Top 10 Times Glee Tackled Serious Issues 

yeah that was my problem with it as well, I'm not against trans but it felt it came out of nowhere when we saw Beiste trying to comfortable in her own skin to then suddenly saying she's wants to be a man

Here too. It's like they decided to write an adult trans story, looked at the adult cast, and thought "Yeah, she's the most masculine, so we'll make her trans." Which misses the point entirely. Very disappointing.

@@VeracityLH I bet if Sue's character wasn't as developed as Beiste's, she might have been picked. But she also had a lot of her own plot lines, so it would've been weird to add on an identity realization like that

Yea I was actually really disappointed that they did that. I'm always happy with more trans representation, but they didn't have to throw masculine women under the bus to do so. Anything any woman got out of watching that storyline was erased when they did that. It made me sad.

Exactly how I felt! I’m trans myself too. A trans guy. I wrote a relatively long comment about it somewhere like a year ago but forgot which video it’s under. I loved how he was originally just a masculine woman. It was like acceptance towards being a tomboy. They could’ve touched on how (in a world where he didn’t transition so I’m gonna use she/her/hers pronouns) she isn’t transgender and that you can be masculine/gender non-conforming and still be cis. Unique was trans if I’m not mistaken and her character was enough representation imo. Trans guy would’ve been cool, but not this coach.

This gets me every time. My daughter is a high school teacher and they had a code called for a shooter the same day as the Parkland shooting. Thankfully it was a false alarm, but I am always aware of the danger and this episode is all too real.

i saw a quinntana meme about it and i was PISSED OFF. they made a joke about a school shooting that made Brittany cry

Being in a school shooting sucks

@@jenniferlarkin2489 I've been in one, well at least the threat was there, but if I'm being totally honest I was kinda excited, I don't know why, probably because our lives are so boring and I also didn't actually feel the threat like some kids who saw him did, we also never heard gunshots, he never shot anybody. There has also been a bomb threat at my school but it was just a threat and we were evacuated. So yeah I've never felt that fear but I know it must be terrible.

@@-cherry-6091 the crazy part about it was I literally talked to the kid that morning then later we found out he was gonna shoot up the school

Right! Even still in society many men and women laugh about a male being sexually abused in anyway. Especially if they are in their teens or an adult! It is sick to know that people think they can't be victims.

Which makes it even sadder first of all that no one ever called Sam or Artie out for it and made them realise that it wasn't cool (though Sam might have started to realise it after that model woman kissed him when he didn't want her to) but also that the scriptwriters never seemed to get that Puck and Quinn's story started with sexual abuse - he gave her alcohol to make her sleep with him, swept in when she was vulnerable (she said she was feeling fat that day which seemed almost funny until you find out about 'Lucy Caboosey' and realise how big a deal it was for her) and she literally pushed him away and said "I can't do this" and rather than respecting her wishes and stopping he just said "Yes you can, here have another wine cooler" and when she told him two other reasons why she couldn't do it he just kept disrespecting it, pressuring someone into having sex is not consent.

The irony is, the actor himself was a perpetrator.

@@agenttheater5 I know right puck rape her and I can't forgive him for that and same with Sam and artie

I can't watch glee seasons were ryder (Blake Jenner) is in anymore bc all i want to do is throw my tv out my window if i see him on my screen. I also cant watch s2 of Supergirl where he plays adam foster. This man makes me want to punch something so badly

True

True,I mean it isn't really a controversial topic per se, but definitely a hard episode too watch. Must have been one of the most hardest episodes for them to do.

It's not on this list? Aight I'm out. The Quarterback is the last episode of Glee I ever watched. It brought me to heavy gut-wrenching tears. It was so beautifully done....and...Naya singing...IF I DIE YOUNG...and the-

@@sersastark It's giving me chills that she sang that and :-( :-(

Should

We love growth 🥰

That just reinforces the idea that tomboys should question their sexuality or gender identity.

They never said it dosent mean he never wanted it, a lot of trans people never come out or come out late

I agree. Beiste said multiple times on the show that she was a girl and she just wanted to be seen that way

totaly agree. They already had their trans banner with Unique. This whole Beat storyline bothered me because they seem to be saying that she had no right to be loved because she was not a girly barbie babe. She totaly deserved to have them bring in a short-bald-four eyed history teacher that fell head over heels for her, treated her like a queen and loved her just how she was.

Honestly that would make sense. Food is really important in Latino culture but then you have 59379 tias running around making weight remarks at you 😭

Literally, tbh they always bring up important plotlines and topics but ditch them too soon lol

I agree

I feel the same way about the B. Its is a cliche to have her switch genders. Defeated the purpose of her original storyline.

@@HeatherJames88 Exactly! For Unique it made perfect sense. But not for Beiste

And then also there was Becky. She can be quite bitchy there's no trying to make her super nice because she has downs.

I really agree with the Beiste thing. She was like a masculine woman and that is really powerful, showing it is okay. But then she got the trans-storyline, which kind of defeats the purpose of the whole storyline. Because now it kind of says that if you are a masculine woman, you are most likely a man? Disclaimer: omg I hope this isn’t coming off as offensive. I really support any way a person defines themselves, both when it comes to sexuality and gender.

Seconded. I wish that they'd delved in further to Ryder's story, though I liked that Kitty comforted him, and came forward with her own experience.

@@trinaq Me too, I think that storyline would have been so powerful if they developed it in the right way. And I think they show us this version of Kitty that honestly was really good.

@Orion Jean I agree on that, that is the part where they didn't hadle it well, it was good that they show us what Men can think , but bad that we never heard about that situation again, what happened with Ryder, did Sam and Artie regret saying that?, a lot of questions with no answer.

yes i wish they had worked more on this storyline, if you skip this episode it seems that this situation never happened at all. I agree with the comment above and i would like to see artie and sam apologizing to ryder especially sam because everything he said was kind of out of character tbh

Deleting comments doesn't change the truth.

Finn sang "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" to her! It's all okay now. I like to pretend Santana was playing the long game and planning something completely devastating for like a ten year reunion or something.

It shows how much of a hero complex Finn had, like everything he did and said was always pointed as the right thing but really he just came off as a giant asshole. Santana's no angel either but that was HER story to tell, not his. He deserved that slap

Outing someone is a violent act and it should never be acceptable. Ever. Not saying Santana wasn't wrong too, but Finn doing that risked her life

Finn actually did apologize for outing Santana. But even though it was wrong for him to do that, Santana also clearly didn’t learn her lesson until later after about calling him fat & adding more insults rather than apologizing for it. Adding the fact that she slept with him doesn’t help at all.

@@Voldemort99 This is never going to be an issue that ppl end up agreeing on. This would be one of those “agree to disagree “ discussions. But having seen what was written here, I just wanted to add that YES, Santana frequently makes fun of and/or does monologues of insults to ppl who either annoy her or piss her off (see aftermath of Kurt ruining Santana’s proposal to Brittany). However, Finn already went thru the “fag” incident w Kurt in his basement; knows precisely what Kurt went thru in his yrs at McKinley High, both bc he was a part of it & then their parents got married and they became stepbros who, according to Kurt, talked at night; & bc he (Finn) not only goes to McKinley High, he’s one of the top tier ppl in the school as quarterback of the football team & thus is privy to all/much that happens in the high school. As a result, he knows or SHOULD KNOW what the consequences will be if he shouts halfway down a corridor about Santana coming out of the closet and owning up to her relationship w Brittany (I haven’t seen this ep in a while so if the wording is off, I’m sorry, but that was definitely the essence of what he said. And then (while I can’t for the life of me recall the second sentence) he adds one more comment about this before either Santana runs off or the screen changes to something/someone else. The mere fact that one, he was unwilling to help out Kurt while he was being seriously bullied “bc it would hurt his rep” made me extremely unhappy w his character (British understatement) & as it turns out, Kurt had received death threats from Dave that, looking at Dave, certainly seemed plausible or, at the very least, would lead Kurt to believe he was at risk of being beaten to a pulp or raped in an empty bathroom. And we now have ONE DEGREE OF SEPARATION bet Kurt & Finn, so again, he is perfectly aware of how horrible being outed at McKinley can be. Two, to do it by accident is an terrible thing to have done - why wasn’t he more careful - but it’s understandable to an extent. To DELIBERATELY out Santana bc he’s hurt by her never ending insults is beyond the pale. He could have called her a slut, he could have said she was a total bitch that everybody in school hated, there are a million things he could have said that would be mean and vicious in return, probably pretty accurate, and not end up in trouble. But extremely similar to (but likely worse) than that thing in your family that is never brought up in arguments bc it’s just TOO horrible to mention or everybody knows not to talk about it, Finn went that extra mile. And Santana’s loss of her abuela as a result is worse than anything McKinley can dish out. AND she didn’t get the chance to decide WHEN she would talk to her grandmother about this, the timing was forced upon her. Either go back and rewatch that scene and/or find the script of that episode so that you can see for yourself the specific words that spewed from Santana’s mouth and ask yourself: is that worthy of outing somebody in general; outing somebody at the hideous fictional McKinley High; outing somebody at McKinley & INADVERTENTLY but as a result of opening his mouth and saying those words, outing Santana to the greater Lima or outside districts surrounding it by a vicious politician. (By the by, I didn’t hate Finn for the entirety of Glee. I loved it when he & Kurt became real brothers, I really liked him for the first half of the first season, etc etc. It was more of a complicated love/hate relationship. And I basically loved Santana’s character, even tho she was indeed something of a bitch to most ppl, including rarely, but a couple of times, to Brittany & frequently to Kurt, who was my absolute fav character of the show. But they also seemed to develop a frenemy sort of relationship, & Kurt & Brit were friends from the start of Glee so.) I’ll stop writing. But, IMPO, Finn is so wrong in what he did, it’s amazing that Kurt didn’t kill him once he got home. (Yes, Finn is larger & stronger but Kurt would be much much angrier & was so much more intelligent. He could hurt him w’out having a fistfight. [And yes, I do know that saying somebody is more intelligent than Finn is not really saying all that much, since he copied off of Brittany who copied off of Becky.])

But then also had huge shows of racism and rewarded a rapist. Puck raped Quinn, but Quinn winds up with him? THE FUCK?

Me neither. I wished that they'd had a serious discussion over how the situation might be perceived differently had the genders been reversed, but nobody really calls out Sam or Artie for claiming that Ryder is "Lucky."

They didn't handle a lot of their storylines well. Most of them were handled poorly

Definitely not

@@msfriendsfan4ever788 agreed

The majority of serious issues were handled poorly

Like Unique's catfishing that everyone and Ryder forgot about right from the start of season 5?

YES THEY JUST DROPPED THEM. This is literally why glee is problematic

That part.

Worst one I think was after Shooting Star - a school full of kids scared out of there minds got back to smiling in the next episode... Now, I'll go ahead and say that (thankfully) I have never been in a shooting situation of any kind, but even *trying* to imagine the terror shakes me to my core, no way these poor kids would be over it in a few days

@@Velociraptor2000 one of the main reasons for that they rewrote the entire season 5 because of Cory's passing. As much as possible, they don't want to focus that much on the newbies as they will write them off few episodes later. Ryder actually quits Glee Club by season 4 finale but was there on the choir room during season 5 premiere lol

Hello Janine, how are you doing?

@@jameshurst6344 Sorry it took me so long to reply. I am good how are you?

Never seen the show, but as a person with retinitis pigmentosa, how do they cover visually impared people? I kind of want to see it mainly because of darrin Chris since I watched very potter musicals.

Should have fired her!!!! She should have NEVER got all them solos, much better singers than her!!!

@@lisamariegreenaway8693 she was the best part and the best singer on the show.

@@Luckynineteen19 Debatable

@@Luckynineteen19 😂😂😂😂 you've got to be kidding me. Mercedes is better than Rachel in every conceivable way. Especially since she didn't send somebody who threatened her role in the glee club to a crack house.

@@matthewilliamazer 🤣 nope

I concur, Unique was one of the best new additions, and I liked how there was more to her than her gender identity!

Right! Not to mention some women will dismiss confessions like that too, simply because the victim is a male.

@@jessicamcgaughey8551 I am actually reading a book where a male student has accused his female professor of sexually assaulting him and it shows how many people brush it under the carpet or seem to think that isn't possible. It breaks my heart because I know men who've been sexually assaulted or even raped by women and this happened to them as well.

It's heartbreaking and I feel like abuse - including sexual - should not be automatically dismissed because the victim is a guy.

@@empressofawesome7099 exactly,for example look at the whole Amber Heard & Johnny Depp thing. She tried to claim he was the abuser, but it turned out she was the one who abused him, but everyone was quick to believe her and not think that he was the victim because they niece a woman can't possibly be guilty of DV and that a man can't be scared, or manipulated, or forced to remain in a DV relationship like a woman can be

100% it was really crazy.

yeah. Quinn winding up with her rapist was just disgusting to me.

Fr at least Sue cares her student unlike Will who is a creep to his students and favors Rachel and Finn over the others

I think it's mostly because of the scene when Kurt forgives him and when Dave said "Why would you have called me back? You were right. I made your life a living hell for months. And then when it happened to me I couldn't take a week of it." I think we mostly forgive him because Kurt did

You don't have to forget to forgive. You don't have to wear sackcloth forever because you effed up. You grow up, you change for the better, and if you're very lucky, the person you wronged forgives you. Then you *both* can move on with your lives. If the show had both guys moving on or becoming BFFs without confronting their past, you would have a point. But that's not what happened in the show.

@@VeracityLH but it had Blaine dating him!!!!

@@Sba_w ...The guy who cheated on Kurt, got broken up with, then intentionally dated Kurt's former bully to get back at him is not the example you're wanting to use. People liked Dave because he had a deep character that had improved as a person.

Yea i dont get it if i was kurt it would not feel any sympathy like yes id feel sad that he tried to off himself but id also be annoyed especially when my ex fiancée started dating him

Same

THIS ☝🏽

Coolness, talk about superb timing!

They were listening 😂

As somebody who went through a actual school shooting I believed they portrayed it well but at this point I still cried so much thinking of it and I had to watch the episode twice first because I wanted to handle myself for what was going to happen. And second because my mom and I were watching the show and I wanted to make sure everything was good.

Me too, they usually weren't preachy about it, and delivered the messages well.

Not all of them where delivered well and had such a good chance to deliver them right

A lot were done poorly though 😫 I'm about to watch this and I'm curious what's on the list

Yesssss

YES YES YES PLEASE

True, even Santana's coming out was handled poorly

Yes!! I loved The Quarterback is an amazing episode. If the show was ever rebooted I hope they’d do a similar episode to honor Naya.

Me too I wish it was still airing 😢

@@andiflores4638 imagine how amazing and beautiful it would be with this new generation 🥺

@@ru6961 Ikkkk

Clyde McBride would be on there

@@jessicalawrence2867 Jeff from Clarence