Practicum 5 - Kasi

A major theme of this season of Glee has been bullying and how openly gay character Kurt Hummel deals with harassment from his peers because of his sexuality. (SPOILER ALERT!) Last week's episode ("Furt") ended with Kurt stating his intent to transfer schools because he couldn't take the constant abuse anymore. I decided to check out the comments section of the wiki page on this episode to see how people reacted to the story line taking this direction.

Kurt is a character that many young people can relate to, at least partially. I wasn't surprised to see that people took Kurt's situation very literally, and it launched a lot of conversation within the community. However, I was kind of shocked that so many of the comments expressed anger that Kurt was taking up too much screen time. Others were mad that he would be competing against his old team at regionals.

Although people seem to perceive the show very realistically in general, there seems to be a disconnect in how issues brought up in the show relate to real life issues and experiences. One would think that the community would commend Glee for taking the time to acknowledge and open up a discussion about bullying, especially after the recent teenage suicides. Unfortunately, most of the posts were dedicated to bashing the story line or the character. I responded to a user's post that respected Kurt's decision in hopes of sparking more positive, and potentially more meaningful, discussion.