Journal article
Glee, ‘quality’ teen television, and the screen musical in the twenty-first century
Refractory: a Journal of Entertainment Media, Vol.36
2022
Abstract
Written and created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Ian Brennan, musical teen television series Glee (FOX 2009‒2015) follows the New Directions, a ‘glee’ club or show choir, as they navigate high school. Issues of teen identity in Glee are not only explored through dramatic sequences, but also through musical numbers. The two characteristics of Glee that have generated the most critical discourse—its engagement with social and political issues and its textual complexity—are central to its negotiation of discourses around quality teen television.
I argue that Glee makes claims to ‘quality’ through textual sophistication and self-reflexivity, and by constructing its storylines around timely social and political issues. This paper examines how Glee blends the musical with the music video, reality television and social media to make claims to ‘quality’. It contends that Glee’s protagonists use the cover version in ways that blend the traditional integrated musical number with recent articulations of the amateur cover version. Finally I examine how Glee negotiates discourses of ‘quality’ by engaging with social and political issues at the time of broadcast.
Details
- Title
- Glee, ‘quality’ teen television, and the screen musical in the twenty-first century
- Authors
- Phoebe Macrossan (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Business and Creative Industries
- Publication details
- Refractory: a Journal of Entertainment Media, Vol.36
- Publisher
- Swinburne University of Technology, Screen and Cinema Studies, Department of Media and Communication
- Organisation Unit
- School of Business and Creative Industries; University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99678598202621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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