Funerals, shifting loyalties, and growing up - as told by Glee

[wowbright]

A post by crown_of_weeds was getting me all thinky about the wasting away of Kurtcedes, so I went back to Grilled Cheesus (S2Ep3) to see if that's where it all began. I was scrolling through to get to the Kurtcedes scenes, when up popped a still image of two hands, poking out from black trench-coats and clasped together. For a moment, I forgot where I was and thought it was Kurt and Blaine at Pavarotti's burial in Original Song (S2Ep16). Then I remembered where I was, hit play, and realized duh, it was Burt and little Kurt at Mom's funeral. The camera focuses on their hands, Burt's hand over and Kurt's hand under, and then Burt leads Kurt away.

In Original Song, the camera focuses on two hands, poking out from black trench-coats and clasped together, but this time they are Blaine and Kurt's, Blaine's hand over and Kurt's hand under, and they walk off the screen together, neither in the lead.

What immediately popped into my mind was (and please excuse the heterosexism of the quote and of the entire context of the quote; I didn't write the Bible): "a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." (Genesis 2:24 and Matthew 19:5).

I tend to feel sorry for all those poor Bible writers who didn't understand the complexities of human sexuality, so I do them the favor of rephrasing what they wrote so they don't come off as too backward. As a result, how I've long heard this phrase is, "A person shall leave zir parents and hold fast to zir spouse, and they shall become one flesh." *

Contemplating the funeral scenes from Grilled Cheesus and Original Song, all I can think is, "Kurt is leaving his father to hold fast to Blaine." And then I wonder if that's what RIB and the cinematographers and editors were thinking and, holy shit, was that a promise - or at least an implication -  that Kurt and Blaine are endgame?

I'm not saying that the Glee creators were thinking of the biblical quote per se - I'm sure this interpretation of the scenes as a leaving-the-nest story could also work without it.  But I'm pretty sure they must have been thinking something when they paralleled these scenes this way. (And I become more convinced that leaving the nest is exactly what they had in mind when I think of all the bird references in the episode.)

What do you think? (Besides that I need to remove the bible-lenses from my brain?)

* For gay-positive takes on this verse, without gender-neutralization of the contents, see Ruth Loved Naomi as Adam Loved Eve or Letha Scanzoni and Virginia Mollenkott's Is the Homosexual My Neighbor?, pages 81-82. The latter may have saved my life or at least my sanity in high school, so I've got a soft spot for it, even if I'm not a Christian anymore.

Comments

[likeasouffle.livejournal.com]

Just went back and watched these scenes. I think they were DEFINITELY thinking of the 2x03 scene when they did 2x16, especially since Blaine even says "Reminds you of your mom's funeral doesn't it?" He may well have been asking the audience. "GUYS remember Kurt's mom's funeral? Does this remind you of that?" ;)

Interestingly I didn't get the impression that Burt took Kurt's hand and led him away. To me it looked like Burt was leading Kurt, then they clasped hands, and then they walked side by side. (There was very little walking after that point.) There is no walking at Pavarotti's funeral before the handholding, but Blaine is still taking on a kind of caretaker/provider role, as he's the one doing the shovelling. And he's obviously also the one doing the comforting. So the scenes appear to be completely parallel: Kurt is with someone who is caring for him, then they hold hands, then they're side by side walking together.

The first place my mind goes is "Are they saying Kurt is replacing Burt with Blaine, and/or that Blaine is a lot like Burt?" And the answer is pretty much no. In 2x03, Kurt says about the funeral that he wanted his dad to say something to comfort him. Burt didn't say anything, he just took his hand, and that made him feel better. Blaine does a lot of talking at Pavarotti's funeral, and even makes Kurt smile, THEN takes his hand (which I'm sure was still very comforting). So it's like Blaine is even better than Burt because he provides both words and handholding. Or maybe I'm crazy. Either way, Blaine wins at funerals. (Not saying Pavarotti's death was anywhere near as tragic as Kurt's mom's, obviously.)

As far as Kurt and Blaine being endgame, I would not be at all shocked.

Also also, I wonder if they chose to have Blaine fall for Kurt while Kurt is crying over a death just because so many fans fell in love with Kurt during I Wanna Hold Your Hand. They were like "Holy shit Colfer you're pretty when you cry, DO THAT AGAIN." LOL.

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

Colfer is sooooooooooooo pretty when he cries! And at all other times.

I love all the things you say about the scenes - I will now have to watch them 20 more times! (Which is a good thing. Although I wonder about Darren's acting when he does the "we got us out of all this" speech - it seems a little stilted for Blaine and I get a little squeamish. I wonder if that's intentional - Blaine's not sure if this is the right place or the right time to say it, but hell his big mouth won't keep him from saying it anyway - or if it's Darren not having completely adapted yet to close-up [camera] acting. The first time I saw it, I worried that Kurt was thinking, 'No, actually, having you is not better than going to Nationals, and fuck am I sorry to have made you fall in love with me before I realized that, OMG you're so clingy, yeah, I'm just gonna go back to McKinley now and no, we will not be continuing this relationship afterward.' But I could have been projecting too much from my high school relationship/s and how I reacted after I finally got people to fall in love with me. Smirk.)

Yeah, I don't think that they're saying Blaine is like Burt at all (which would be creeeeeeeepy, at least to me, and really not reflect their characters), or even that he's replacing him in Kurt's heart (though I might not have been clear about it above). It's more - we grow up, we find new family, our loyalties expand and shift.

[likeasouffle.livejournal.com]

I agree that Blaine is awkward during that scene, but I don't think it's inappropriate for him to be, so I'll give Darren the benefit of the doubt and assume it's intentional. I'm nice like that. Going to a pet funeral with your brand new boyfriend right after losing a big competition would be pretty awkward. And he made a joke about the GAP to lighten the mood. EVEN MORE AWKWARD. Plus I'm pretty sure the sun was in their eyes.

The first time I saw it, I worried that Kurt was thinking, 'No, actually, having you is not better than going to Nationals, and fuck am I sorry to have made you fall in love with me before I realized that, OMG you're so clingy, yeah, I'm just gonna go back to McKinley now and no, we will not be continuing this relationship afterward.'

LOL BWAHAHAHA. The first time I saw it, I didn't have exactly that reaction, but I remember feeling like Kurt might have been humoring Blaine a bit. I don't know why, but this time I felt like Kurt's smile was genuine, and Blaine's words actually helped. Maybe it's because I know they stay together long-term.

Yeah, I don't think that they're saying Blaine is like Burt at all (which would be creeeeeeeepy, at least to me, and really not reflect their characters), or even that he's replacing him in Kurt's heart (though I might not have been clear about it above).

I don't think it would be creepy necessarily. Kurt loves Burt to bits, and Burt has many excellent qualities. In many ways, Freud was a crack addict, but I think he was onto something with the idea that people often seek out the same positive traits in their partners that they enjoyed in the people they grew up with. But I definitely don't feel like the show has gone to any effort to show similarities between Blaine and Burt. The replacing thing only came to mind because Blaine was comforting Kurt at Pavarotti's funeral and Burt wasn't there. And because of the similarities you pointed out between the handholding shots.

Also I'm a little shocked that there even are similarities. It's like they have continuity or something. I just looked it up, and those two episodes have different directors, but of course the writers and crew and cinematographer and everything were the same throughout the season. So somebody involved was like "Funeral! We've done this before! Lets do a handholding thing again, for the parallels." Go them!

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

I'm starting to think that they're all geniuses, every one of the Glee crew. And that the funeral serendipity was even more intentional than "We need to bury this bird; we've had a funeral before, let's build parallels." I think they thought of building the parallels first, then of having another funeral, then of killing off Pavarotti so they could have a funeral. I could be wrong, but hey, I could be right :)

[likeasouffle.livejournal.com]

LOL I'm such a terrible fan because this possibility didn't even occur to me. I love the idea of them killing off Pavarotti just because they wanted Kurt and Blaine to have a handholding funeral moment. LOL.

[lesley-green.livejournal.com]

This: 'No, actually, having you is not better than going to Nationals, and fuck am I sorry to have made you fall in love with me before I realized that, OMG you're so clingy, yeah, I'm just gonna go back to McKinley now and no, we will not be continuing this relationship afterward.'

TOTALLY WHAT I THOUGHT.

Also, I agree with the shifting focus and types of love and types of family loves and growing up theories. They make me feel things. And think things.

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm not the only one.

My headcanon for Kurt is "all I ever wanted was to be in love, and holy crap now I have to learn how to do it in the day-to-day."

[crown-of-weeds.livejournal.com]

1: I really, really like meeting other people with too much Bible in their brains.

2: http://crown-of-weeds.livejournal.com/32580.html

3: The handfasting interpretation is, I think, exactly right.

4: It's curious that they give it so much thought and planning. It's one of my main arguments for "the writers know what they're doing."

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

1. Yay! You have too much Bible in your brain, too. (Actually, I guess I should be saying "sorry," but for selfish reasons I am saying "yay.")

2. I just read it and I was flailing so much I didn't know what to say. Still don't. Just love that you wrote it.

3. Handfasting. I love that word.

4. And for another biblical reference (and your comment about capitalizing "biblical" struck me, because I used to work for an evangelical publisher and we capitalized "Bible" but lowercased "biblical" - which probably means we weren't evangelical enough, now that I think about it): Noticing that parallel last night, I felt like the scales had fallen of my eyes. I have a profoundly deeper respect for the writers now.

[crown-of-weeds.livejournal.com]

Argh, I think the final picture for that post isn't showing up. WHY LJ, WHY.

And almost all of my respect for the writers started, initially, with what they did with Klaine. And then it didn't make sense to me that they could do this one couple SO WELL and with SO MUCH THOUGHT and not spare any for the rest of their show. Turns out they have the sam approach all around.

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

I saw Kurt and Blaine lying face to face. So I think I saw the picture.

[crown-of-weeds.livejournal.com]

I went in and fixed it. :P

Now I'm debating switching the other picture. Gah. Technology gives me too much power.

[likeasouffle.livejournal.com]

And then it didn't make sense to me that they could do this one couple SO WELL and with SO MUCH THOUGHT and not spare any for the rest of their show.

ME TOO ME TOO THIS THIS THIS.

[crown-of-weeds.livejournal.com]

And then it turned out there WAS continuity! There WAS thought, and coherence, and actual GOOD STUFF underneath all the chaos.

It was AWESOME.

[likeasouffle.livejournal.com]

LOL! I think maybe they just only care about Kurt. Like "Oh shit, we premised this show around this idea of Rachel and FInn being the stars, why did we do that? Argh, we have to make up a plot for Quinn AGAIN?! Laaaaame." And then they got to do a plot about Kurt and they're like "OMG YAY Let's give him relationship stuff and family stuff and bullying stuff and lots of pretty songs and $2000 outfits and fun fun fun!"

[crown-of-weeds.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm glad I don't watch that show. That sounds awful.

[likeasouffle.livejournal.com]

we capitalized "Bible" but lowercased "biblical"

I think this makes perfect sense. Correct me if I'm wrong but: Bible is capitalized because it's the Bible, a proper noun, the name of the thing. Biblical is not capitalized because it's an adjective, relating to the Bible but not the Bible itself. God is capitalized because it's a proper noun/name, godly is not capitalized because it's an adjective. (A god and a bible would also not be capitalized.) Correct? I don't think the Bible is special in this regard, even though it's an inanimate object. If I name my computer the Gatekeeper, it also gets a capital.

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

I'm sure that was the thinking, but there's the counter-argument that "Freudian" is an adjective and it's still capitalized.

Also, I think the reason "godly" isn't capitalized is that it's not actually referring to a specific monotheistic god who often goes by capital-G God. But I suppose it does sometimes, so, okay, I have no idea what I'm talking about.

[likeasouffle.livejournal.com]

LOL. In conclusion, English is stupid.