As the title of this week is Millennial genre’s: Musicals. I can’t help but wonder…where did this phenomenon come from?

Maybe it started somewhere between the popularity American Idol and the reality musical, or perhaps “ you’ve got the music in me” from High School Musical. Both use music to touch the hearts and maybe even minds of viewers, but with the knowledge that it is the MILENNIAL generation that is watching. Music has become an integral part of TV we watch, when it isn’t there we wonder what’s wrong. If I had seen The OC without its iconic opening song, I don’t think it would’ve caught on. It’s a bit of nostalgia infact hearing “ California, here we come.”  In fact, I think some people may even argue they live their lives to a daily soundtrack. And I’m not even kidding. With iPods and iPhones you not only have your phone with text messaging capabilities, but YOUR MUSIC as well. The age of the CD player is over and the age of digital music have taken over. Imagine what the Von Trapp family could’ve done with that as they sang across Europe in The Sound of Music. My millennial imagination runs wild…

So about Glee: a new kind of musical experience. I admit, it took me a while to catch onto the whole Glee phenomenon. Why? Because it felt too clichéd and I associated it with High School Musical too much. But then I realized it was not created by Disney, and therefore wouldn’t take a similar path. And eventually someone convinced me that I actually am one of those people who frequently bursts into song and therefore needs to watch the show. I tried it, and after a few episodes and a lot of witty comments from Jane Lynch I was sold. Yes, the singing is quite good, but I think the satire is better, the wit is the real driving force. Maybe I’m completely reading the show wrong, but it seems to pose a self awareness at some of its seeming “after school special” messages or politics. It is this exaggeration on addressing issues that I think has the greatest effect. We stop and think, why are we beaten over the head with this? Perhaps there is something inherently true. It overtly plays to the stereotypes: the popular jocks versus the losers in glee club. As is expressed clearly in the Pilot episode.  As in the Hildebrand essay, and I certainly agree Glee “[operates] outside the conventions of realist plausibility, but it nonetheless makes attempts at social relevance”.  We know that the situations aren’t really that black and white. But boy don’t we want them to be, which is why Glee tries to push for representational equality. In episode 4, Kurt, the clearly identified gay character tries out and makes the football team, the cheerleader gets pregnant, and one of the ethnic members of the Glee club gets a better part than the white girl. OMG look at all of this social progress! Even the latest episode that just aired last night (the 19th), acknowledges the fact that Mercedes is a talented enough singer, but just doesn’t get the stardom she deserves. As if the episode poses an awareness of its own faults. But sadly we learn, its only one episode and after 40 minutes of enduring this challenging of norms, they will go back to normal. For as Doty states, “the first season because it trafficked in the worst kind of United Colors of Benetton liberalism. Kurt, Mercedes, and Artie were consistently used to create a colorfully diverse narrative and musical background for the straight, white, able-bodied characters. Sure, they occasionally got a “big scene” or a solo, but these stood out because of their scarcity”. The Original Song episode shows us that only the white characters get the real spotlight, and their issues are the ones that matter and the ones that effect the other members of the Glee club. And thus, what we notice are the gaps that are left when those minority characters don’t return to stardom, because they were quite good at it. Glee is a strange breed: it presents popular culture, gives us music to sing to, provides witty bits, presents us with a more diverse cast only to put them in the back row immediately. And what we find is we like when ALL voices are heard. That is a more millennial harmony we recognize.