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I used to really like Glee...

By Anonymous
Varying interpretations of narratives is the thing that gives any fandom a rich life, but it is also the thing that can destroy it. I have seen the rise and fall of many fandoms, torn apart by shipping wars and storylines that deliberately pit one character against another (I’m looking at you, MCU). However, no fandom has been as violently divisive in recent history as the Glee fandom.

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Glee started as a beacon of inclusivity, where every outsider could find someone they related to in some way. And for a while, it was good. Unfortunately, the showrunners kept trying to find new ways to top their previous work, which transformed a semi-realistic show about a bunch of teenage theatre dorks into a melodramatic fever dream of single-episode gimmicks and every possible relationship problem, but mostly cheating. It did wear on the viewer to have to watch the characters and couples go through similar motions over and over again, like eating the same dry cookies with different colored icing and being told they’re different flavors. Every new scandal and break-up brought a new wave of tweets and Tumblr posts about who was right or wrong and whether they should work it out or end it for good. Everyone had their favorites to defend, and one of the most voracious character fandoms was that of Blaine Anderson.

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Here is where we get into a narrative with varying interpretations. In the fourth episode of the fourth season, “The Break Up,” the audience is shown some strain between Blaine and his boyfriend Kurt, who moved to New York City at the beginning of the season to pursue his dreams, a move Blaine encouraged. While Kurt is busy at his new job as an intern at Vogue.com, he ends up ignoring several of Blaine’s calls in exchange for working and networking. This results in Blaine making a surprise trip to New York City, a happy occasion until Blaine delivers the news that he cheated on Kurt. He begins with the typical mess of apologies and claims that it didn’t mean anything, trying to soothe his upset boyfriend. When that doesn’t really work, he decides to switch tactics a bit.

I needed you. I needed you around and you weren't there. And I was lonely. And I'm...I'm really sorry.

This line is a bit of a hinge point for where fans fell in interpreting this narrative. Die-hard fans of Blaine (and the ship Klaine) saw this as an explanation, or even a removal of blame. He made a mistake and should be forgiven. Blaine didn’t mean to cheat, but he was lonely. It was all Kurt’s fault anyway, so Kurt shouldn’t be angry. Kurt cheated before, so Blaine has a freebie. These are all arguments that were made by Blaine fans on Tumblr.

Needless to say, I had a different interpretation of the narrative. As Kurt pointed out in the very next line, he was also lonely and had opportunities, but he didn’t act on them. This reinforces the standard that cheating is entirely the fault of the person who cheats. If a relationship is healthy, then a couple should be able to talk about things like feeling neglected before seeking comfort elsewhere. The ignoring of calls was contained to a single episode, likely less than a week, which may seem like forever in high school terms, but is really not that long. There is also the fact that Kurt was able to name a specific person who was Blaine’s likely partner in this incident, someone that had spent the previous season blatantly pursuing Blaine for sex with Blaine doing little to deter him. This is in contrast to Kurt’s incident of cheating, a single episode of slightly flirty but mostly innocent texts from someone he met at a music store, which resulted in Blaine dramatically calling Kurt out in song in front of all of their friends.

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Taken all together, this paints a very different picture. If a viewer only watched “The Break Up,” or was the type of fan who believed Blaine could do no wrong, their interpretation of the narrative could easily have been more Blaine-positive and possibly even Kurt-negative. However, a viewer with a longer memory for past episodes and a less character-biased approach probably had a more Blaine-negative interpretation of the narrative. In a fandom full of vehemently passionate people, this division in interpretations caused another crack in an already fractured fandom, one that mostly imploded before the end of the show and left its scars on the ones who spent their time there.

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