Glee like me

You know what I like about those plucky “Glee” kids? They seem to be, by all anecdotal appearances, really good to their fans. Like not just sign-a-few-autographs-while-being-whisked-into-a-nightclub good. But genuinely both interactive and involved good. I think part of it is because they’re young, and their fans are young. And part of it is because they embrace the various technologies and social medias to share themselves with fans – like Twitter and Tumblr. And part of it is because, not too long ago, most of them were just fans too. By and large, it’s a rag-tag group of newcomers who by joining this crazy show about a high school glee club have been catapulted into an insane echelon of fame. I mean, Chris Colfer is just three years out from graduahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifting from high school in a little town outside of Fresno. FRESNO. So when they interact like fans, and sometimes even act like fans themselves of their show and experience, it feels authentic.

So then this little tidbit from The Hollywood Reporter issue on “Glee” particularly struck a chord:

[Lea Michele] is supposed to be on set with her cast, but insists that the little [10-year-old] girl with two fathers wait for her outside the auditorium. Once there, Michele wraps her delicate arms around the girl and asks her about the experience. “How do you feel in school? What did you tell them?” she asks, visibly touched by her character's impact. “You're cool now; you’re like Rachel Berry,” she says to the nodding fan, adding, “I’m so proud of you.”

What has impressed me most is how they’ve welcomed their fans, many of whom are members of some of the very same outsider groups they portray on screen – gays, minorities, theater geeks, you name it. They also seem to understand the import of portraying those groups on screen. From Colfer to Naya Rivera and Heather Morris, the actors take the responsibility seriously and are in fact honored to do so. Just like Lea, they’ve embraced it with open arms. There can be a lot to complain about on “Glee,” but the cast has never been one. (Fine, they need to give Matthew Morrison more to do than stare creepily at the kids while they sing. But you know what I mean.)

UPDATE: This post got mysteriously swallowed by Blogger during its 20+ hour outage and then regurgitated without your previous comments. So I apologize if they vanished. Sometimes, I guess, the series of tubes just gets cranky.