Seriously, the right-wing hysteria about - well, just about everything is wearing thin. There's something so over the top, something so, well, histrionic about John Nolte's take on "Glee," I have to wonder if he's clinically paranoid. It's a plot, aimed at your children! And it's bad business, because it's attacking the fabulously popular Sarah Palin! (Even though, you know, Sarah Palin really isn't all that popular.)
John, honey, I know you work for Breitbart, but surely you must know that the creative, talented kids have always sniped at the dumb cheerleaders. Are you really surprised? Try not to take it so very personally. Take a deep breath and search for your validation within!
From the L.A. Times' Patrick Goldstein:
I'm not the world's biggest "Glee" fan, but from what I'd heard from my 11-year-old's school chums, the musical show is a fun, lighthearted look at a fictional high school glee club in Lima, Ohio. Or, as the San Francisco Chronicle put it, the show is a "quirky, sweet, humorous, non-partisan funfest."
But now the pundits in the conservative blogosphere, always quick to pull the trigger whenever they see Hollywood trying to hypnotize America using its all-powerful left-wing propaganda machine, have raised the alarm about "Glee," citing a disrespectful slam at Sarah Palin in the show's Tuesday night return to the airwaves. As the Newsbusters websitedescribed it, Jane Lynch, who plays a conniving high school cheerleading coach, told two of her cheerleaders: "You may be two of the stupidest teens I've ever encountered. And that's saying something. I once taught a cheerleading seminar to a young Sarah Palin."
"Glee" was already in hot water with the right wing, since the show's creator, Ryan Murphy, had in previous episodes made fun of abstinence education and, as Newsbusters puts it, "tried to normalize teen homosexuality." Apparently on the right, treating gay kids as regular folks, instead of as scary deviants, is cause for alarm.
Not to be outdone, over at Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood website, John Nolte has also weighed in with his usual light touch, claiming that the Palin gag was part of a concerted liberal effort to mesmerize your children with lefty propaganda. Here's his not-quite-so-entirely levelheaded take:
"Glee" is millions of dollars of sound and fury aimed squarely at your children. And as we can now see, the creators are all about getting between you and your kids with their political and social agendas. They know Palin is a growing political force and nothing's off the table when it comes to marginalizing her -- even at the expense of their own show's entertainment value -- even at the expense of audience share.
