tiger_cub

Glee thought post....


The entire plot with Rachel and her bio mom Shelby annoyed me, but I think I only really just put together why.

Now, don't get me wrong, I thought Idina was brilliantly cast. She really could be Rachel's mom. The resemblance is uncanny.

However, that aside, this plot was terribly forced and unnatural, and I think that's what in essence bugs me about it. It was established that Rachel's mother was a paid surrogate. She was raised by her gay dads.

Then the writers seemed to want to do an "adopted child" story. So they had Rachel develop this inexplicable insecurity about why her mother gave her up. There was no question there. She knew exactly why her mother didn't keep her.

But the writers wanted to do this, so they gave her the whole abandonment issue package. And to really sell it, they gave Shelby all these feelings of remorse which, while not implausible, added to this misapprehension that there was some choice or decision in giving Rachel's fathers custody.

(I won't even get into Shelby's whole "oh, you're a teenager, I want a baby, so good luck, c ya" nonsense)

Now, I know for certain the writer's did not intend this, but the side-effect of this little plot is that they make the case that gay parents are inferior to het parents. Rachel was suddenly very lacking in a female rolemodel and it was indicated she had felt this lack her whole life.

This reminds me of the HP: GoF movie where they accidentally suggested girl wizards were inferior to boy wizards because the only girl that managed to get into the tournament was from an all-girl's school, and once in she was useless. Again, I am certain that was not the intended meaning, but the conclusion is inescapable.

So I am not going off on a tear about how Glee is homophobic or anything because I am not insane (at the moment) but I do think that the writer's should have thought this through better. They certainly now owe us some spectacular parenting moments from her fathers.