Glee and the Jews

Alright, I'm kind of obsessed.  My friend Kelly and I have started Gchatting through whole episodes.  But I will admit that I never anticipated feeling intense tribal pride while watching Glee.  But last night's episode was about Sue's (Jane Lynch, as the deranged head cheerleading coach) attempts to break up the kids by making herself a champion of diversity, and I'll be damned if the show didn't have me doing a fist-pump for its depiction of Jews.  Here's why.  Up until now, Glee's lone (male.  Rachel may be Jewish, but the fact that she has two dads has been far more of a diversity marker for her.) Jew has been this guy:



And while, as a DC denizen and a recovering high school debater, the line "the independent polling company in my Dockers has determined you're the hottest girl in this school" cracked me up, I would kind of prefer some cooler representation of my (nominal) people, you know?  So to my delight, it turns out that everyone's favorite bad-boy-pool-cleaning-football-playing crooner, Puck, is actually Noah Puckerman, and a member of the Tribe.  Not that I mind having the blogger-wannabes in our camp, but we want the potential Kevin Youkilises as well.

And more broadly, I thought this show was a decent step in the direction of demolishing Sadie's argument at Jezebel that the show is a cliche-ridden bore.  Mercedes (the African-American girl) is a dentist's daughter.  Rachel (the diva) is capable of helping other people, even putting her mad storming out skills to the use of others.  Sue may be impossible, but she does love teaching.  Glee is smart enough to be playing a long game, even underneath the candy coating.  I hope Sadie, and other haters so thoroughly demolished by Mercedes, stick around to see that game to completion.