The absolutely evil face of a bald by 30, Extraordinarily Ordinary, Scared Boy, who sweats too much. So a few weeks back when checking my usual assortment of blogs and news sites, I noticed that everyone from AfterElton, to Gawker, to NPR was talking about the “tune in for the very special episode” of Glee that dealt with Bullying.
Though I'm Johnny Come Lately and always late for these things I do have some thoughts on this episode so here goes. At this point I figure everybody and their grandmother has seen the scene where Kurt has a confrontation with Dave Karofsky his chief Tormentor and Bully and in a rather intense scene they share a uncomfortably awkward and life altering moment.
With this scene the flood gates opened, and I've read every comment from people taking joy in Dave being closeted, and hoping he commits suicide, because they want to see a horrible bully get his, to shipping him and Kurt together as a couple. As for me all I can could feel was two things. Amazement at the great acting job that both Max Adler and Chris Colfer pulled off, and sympathy. This scene revealed why Dave is the particular type of prick he is. He's drowning.
When I was younger I almost drowned. I was trashing and kicking and panicking and it took 5 or more people to rescue me. My panicked response made me a danger to anyone who came near me (I almost ending up drowning both myself and my sister during this incident.) As someone who's almost drowned I recognize and remember the panicked mindset and actions. Dave Karofsky looks like a drowning man to me.
Even without a ocean around for miles in Ohio, Dave's lashing out and trying to not deal with his own sexuality by harassing Kurt is a desperate person grasping at straws, lashing out and like me becoming a danger to everyone around him. Watching this gives me a strange kind of sympathy for him.
Dave doesn't get sympathy because he's a saint nor is he unworthy of getting comeuppance. I think Dave quite frankly needs to be punched in the face, if it will get him to stop his bullying and anything that Kurt does to protect himself within reason is valid. Dave is dangerous, cause he'll do anything not to be exposed as the scared, frightened alone person he is.
It does not help that the one time when he lets his guard down he is ultimately rejected (rejected with good reason by Kurt mind you, but still a torturous thing for anyone to go through especially a emotionally desperate and confused person like Dave.) and whimpers like a injured dog before walking away a bit more broken and dangerous than before.
His struggle and personality is a bit like watching another sitcom gay teen footballer Riley”Try Hard” Stavros from the Show Degrassi (watching Riley's attempts at being heterosexual on the show will fully explain the “Try Hard” nickname.)
Unlike Dave Karofsky, Riley doesn't have another gay student to interact with especially one as open as Kurt. But like Dave his behavior is violent, volatile and self destructive a danger not only to himself but to anyone who might accidentally set him off. Unlike Dave however his behavior doesn't extend to bullying other gay students (though his personality did allow for it.)
Dave Karofsky's bullying of Kurt is now a major part of the story line and that has me a bit worried. My sympathy for Dave does not excuse his bullying (Like I said if Dave got punished for his bullying I'd be fine with it.), but depending on the way the bullying story is handled, it will scapegoat his character as a villain and not deal with a major problem in both the show and real life and its that bullying is often a deliberately ignored institutional practice and not just the work of a few bad egg students.
While I do have problems with Glee, I also find it to be an incredibly enjoyable show, with great music, witty banter, and some great comic performances. In tackling bullying its heart is in the right place. One of the problems I have is one many critics cite and that in its handling of many subjects it thinks its more progressive than it actually is being.
The reception of a serious anti bullying message can be made difficult when factors like tone and a false sense of progressive merits, create a hypocrisy in how certain students are depicted. We have to look no further than the Glee club where some of the biggest bullies on the show are present.
Puck the “bad boy” from the football team is a regular participant in the dumpster dumping/slushy flinging that happens to kids in the hallways. The first episode he tries to convince Finn to roll a port a potty with Artie, who is permanently crippled and in a wheelchair, to show his loyalty to the football team over the Glee club. If we are going to view Dave as a Bully, then why not Puck ?
Is it because of the level of bullying ?
Is it because throwing kids into dumpsters is any better than pushing them into lockers?
Is it whom is being bullied with some people being more worthy of bullying than others ? (If that's the case I suggest you ask any old school Degrassi Fan of how Jimmy ended up in a wheelchair and take it as a cautionary tale.)
Part of what bullying does is that it kills the victim's spirit. A blogger whose name I cannot remember described their bullying experience as being, “ground to the point where you associate the very sound of human joy/laughter, with your humiliation.” Dave's assault on Kurt definitely has more of a physicality to it than the constant slushy throwing and throwing kids into dumpsters, but it falls into the same soul killing category as all the other acts of bullying on Glee.
If Dave is ultimately going to be punished and admonished for his bullying, which he should be, why not call out Puck, or Santana, or Sue Sylvester (especially Sue Sylvester who despite being slightly less evil in the 2nd season still bullies both kids and adult coworkers is the most major part of her characterization.) or even Finn, because part of the reason why Dave is a Bully is that he's also been shaped by bullying and from what we've seen of this high school none of the administration or staff does anything about it (a fact that Kurt calls Mr. Schuester on in this episode.).
In the first season when we see Dave splash a slushy in Finn's face they have a little exchange where Dave states as a hockey player and thus lower on the jock hierarchy, he was subject to harassment by Finn and the other football players and he's exacting revenge.
Later on in the ½ half of the first season Puck placing himself back on the high school hierarchy is done by him lining geeky kids up to shove into dumpsters after he regains his “mojo”.
Sue Sylvester constantly bullies not only the kids but the adults in the school.
With so much bullying present in the school that is just treated blasé by the administrators, and part of life by students, Dave while still responsible for his own actions is also operating in a system, that at best is criminally negligent to incidents of bullying. Why wouldn't he think that he could get away with it ??
To the credit of Glee's Dave's behavior does fit two of the patterns of real life bullies, they do it for social status and they usually tend to be bullied at some point as well. What makes Glee tackling this subject matter so iffy in my book is that it often presents bullying as a source of comedy for them to now seriously deal with it with the previous tone established presents difficulties. Their hearts are in the right place and if we are lucky the aspect of the shows creators that is capable for much cleverness and some genius will shine through in depicting the relationship between Kurt and the unfortunate, dangerous victim of drowning known as Dave Karofsky
