DUSTIN BRADLEY GOLTZ

12. “ON MY OUR WAY”

Gay Suicidal Logics and Queer Survival

The 2012 winter finale episode for Glee, “On My Way,” [S3:E14] sought to tackle a topical and relevant social issue through an attempted suicide storyline of closeted gay character Dave Korofsky. Suggesting the importance and effect of this episode, the Trevor Project—an organization dedicated to the crisis intervention and suicide preventions for LGBTQ youth—marked a 300 percent spike in calls and web activity immediately following the broadcast of the show (‘Glee’ Suicide, 2012). The surge in calls to the Trevor Project was considered proof of the show’s success and of the prevalence of gay suicidal ideation in our culture. In short, logic presumed that the episode helped broach a complex social issue, bringing much-needed mainstream attention to gay teen suicide. Through this frame, “On My Way” arguably fits within an established lineage of socially relevant minority-based storylines on Glee examining race, gender, sexuality, class, and ability. This chapter asserts the cultural implications of the episode extend far beyond mere awareness of an issue, suggesting the episode works to reify a long established history of what can be termed “gay suicidal logic” (Goltz, 2013). While the treatment of gay suicide in “On My Way” falls short of directly challenging several long-established narrative conventions that operate to the detriment of queer persons, the show sets forth a complicating and complex discourse of queer kinship; how different lives are constructed as grievable, how specific sexual relations are privileged, and to whom we, as an audience, are asked to identify with as “our” own—one of “us.” In order to demonstrate the representational significance of Glee within the discourses of gay representation more generally, and representations of gay suicide most specifically, it is necessary to entertain a hypothetical question: why not Kurt? Although the regular cast of Glee has faced multiple seasons of socially relevant hardship, the show’s writers ventured outside the glee club to narrate and examine themes of gay suicide. In previous episodes, the majority of the social issues on the show are storied through the diverse cast of main characters. The show rarely turns to peripheral characters to explore “an issue,” with the exception of supporting characters whose bodies specifically signify an identity not represented in the main cast (Ex. Becky, Marley’s mother). While Max Adler, the actor who plays David Korofsky, was “thrilled that the writers went there” and praised the importance of

B. C. Johnson & D. K. Faill (Eds.), Glee and New Directions for Social Change, 173–184. © 2015 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved. D.B. Goltz bravery of the show for tackling such an important issue (“Glee” Suicide, 2012), why did the show need to turn to Korofsky to explore gay teen suicidal ideation? What did this turn afford and allow in the narrative? How would it have differed if the show explored this plotline through a regular cast member? With the rare and unique position of having several prominent queer characters to choose from (Kurt, Santana, Blaine), what rhetorical technologies made it necessary to bring in a secondary character to broach this subject? The rhetorical significance of that move opens up a broader discussion of entrenched gay suicidal representation, homophobia, the reification of heteronormativity, and the radical reconfiguration of queer relations being produced through Glee. Although primetime TV has a long history of cramming social issues into single- episode minority issue subplot arcs—where the foregrounded white and straight characters experience short lived encounters with racial and sexual others to resolve/ contain their prejudices (Becker, 2006; Gray 2000)—Glee has defined itself through racial and sexual diversity in casting and storyline representation. It has not shied away from asking its main characters to tackle major social issues (pregnancy, gayness, bisexuality, transgendered experiences, school shooting, teenage sex, drinking, bullying, texting & driving, etc). Although the show launched with the fairly base, sexually predatory, and bumbling older gay stereotype of Sandy Ryerson— the short-lived character whose job is taken over by Mr. Schuester—the show’s main character of Kurt Hummel quickly introduced a complex gay teen character that surely challenged previous gay representations. Kurt was proudly feminine, fashionable, and soulful—mindfully embracing and extending one-dimensional stereotypes. Through sustained development and exploration in the first two seasons, Kurt challenged a lineage of cardboard LGBTQ characters within broader cultural representation that were two-dimensional stand-ins for an “issue” rather than three- dimensional people. Since the second season, the show has introduced several additional LGBTQ characters that varied in masculine performance (Blaine), race and sex (Santana), race and gender performance (Unique), sexual identity (Brittney), and age (Rachel’s fathers). In short, LGBTQ representation was being extended in the way lives were storied, identities were represented, and diversity was considered. This is not to say the mere presence of certain forms of diversity is not limited, subject to critical intervention, and always—in many ways—operating to conform or appeal to mainstream comforts and sensibilities. Still, amidst this negotiation, Glee is actively multiplying and diversifying the once confining and homogenized box of gay representation. Beyond proliferation and variation of representation, Glee has been extremely important in challenging LGBTQ models of representation by pushing against the gay punishment subplot. Emerging in the 1960s, gay identified characters first found their way “out of the closet and into the shadows” (Russo, 1987, p. 122) as morally depraved villains and deviants whom audiences were meant to pity and loathe, if not fear and hate (Fejes and Petrich, 1993; Gross, 2001; Russo, 1987; Seidman, 2002; Walters, 2001). Gayness was written through

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