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alexinthetardis:

gleecritic:

Glee And Women: Brittany S. Pierce:

Brittany has been and, as far as I can see, always will be a one note character – She will never have any real depth, she will never have real character development, she will never rise above simply being comic relief and she will never be taken seriously – And that’s all for one simple reason: The writers are unable or unwilling to ever explore or develop her as an actual character.

Like most of the characters on Glee, the writers have Brittany in her little box, a box which dictates what they’re willing to do with her, how she should act and the type of plots they want her to be involved in – For three seasons she’s been in the same exact box: Comic relief – And that’s all the writers are ever going to allow her to be.

Cast your mind back over the last three seasons of Glee, what’s the most serious plot Brittany’s ever had? There’s only one: As Santana’s girlfriend. Not as Brittany, not as someone with their own thoughts and feelings, not as someone who is likewise struggling or coming to terms with their sexuality, not as someone who’s established their sexuality and is attempting to show it and live with it, not a character or a character’s struggle that is given the time of day – She’s just Santana’s girlfriend.

Brittany does not get an exploration of her sexuality, Brittany does not get to show or tell us how she feels about her sexuality, her relationship with Santana or how she feels about being open about her sexuality in public, what she defines her sexuality as, if she struggles with it, if she’s fine or afraid to come out, if she isn’t already – Brittany does not get the same treatment that Kurt, Dave and Santana did – She and her sexuality weren’t and will never be explored or developed, because in order to do so the writers would actually have to take her seriously and they would actually have to take her out of the role she’s inhabited for the past three years – And it’s something they’ve shown time and time again that they’re not willing to do.

Likewise, we will never truly explore how Brittany feels about her intellect, or lack thereof. We’ve seen brief glimpses of her self-consciousness and her unhappiness at not being the most intelligent, at people who don’t take her seriously, and at worst when people call her stupid or laugh at her. But we will never learn or explore if Brittany does in fact have a mental disorder, we will never know her struggles in everyday life, her difficulty at school or how she may have trouble connecting to other people because of her possible mental disability.

The writers don’t take Brittany seriously, and despite fan outcry, that’s not about to change – Highlighted most recently by the fact that an entire plot revolved around everyone pulling together to help Puck graduate, while the same courtesy was not extended to Brittany, and even Santana was unaware Brittany was flunking and wouldn’t be able to graduate. The writers are either unable or unwilling to develop her, they just want the comic relief she’s served as since the start of the show, even if it’s a role she can no longer fit into and it’s well beyond when she should have actually been developed as a character.

Sadly Brittany’s character ‘development’ over the years isn’t anything but character regression – At the start of Season 1 Brittany was a minor supporting player, she was less features and less prominent than her fellow Cheerios Santana and Quinn, that changed when Quinn fell pregnant and was removed from the Cheerios, as well as her loss in social standing. When this happened, Brittany became much more prominent, Quinn had been forced from her friendship and closeness with Santana when she was forced from the Cheerios, and Brittany took her place – We learned a lot more about the character, and we were able to get a good feel for who she was and other character titbits.

While not being the brightest, she certainly wasn’t at the level of genuinely concerning yourself about her mental health that she is now. In Season 1 Brittany was actually somewhat competent and was able to make her own decisions and fuel her own actions, rather than simply having her shaped and changed by the actions and decisions of others – In Season 1 Brittany was just as much of a bully and against the unpopular crowd as Santana and Quinn were, she was able to tell that Kurt was gay before he attempted to emulate Burt, she was aware that you had to have sex in order to create children, she understood the social order at the school and when her prominence and reputation were slipping. Compare this then to the Brittany of Seasons 2 and 3 – Brittany believes that storks bring babies and isn’t aware that you get pregnant through sex, despite referring to Joe as ‘Teen Jesus’ she somehow also thinks that he’s a girl, she constantly claims that she’s against bullying and that she won’t stand for it, often being describe by Santana as being pure and good, a complete innocent, when her behaviour in Season 1 and her unwillingness to stop Santana’s bullying are in complete contrast of this – Brittany from Season 2 onwards was completely dumbed down, to the point of turning her from only slight incompetent and not the brightest, to full on mentally handicapped.

Likewise, Brittany’s importance and presence on the show has been severely reduced  - She, along with Santana, had a prominent supporting role in Season 1 and Season 2, but right around the time we got Santana’s struggle with her sexuality, Brittany’s role became less and less important and she was reduced to being a human prop for Santana’s storyline – As stated above, we never got, and undoubtedly never will, Brittany’s side to Santana’s struggle, we knew she loved Santana and supported her (though not in the best way, often coming across as unsympathetic and pushy), but did we ever get Brittany’s side of the story? No – The Brittana relationship is one sided because we’ve only ever explored Santana, her sexuality, her struggle, her feelings – Brittany has only ever been Santana’s girlfriend, a human prop for Santana’s storyline, but never allowed to develop herself.

The closest we ever came to developing Brittany’s sexuality was her one off jokes about how she’s a ‘Bi-corn’ – It was never built upon, never explored, and it never came across as actual development or establishment, it just came off like a cheap joke to satisfy fans who wanted the character to actually have some presence beyond simply being the girlfriend of Santana- It’s as far as the writers are willing to go, because to explore of develop it further would remove Brittany from simply being comic relief, it would require them to truly get into who her character is and why, does she have a mental disability? Is she Bisexual? Or a possible other sexuality? We will never know, because to answer these questions, the character of Brittany would have to become serious, the writers would need to take her seriously, she’d actually have to become a three dimensional character – But in doing so the writers wouldn’t be able to keep her as the comic relief who gets a laugh out of the audience each week because she’s dumb and she doesn’t know basic life facts or information, and that’s funny apparently.

I often sympathise for the character of Brittany, because she has the potential to be more than she is, but she never will be. The writers don’t take her seriously, and we as an audience are asked not to either, to the point where we’re even asked to take her blatant rape admission as a joke. It really is unfair and incredibly cruel, and it’s something I constantly hope will change, though it seems near impossible that it will.

“I kind of identify with all of [the characters I played]. I think all of them sort of, uh, each of them is a piece of me and I’m a piece of all of them in a way.” Johnny Depp
Dedicated to johnnydepps

alyssaties:

oldfilmsflicker:

thedailywhat:

Marriage Proposal of the Day: The planning! The dorkiness! The tears!

So imperfect it’s perfect.

[thanks, rob!]

omg

i cried this was so precious asldkfkas