When is a Kiss not Just a Kiss?

When Glee began, I was delighted because I've always been a music gleek. I still remember when the music department at any high school was equally as prestigous as the athletic department, with polished performances that often ended in standing ovations. At the same time, however, the students and staff members knew their roles in the school structure and adhered to the differences between adult and child. The adults made the decisions and the students learned performance art through the wise eyes of the teacher guiding them through the process of selecting appropriate music, creating choreography to enhance the vocal selections, practicing the pieces to perfection, and then performing in front of an audience.

It was about the culmination of an educational process, an end product the community anticipated, appreciated, and applauded.

I would not be thrilled to be part of the Glee school community, nor the music program, because the TV series has degenerated into pandering to ratings, rather than maintaining a performance standard that can inspire young people to learn a craft from talented teachers and then perform for a community audience. The main thrust of the retooled Glee is sex: homosexual, bi-sexual, and heterosexual, as well as overtly illicit sexual interaction between staff members. In a word: inappropriate -- on every conceivable level. There seems to be no lesson at Glee High that cannot be taught by a pelvic thrust, a suggestive lyric, a sexually explicit choreography, or an active sexual encounter. If it's hot in the choir room, it's even hotter in the sex ed classroom, the counseling office, and the teacher's lunchroom.

The show goes on at 8:00 pm, which was okay at the beginning of the first season, when the show was about a small glee club at a somewhat typical high school, but is far from okay as the sex has ramped up and the vituperative interactions between staff members, as well as between students, have increased to the level of criminality. Sue could NEVER say the kinds of things she says or do the kinds of things she does on a real school campus because she'd be arrested and her teaching credentials revoked. Showing any adult on a school campus getting away with what character Sue gets away with does a disservice not just to the educational institution, but to the young children/teens who watch the show. Sue disrespects staff, students, and parents with equal venom -- and no one ever holds her accountable. As a matter of fact, Sue's vicious conduct is used as the basis for the winning glee club performance at regionals, with the Gleeks sending out the message that it does not matter how badly Sue behaves -- including filling student lockers with dirt. The problem with the message is that when someone does it on TV, it soon becomes part of what's done at the school, and what's being shown on Glee will get a child tossed out of a class, arrested, and/or expelled from school. It may be a topical storyline in someone's script writing class, but it is NOT funny or appropriate when it becomes a handbook for how students and/or adults conduct themselves at a real school, especially when there are no apparent consequences for anyone's actions.

Slushies? Really? Slamming the "homo" into a locker repeatedly, while threatening that student with physical assault? Really? Making a broadcast over the public address system that slanders a colleague with very explicit content? Really? Making out with the hot sex ed sub on the auditorium stage during a performance rehearsal? Really? And let's not even talk about the demeaning of "fat-ass ladies" in both daily interaction and a student-written song!

When is a kiss not just a kiss? When it's the full tongue down the throat between underage "students," whether hetero-, homo-, or bi-sexual. Seldom has any show been so in-your-face about sexually active teens, and certaintly not a show that appears on the surface to be good, wholesome entertainment. It's just a show about a glee club, right? No way: it's a show about sex, sex, and more sex, and I don't believe this is an appropriate message to send to an 8:00 pm viewing audience of preteens and young teens. This is a time when adults and actors need to give kids positive role models, NOT shine the spotlight on what may be going on behind adult doors. The kids in the Glee choir are the most sexually active group of high school Gleeks ever, everyone of whom is underage, and Mr. Shuster comes off as the pimp. We don't need more pregnant teens, but Glee writers seem to think that sex is what makes the high school experience ... well-rounded?

Unfortunately, the show promises to be "hotter than ever" when it returns with new episodes in May. If that's the case, move it to a more appropriate time slot and start handing out condoms at the schools because young kids are picking up their behavior cues from the TV cast and putting into practice what the Gleeks are preaching in their choir!