Sam and Blaine, and what friendship is and isn't

[wowbright]

I posted some meta about Sam and Blaine on tumblr and thought I would repost here because I usually post my Deep Thoughts over here first.

Does this mean I am making the dark, irreversible slide into tumblr addict? Oh, no.

(There are mixed metaphors ahead. Beware.)

----

So, as the first inklings of Sam-Blaine friendship appeared this season (okay, maybe they started to appear last season, but if so, I am oblivious), I was excited about the opportunity for growth that a real friendship with someone other than Kurt might afford Blaine.

(Maybe I should have also been thinking of the benefits of friendship to Sam, but I wasn't. So sue me.)

At the end of 4.03, I was both moved by Sam's declaration of Wolverine-Wolverine friendship with Blaine, and disturbed by his apparent need to point out that Blaine is gay in the cool way, not in the fashion-obsessed, soprano, bitter (the sum of all these adjectives is "queeny/feminine") way that Kurt is.

Between 4.03 and 4.04, I let that sit. I hoped that Blaine could accept the good in Sam and set aside the bad. (Blaine could be offended on Kurt's behalf and his own behalf, but refuse to take the statements personally, because Sam is a work in progress who can, I believe, become more enlightened as more light is shone upon his flaws.)

After watching 4.04 and seeing how awfully alone Blaine felt, I realize my hopes were a little grand. Sam's poorly phrased and effemiphobic offer of friendship didn't build a connection between himself and Blaine - it erected a wall between them.

It stuck a knife into Blaine's issues with passing, and twisted it around. It told Blaine that Blaine was okay as long as he was the cool, bro-type gay, and not the fashion-loving, celebrity-obsessed, girly-sensitive kind.

But Blaine is both. And so, to maintain his friendship with Sam, he needs to hide half of who he is. 

And so, even as Sam extends the offer of what Sam thinks is authentic friendship, Blaine hears, "You are not good enough. I do not love you for who you are. It's very possible that no one does, and no one ever will."

Blaine's friendship with Sam not only fails to ameliorate his feelings of loneliness - it makes those feelings worse. So we find him in episode 4.04, more lost and wandering than he was in 4.03.

Sam is not the enemy. But he's not the hero, either.

Comments

[frumiousme.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, I'm reading a fic that explores this. I think you see this effemiphobia too in the separations of kurt and Blaine into gendered groups in season 3.

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

Oooh! Link me to the fic! Then I won't have to write it!

(I mean, please.)

[vanessawolfie.livejournal.com]

I read this on tumblr and I think I even 'liked' it on there, but I wanted to say that I agree with this. SO MUCH!

(and now for school, the only thing keeping me from being on the internet 24/7.)

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much! I love LJ because it can be so much easier to interact on it sometimes. Because if someone likes something on Tumblr ... well, how do you know that they didn't just click their mouse on accident, or that they weren't just bookmarking to read it later but never got around to it? ;)

[nevcolleil.livejournal.com]

I hadn't thought of this, but it makes sense. I got rerally excited about a Sam/Blaine friendship too and was disappointed not to see it go anywhere in 4x04. I've been trying to write Blam friendship fic since then to cope with all the unpleasantness of that ep but it keeps turning decidedly more than friendly :p

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

I WOULD TOTALLY READ THAT.

Because Sam is totally educable, in more ways than one. ;)