Glee's Kurt Gets His First Gay Kiss... (spoiler alert!)

So in last night's episode of Glee, "Never Been Kissed" (you can watch it here) Kurt (played by Chris Colfer) finally gets kissed... only it's not what you might expect. It's the episode that really focuses on his being harassed and bullied for just being himself, for just being Gay, and shows a number of times where he's slammed into the lockers by a huge football jock/bully - it's physical intimidation that's shown as habitual, and when Kurt finally confronts this guy about what he's so scared of that he has to be so horrible to him, the jock kisses Kurt!

The Gay Kiss

Kurt's reaction

...basically revealing that the source of this guy's homophobia is his own conflict about being attracted to guys - his own conflict about being gay and closeted - his own self-hate.

It's a plot that's pretty much ripped from headlines, what with stories of all these extreme homophobes in our political and religious landscape who have been revealed to be Gay. Remember George Rekers? Larry Craig? Roy Ashburn? Ted Haggard?

Maybe we're approaching a time when anyone who is too homophobic, too upset about gay people will actually be seen by our larger culture as probably just another closeted, self-hating gay man, trying to throw us off the scent.

Like I've said before, I think we're approaching The Queen in Hamlet Tipping Point:

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

(Act III, scene 2, line 230)

We've seen it in our political world. In our religious world. And now, we've seen it on Glee.

We also saw what I'm guessing is a potential boyfriend for Kurt, Blaine (played by Darren Criss)

Kurt's New Boyfriend?

and that's pretty exciting. After all, with more than ONE out gay teen on TV, it takes the pressure off of Kurt to be the perfect representative for Gay people. The more representations there are of GLBTQ Teens in the media, the more of our stories are heard, the less powerful the stereotypes become - and then Kurt can just be Kurt. Fabulous Kurt. With the new hot boyfriend.

Okay, I'm a Gleek.

A Gay Gleek.

And I can't wait to see what happens next. What did you think of the episode?

Namaste,
Lee