After a week of relentless attacks on
Glee's 90-minute Born This Way episode, gay media
watchdog GLAAD has come to the show's defense.
By Glee standards, Tuesday's
Lady Gaga-inspired episode included an extra dollop or two of gay
storyline for good measure, but by network television standards it
was off-the-charts gay.
In the episode, gay student Kurt
Hummel, played by Chris Colfer, returns to McKinley High after
closeted football player Dave Karofsky, played by Max Adler, is
blackmailed by Santana, played by Naya Rivera, to stop bullying Kurt.
Santana confesses to Dave that they play on the same team. An
emotional Kurt agrees to leave the Dalton Academy Warblers – and
his new-found boyfriend Blaine Anderson, played by Darren Criss –
after Dave caves in to Kurt's demand for him to organize a chapter of
PFLAG.
Blaine sends off Kurt with an emotional
rendition of Somewhere Only We Know. And
wearing a t-shirt that says “LIKES BOYS,” Kurt steals the show's
final and pivotal Born This Way
number.
The episode
prompted Dan Gainor, vice president of conservative media watchdog
Media Research Center to fume to ABC News: “This is [creator] Ryan
Murphy's latest depraved initiative to promote his gay agenda.”
Bryan Fischer of
the Christian conservative American Family Association (AFA) called
the show “product placement” in an appearance on Houston's Fox
affiliate.
“[A]dvertisers
purchase time on television programs because they know that what
people see on television influences their behavior and influences
their choices,” Fischer said. “We should not glamorize it [gay
relationships] anymore than we would glamorize intravenous drug use.”
(The video is embedded in the right panel of this page.)
In a statement
released to The
Hollywood Reporter, GLAAD President Jarrett Barrios defended
the show's content.
“Fair-minded
Americans are tuning in by the millions to inclusive shows like Glee
and Modern Family because they don't care whether someone is
straight or gay – what they care about is seeing characters and
stories they can relate to. Most Americans today support full
equality for their gay and lesbian friends, family and neighbors.
That anti-gay critics continue to be out-of-touch with the majority
and can't see that fact is no surprise.”