Teachers on TV: Analyzing Will Schuester

First off, if you have never watched the TV show Glee, you are missing out! So. Good.

I just recently got hooked on Fox’s huge hit Glee, a musical show that follows the trials, tribulations, and ultimately successes of high school Spanish teacher Will Schuester and his glee club, New Directions. Glee follows a time-honored tradition of teacher portrayals in the media. While there are some aspects of the show that seem to depart from the norm, a closer look reveals that the same problematic value systems underlie the character of Will Schuester as underlie almost every teacher character portrayed on film or TV.

To begin with, Schuester fills the stereotypical archetype of the teacher who fights for the underdog. In the Glee universe, being a member of glee club is something akin to being a leper. The glee students are routinely taunted, teased, and harassed via getting Slushies thrown in their faces for their participation. The kids are unusually talented and clearly VERY good at what they do, but they feel ashamed of their gifts because their peers do not value them. Enter Mr. Schuester. Mr. Schu, as the kids call him, is constantly trying to instill a sense of pride and confidence in them. He also is constantly going to the table for them, fighting the conflicted principal whose main concern seems to be finances and the scheming, conniving head cheerleading coach who wields an enormous amount of power in the school. As the advisor and director of several arts groups at my own school, I really appreciate the depiction of how hard it can be for arts-based programs to get the same support and recognition that sports teams get. However, the depiction of Schuester constantly fighting with admin and the kids is highly unrealistic. It adds to the dramatic tension in the show but does little to accurately show the difficulties teachers experience when they are trying to run an activity or athletic program.

I do give Glee credit for trying to show other aspects Will’s life outside of school, such as his relationship with his wife, except that the portrayal actually reinforces stereotypes rather than challenge them. Will’s marriage is on the rocks, in large part due to his devotion to his students. His wife even decides to fake a pregnancy to stop him from giving up on their relationship. Although I haven’t watched the whole season and thus have no idea how this plotline wraps up, I Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
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uld be willing to bet that Mr. Schu will sacrifice his personal life for these kids. While it tries to show that teachers have lives outside of school and does explore—albeit in a humorously overblown way—the difficulties and stresses of balancing work and home, Glee ultimately sticks to the same story: Teachers must sacrifice any semblance of a personal life in order to be successful with their students.

Another wrench in Will’s relationship with his wife is the adorably neurotic guidance counselor Emma, who is friends with Will. Again, I appreciate that Glee is trying to depict collegiality between teachers instead of setting up Schuester as alone without any support, but the crux of Will and Emma’s relationship is definitely the romantic tension. We do see scenes of Will going Emma to discuss an issue with a student or with the glee club, but it is abundantly clear that the purpose of the scene is to further accentuate the tension between Will and Emma, not accurately depict collaboration between colleagues for the benefit of a student or group of students. The other colleague relationships don’t do much better: Will is friends with the gym teacher, who is marrying Emma. The gym teacher is pretty much only there to act as a foil in Will’s relationship with Emma. He’s also portrayed in a stereotypically negative way: the big, dumb used-to-be jock who’s ironically out-of-shape for being a gym teacher. Then, there’s Sue Sylvester, the cheerleading coach and de facto villain of the show. She plays the drill sergeant stereotype with such gusto and dead-pan hilariousness that it’s impossible not to recognize the stereotype. Jane Lynch does a great job of making fun of the stereotype, but it is still a stereotype. Sylvester is also set up mainly as a foil to Schuester: where Sylvester is mean, pushy, demanding, and unrelenting, Schu is kind, concerned, empathetic, and supportive. It makes for very entertaining TV, but it does nothing to accurately portray the professional collaboration that happens between teachers every day in schools across the country.

While I still love Glee and will continue to watch it for its entertainment value, I don’t agree with its perpetuation of teacher stereotypes. The show has been hailed as original and inventive. What would be original and inventive is a portrayal of teachers that challenges the stereotypes and accurately reflects the important work we do every day.