So I’m currently overseas (Hungary, with the in-laws), and so I’m a little bit behind on the shows that I enjoy watching (South Park, Community, 30 Rock, et al.), and I just got a chance to see last week’s episode of Glee.

When Glee first came out, I remember some positive remarks floating around about how great it was that there was a bigger (plump? fat? zoftig? it’s hard to say) black girl on the show, Mercedes, who seemed confident and body-positive (see the pic above . . . Mercedes is the person in the middle). I certainly agree.

Up until this point, however, the show hasn’t really addressed her size - she was just a big girl with a great attitude - but in a show that’s about the popularity hierarchy of high school in America the subject certainly had to arise at some point. And arise it did.

Home - Try Not to Feel Like You’re There

In an episode about feeling comfortable with where we are in life - with our families (issues of parental death and single parent dating), with our homes (divorcees living alone, throwing out the old and memory-filled), and with ourselves (our sexuality v. parental relationships, our bodies v. society telling us what we “should” look like) - Mercedes is made to feel like she is not right the way she is.

Sue Sylvester, the cheer-leading coach, had recently accepted Mercedes onto the school’s cheerleading team, but when a reporter would be coming to do a story on her squad, she insisted that everyone slim down more than usual, and demanded of Mercedes a 10 lb. loss. To my own viewing horror, Mercedes, like all of the other girls, consented. I cared not for the other girls as they were meant to portray our obsession with weight loss and thinness and our acquiescence to such demands. The Coach is, indeed, the embodiment of these unfortunate societal preoccupations, which no one doubts the show is portraying as negative because, despite being hilarious, Coach Sylvester is also evil incarnate, the foil of all that is good on Glee.

And thus, Mercedes effectively starves herself. She even drinks a lovely concoction of water, syrup, Ipecac, and sometimes sand (inter alia that I can’t recallia), a drink that Coach Sylvester herself came up with. Quote of the episode: “I haven’t had a solid meal since 1987.” Eventually, Mercedes sees everyone as giant food items and passes out, only to find herself consoled in the nurse’s office by an ex-cheerleader, once-popular, now-pregnant girl (also in the Glee Club with her) and totally rethinking her approach to food.

Home Is Where the Heart Is

In what was one of the most honest talks about the importance of eating healthfully that I’ve ever heard, Quinn, said ex-cheergal, told Mercedes that ever since becoming pregnant, she’s eaten everything for the baby that she knows the baby needs and deserves. Why, she asks, could I not treat myself with the same respect? Eating for two really changes your relationship with food, she tells Mercedes and us.

Mercedes, realizing that she was not being herself but succumbing to the pressures of others, gets up (to the Coach’s surprise) at the pep-rally when the reporter is there and talks about how people have been made to feel - fat, zit-faced, ugly, marginalized, uncool, etc. - and then she begins singing “Beautiful.” Here are the opening verses:

Every day is so wonderful
And suddenly it’s hard to breathe
Now and then I get insecure
From all the pain, feel so ashamed

I am beautiful no matter what they say
Words can’t bring me down
I am beautiful in every single way
Yes, words can’t bring me down, oh no
So don’t you bring me down today

Now, I can’t say that associating “fat” with the other terms mentioned is what I want being thought of along with fat. However, we have to respect Mercedes’ sentiment: that it’s not what we actually are/look like (or how that would be described) but the way others are making us feel about ourselves and how making other people feel bad about themselves for who they are are wrong.

The rest of the episode does a nice job with these concepts as well, but I’ll leave it to you to watch and enjoy.

P.S. And considering the way FOX rejected positive plus-sized portrayals of lingerie-clad ladies in a recent Lane Bryant commercial it’s amazing that this show actually appeared there!

Do you watch Glee? What do you think of the show and what did you think of this episode, “Home?” Looking forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments below!

As an historian, Jay understands the degree to which our aesthetic judgments are shaped by our cultural surroundings, and he has studied and written about the importance of rights, respect and acceptance for all people. Jay is a member of the Association for Size Diversity and Health.