Glee/ Gossip Girl : A feeling of Social Vertigo

La version française suit!

A compared study with a political focus.

It’s rather interesting to watch Glee just after Gossip Girl. It gives a feeling of social vertigo. Two truths of modern America: in one hand the young socialites of Manhattan who fight for domination and on the other hand the kids from Ohio trying to survive high school through music.

For the first one the future is brilliant and the only danger is to become second best, for the others the future is bleak and compromised by social, physical handicap, ethnic, economic, and geographical background.

If the pleasure in watching Gossip Girl mainly came from the Choderlos de Laclos perversity, Glee’s comes from eruptions of campness, bad taste, bad behaviour, colours, emotions and great humour. But if we know that our New Yorkers will always fall on their feet (like the well trained cats they are) the Glee kids might finish like the adults of the show: teachers in the same school they went in (at best), alcoholics or unemployed …and they’re aware of their fate.

It’s always interesting to see how America has always advertised herself as a country of equal opportunities but actually created from the beginning aristocracies snobbier than the European one ( I remind you that snob comes from the French “sans noblesse” : without noblesse)!

Glee is also about competition but the contest is compromised by the desire of Mr Schuster (picture below) to educate and I do think that it is the first time in a TV show that a teacher is actually trying to make his students evoluate to more tolerance, acceptance, and empathy toward those considered less lucky! (I love the episode where they all experience what it means on a daily basis to be in a wheel chair, and also the one where they meet the deaf kids who teach them a beautiful singing lesson).

In its third season Gossip Girl is now taking an interest in politics, but the vision of show is not about ideas and ideologies but nice personalities .Trip Van Der Bilt (who actually looks like a young JFK(picture below)) is supposed to be a good politician because is a good person (This vision of politics is so childish and naïve). He was of course helped by the money and contacts of his top class family. After all I read the other day that a huge part of the American congressmen (women) are billionaires. On the High school scale the political pretences of the show worked out but on the world scale, it’s overly naïve and thus boring. After all what we love in Gossip Girl is the shallowness!

There is something else on which Glee and Gossip Girl kids are not equals: Sexuality.

In the deep and old fashion America where the study of science is compromised by religion, either you stay a virgin, either you get pregnant and if you do, no one will suggest that you might, by getting an abortion, save your own future. In Gossip Girl the kids have sex and no one gets pregnant ( they heard of the pill, and of condoms)!

If Glee kids wanted to have the same opportunities than Gossip Girl’s kids they would need their parents to make huge financial sacrifices or to get deeply indebted which they probably already are. Or as Vanessa’s mother (from Gossip Girl) vaguely suggested: fight for good public universities. Maybe they should go to France before Mr Sarkozy finishes ruining a system where intelligence and talent are more valued than nepotism and money!

To conclud this article I would say that seeing Glee just after Gossip Girl shows How human rights (especially the first article : "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.") and equality of chances are denied by money and a new kind of aristocracy, and that the only one who try for "brotherhood" are those at the bottom of the scale!

Glee/Gossip Girl : Un Vertige Social

Petite étude comparée des idéologies en jeu dans les deux séries.

C’est assez intéressant de regarder un épisode de Glee juste après un épisode de Gossip Girl, cela donne une impression de vertige social. Voici deux réalités de l’Amérique moderne : d’un côté les jeunes élites de Manhattan à qui l’on offre des opportunités extraordinaires dès le lycée (ils sont déjà en contact avec les personnes qui les feront aller loin) et de l’autre les lycéens de Glee qui vivent dans l’Ohio dans un état et un lycée de perdants et dont la seule chance de survie est la musique.

Pour faire une analogie franco française d’un côté vous aurez la jeunesse dorée de Neuilly fils de Sarkozy et autres à qui l’on offre des postes important à un très jeune age, et de l’autre les enfants des classes populaires qui veulent réussir en passant par la Nouvelle Star et Star Academy.

Pour les premiers le future est assuré d’être brillant, et le seul danger pour eux est de n’être que deuxième au lieu de premier ; pour les autres le future est plus sombre et compromis par leur milieu social, leur handicap physique, leur ethnie, leurs ancrage économique et géographique.

Si le plaisir de regarder Gossip Girl vient d’une douce perversité à la Choderlos de Laclos, celui de Glee vient d’éruptions de mauvais goût jubilatoire, de comportements hors normes, des couleurs, des émotions et d’un formidable sens de l’humour. Mais si nous savons que nos new-yorkais retomberont toujours sur leur pattes (comme les chats bien entraînés qu’ils sont), les héros de Glee pourraient finir comme les adultes de la série : professeur dans la même école où ils sont allés (au mieux) alcooliques, chômeurs… et tristement ils en sont conscients. !

Il est toujours intéressant de noter comment l’Amérique a toujours voulu donner d’elle l’image d’un pays donnant à tous l’égalité des chances (le rêve américain) mais que dans la réalité, très tôt s’est constituée une sorte d’aristocratie plus fermée et plus snobe que l’européenne (je rappelle à ceux qui l’ignoreraient qu’à l’origine snob signifie « sans noblesse »)! Les personnages de Gossip Girl sont les descendants de ces familles plus royalistes que les rois !

Glee intègre aussi la notion de compétition sociale qui semble a petite échelle exister dans tous les lycées ou du moins dans toutes les fictions d’adolescents (si tu es blond aux yeux bleus, fort en sport ou cheerleader : tu es populaire ce qui signifie seulement socialement dominant). Mais la compétition est compromise par le désir de Mr Schuster, leur professeur de les éduquer de leur apprendre la tolérance, l’acceptation d’autrui et l’empathie (se conférer aux formidables épisodes où les élèves se déplacent tous en fauteuil roulant, ou bien celui où ils rencontrent les élèves de l’école de sourd qui leurs donnent une magnifique leçon de présence scénique et de chant) !

Dans sa troisième saison Gossip Girl s’intéresse maintenant à la politique, mais l’idéologie se limite à la personnalité de Trip Van Der Bilt (il ressemble à un jeune JFK) qui est supposé être un bon politicien parce qu’il est une bonne personne ! Bien entendu à 26 ans il est déjà congressman grâce à l’argent et aux contacts de sa famille ! Au niveau du lycée les luttes de pouvoir étaient assez pertinentes, mais à l’échelle du monde, c’est d’une naïveté terrifiante et donc extrêmement ennuyeux. Après tout on aime Gossip Girl parce que c’est superficiel !

Il y a autre chose sur lequel les ados de Glee et de Gossip Girl ne sont pas égaux: La Sexualité.

Dans l’Amérique profonde où l’étude de la science est compromises par des idées religieuse d’un autre age soit les filles restent vierges, soit elles tombent enceintes, et si cela leur arrive personne ne leur suggère qu’elle peuvent avoir un autre future que celui de mère fille en avortant. Dans Gossip Girl nos héros ont des relations sexuelles mais ils ont entendu parler de la pilule et des préservatifs !

Pour conclure si les ados de Glee voulaient avoir les mêmes chances que ceux de Gossip girl, ils auraient besoin que leurs parents s’endettent pour qu’ils aillent dans les écoles snob qui semblent les seules à proposer une future décente aux jeunes américains. Ou comme la mère de Vanessa le suggère qu’ils militent pour une université publique de qualité. Peut-être qu’ils pourraient venir étudier en France avant que M. Sarkozy n’achève un système éducatif où l’intelligence et le talent sont plus valables que le népotisme et l’argent !

Lion for lambs by Redford versus Half Nelson by Ryan Fleck

For a week now I've been picking dvds at the video club next door, this is one of the advantages of being sedentary! I have an address which is mine!

Most of the time I consider that a visit to the video club is supposed to lead to an obscure and potentially cult movie, but this club is not old enough, and I've heard or seen most of the stuff they've got so my choice has to be on dealing with lost time and movies I wanted but couldn't see. When that we'll be done, I'll try the dubious ones but my mood and my soul need to be fed now, so I stay in the drama/ intelligent session at the moment.

So last week I saw Southland tales, and I'll definitely talk about it, so stay connected, but what I am intrigued by , right now, is the choice I made yesterday of two very different things expressing similar thesis:

Lions for Lambs by Robert Redford

And

Half nelson by… Ryan Fleck

Dialectics

Lions for Lambs

Lions for lambs is made of three stories related which each others, two of dialogues, and one of action. A journalist is interviewing a senator who wants to promote a new tactic to win the war in Afghanistan, a political science teacher is trying to get a bright student back to class, telling the story of two other students, very promising ones who enrolled in the army, the action part is the story of the intervention in Afghanistan and what is happening to those two promising student professor redford is using in his demonstration.

Of the three the most important part is the one of the dialogue between the teacher and the student. A talented student doesn't want to commit in politics because the game is already played, does this experience comes from life? No only from considerations, and lack of belief that if you pay attention to things the world can change. What is the biggest problem in politics? no one gets involved besides those in love with power, the "failing" of a generation, thour parent's one the sixties, the fact that they became ordinary citizen and that all in all nothing changed, made us just interested in saving our own asses!

The whole film is dialectics, confrontation between two generations 68 and 2008, trying to convince someone to beleive in what another beleive. Most of the "protests" films are, or were about teaching things to ignorant people: what happened etc? The whole goal of Spielberg when he made the Schindler list was to show what shoah has been to Americans but for those who know…

lions for lambs is different, it doesn't say here's what's right, here what's wrong, the whole point, is get involved in what's going on, because politics are not something outside of your life , politics are what's you are making of your life.

On a human scale it also shows how individuals are sacrificed on a day to day basis and how it is easy to get spoiled!

I love the fact that old Robert Redford still whispering in human ears is trying still to wake people up.

This ante universal crisis film seems to predict what is now getting real in our streets! take care of politics if not politics will take care of you!

Half Nelson

Dan Dunn is a history teacher in a ghetto medium school, he's teaching history and tries to write a children book about dialectics. History is made of changes, of confronting forces, and through this motto he's teaching 8th grade children about the big fight for rights of the twentieth century.

But our guy, though extremely talented is fucked up, the feeling of failing leads him to drug use, and abuse, he can't deal with the realities of everyday life, and destroys everything around besides the kids that he's sincerely trying to help.

Drey whose older brother has been imprisoned for dealing drugs discovers her teacher's addiction.

Both teacher and pupil will go on their path to destruction, like two forces fighting and helping each other, the whole film is rythmed by the exposé of kid with document film on the civil rights fights, south africa… The actors are amazing, little Drey react like a kid, and the paradigm of the brilliant but fucked up teacher, demonstrates fantastically how tough it is to be a human being in a fucked up world.

This film is brilliant, not only because the intrigue is, but also because it's filmed like a documentary sometimes, the lighting is beautiful and the story and the levels of interpretations are multiple.

I have to say that it's not depressing; there is such a good energy in it, that you are boosted by this film though it depicts tough events.

Half Nelson is a wrestling pass, isn't it? So teaching is wrestling, life is wrestling! As Redford said in Lions for Lambs: "The decisions you make now bud, can't be changed or with years and years of hard work to redo it, in those years you become something different everybody does, time passes, you get married, you get in debt but you're never gonna be the same person you are now and promises and potential, it's very frail and it just might not be there anymore!"

Strangely Dan is trying to do the same thing that Redford :helping the talented one to change the world but he got lost on his way. In both films there are similarities of dialogues, and I am amazed by the luck that made me chose them both on the same day!!