Atrios and Lemieux don’t have much nice to say about Glee:
the aesthetic appeal of the barely passable because of Jane Lynch comedy/atrociously mawkish and cartoonish melodrama/bad jukebox musical (but I repeat myself) combination the show represents was never obvious.
And
The first season (first half? first 8 episodes or so I guess, don’t quite remember) was actually really good. It got a following for a reason. Then ‘who cares about anything else we can make millions selling songs on itunes’ idea took over and it got worse and worse.
Personally, I have nothing bad to say about the show. I’m not a big fan but I don’t mind watching it if that’s what’s on. But the point I wanted to make is this. The show has a large audience containing a lot of highschool age kids, and has a very strong “dont treat gay kids like shit” message. So I’m willing to overlook the rest of it, because that underlying message is so important.
And yes, we in fact do find ourselves in a situation where a TV show aimed at highschoolers involving marginal covers of crappy pop songs is more mature, intelligent, and responsible than the majority of congress. But I guess that’s setting the bar kinda low.
520 Chestnut 
While I am starting to get disappointed with the general quality of the show, I really do like Glee. I love how it not only sends the message that you shouldn’t treat gay kids like shit, but it goes a step further by showing that they really are no different than anyone else. Sometimes I forget that Santana is gay, because it’s only a small part of who she is. What’s more, they do this for handicapped kids, those with mental illness, kids living in poverty, kids from other countries, kids with two dads, masculine girls, feminine guys, and just about everything else you can think of.
I didn’t realize how important this was until I found myself spending a week with 20 undergraduate students at a conference. The first night, I and one other girl parted from the group and wondered around the city looking for a cool bar to visit. After walking and talking to people, we found ourselves in what turned out to be a gay bar where we met quite a few interesting people and had a terrific time. The next day, the word spread throughout the entire group that two girls went to a gay bar and people were making comments about it to me all week. It was strange, because going to a gay bar, to me, is as natural as going to subway to get a sandwich, but these kids acted as if it was the hottest piece of gossip they’d heard in a while. For them, there was nothing more bizarre and unappealing than voluntarily going to a “tranny bar.”
Of course, shows like glee aren’t going to eliminate this kind of ignorance, but hopefully by exposing kids to people with lifestyles they don’t understand and presenting them as natural and normal, we can begin to deal with some of the effects of media generated stereotypes and general lack of experience that often come together to produce fear and hatred of that which is different from the “norm.”