Howefitz Blog

When I first started watching Glee, I was skeptical. I thought it would be just another teen drama that would send me running to the kitchen sink to deposit my dinner for the sheer sappiness and unbelievability of it.

Glee has sappiness.

Glee is, more often than not, unbelievable.

But there’s something about the show that I did not expect: the positive portrayal of fathers. Or at least, fathers-to-be.

I’d like to focus on two fathers-to-be in particular: Will Schuester and Finn Hudson.

Spoiler Alert: I can’t really write this without spoilers, so if you think you’ll watch the show or haven’t caught up with your DVR or Hulu, go do so now, then come back.

Finn Hudson is the football player who thinks he’s gotten his head cheerleader girlfriend pregnant. Finn is scared out of his mind, but he wants to do what’s right. He sits and thinks about what it would be like to be a father, he’s started naming the kid, but at the same time, he had his own goals and aspirations that he feels like are going to get tossed to the side if he goes along with being a father to the child. Quinn, Finn’s girlfriend, has decided to give the baby up for adoption. Finn is supportive of this, but he’s still struggling with the idea of fatherhood and what that means.

Will Schuester’s wife Terri is pregnant with their son. He can’t wait to face the challenges of fatherhood. He takes on a second job to be able to afford the bigger, better home to raise a family that his wife wants. Early in the series, Terri finds out she’s had an hysterical pregnancy. She wanted to be pregnant so bad, that she had many of the symptoms… without the baby. Terri has approached Quinn about adopting her baby, which is a girl. The plot thickens…

What I like about the show are the unexpected fatherly overtones. Mr. Schuester genuinely cares about his students. He is there for Finn and Quinn as they go through their ordeal, as well as the rest of the underdog Glee club.

There was also a moment where Kurt Hummel, the gay kid, comes out of the closet to his borderline redneck father. His father tells him that he’s known Kurt was gay since he was three, and accepts him the way he is, but still stops to ask if he’s sure…

It’s refreshing to see fathers back in a positive light. After the thrashing we’ve taken the past couple of decades through Homer Simpson, Al Bundy, and even Ray Barone (Ray Romano‘s character in Everybody Loves Raymond, the show’s named after the guy, did he ALWAYS have to be insensitive?!), it’s nice to see the fathers in Glee be the level-headed, somewhat sensible characters.

Glee is full of stock characters (dumb jock, cheerleader, nerd, flaming gay kid that thinks no one can tell…) but there’s a lot of heart here, and an unexpected warm fatherly punch…

This post is brought to you by the wonderful event that is FatherHood Friday. The theme this week is again ‘TV Dads’. Follow all of my Daddy and Mommy blogger friends at Dad-Blogs for more FatherHood Friday goodness…

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