Tumblr, of course.

Writer Bill Hurrell even said that Glee was a “curse not merely on the United States, but on its own cast members” as he recalled the deaths of Naya Rivera and Corey Monteith.

A particularly outlandish section reads: “The ‘representation’ on Glee was apparently so significant and so accurately done that it reawakened ancient tribal hatreds among the teenagers watching the show.”

“This is the reality of wokeness: It is not a utopian philosophy. It isn’t even really a Leftist one, though it uses Leftist language to mask its true intentions.”

While the 6k word ramblings certainly had people talking, many questioned whether Hurrell had ever watched Glee. While the show was certainly diverse at first glance, the treatment of its characters of colour, in particular, was nothing particularly ‘woke’ as Hurrell calls it.

“It’s true. We did do it. Glee also made me gay,” Glee actor Kevin McHale said on Instagram.

Plotlines on Glee included making light of sexual assault, problematic arcs on eating disorders, and even a scene where they pushed a wheelchair-bound Arty into the pool.

Twitter user Sarah McGonagall shared a few moments, noting that: “In the very first episode, a teacher sneaks into a locker room shower to listen to a nude teenager sing and then when the teen refuses to join the glee club, the teacher plants drugs in his locker and almost gets him arrested for possession in order to blackmail him into joining.”

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