And That’s What You Missed on Glee!

I know. I’m talking about Glee. It’s been years, right? But there’s a reason.

And, no, it’s not a good one.

It also does involve the current climate of the country. Let me say that I am horrified by the actions of the former officers in Milwaukee and the death of George Floyd at their hands (or rather, knees and inaction). And I am angry that this is just the latest in a series of Black deaths caused by the police. Change needs to happen and America needs to confront and overcome our racial prejudices.

Black. Lives. Matter.

Our Glee saga began a week ago when Lea Michele (Rachel Berry) posted a tweet about George Floyd, much like many other celebrities (and people) had throughout the past couple weeks.

Then on Monday, June 1st, Samantha Ware quote-tweeted Lea’s tweet. Samantha played Jane Haywood during Season 6 of the show. In her tweet, she wrote that Lea made her first TV job a living nightmare, threatened to “shit” in her wig, and committed other microaggressions against Samantha during filming.

(Samantha Ware)

Not long after, Lea’s other cast members began speaking out as well. Yvette Nicole Brown, who co-starred with her in The Mayor, responded to Samantha’s tweet and said she felt everyone one of the capital letters (Samantha’s tweet was in all caps). Alex Newell (Wade “Unique” Adams) wrote that they felt like claps. And Amber Riley (Mercedes Jones) posted some telling gifs, including one of her drinking tea.

(This is Alex, not the gif Amber posted. But it felt appropriate nonetheless)

Heather Morris (Brittany S. Pierce) also confirmed that Lea tended to be unbearable to work with and Naya Rivera (Santana Lopez) wrote about it in her memoir Sorry Not Sorry (link is to my review of the book). Another actor who had a small role in an episode of Glee, Dabier Snell, wrote that Lea wouldn’t let him set with some other cast members at lunch when he worked on the show. Lea’s Scream Queens costars Keke Palmer and Ariana Grande unfollowed her on Twitter and I believe Abigail Breslin made a cryptic post that many believe is about her.

You can read about everything here.

(Naya Rivera)

I stopped watching Glee for many reasons. The main reason was because of scheduling conflicts when it moved to Thursdays and then when it moved back to Tuesdays, it changed to a later time slot. But when I didn’t have motivation to watch it on demand, I realized that I was really just hate-watching it. And I didn’t want to waste my energy on that when I could direct it in more positive directions.

I also grew tired of essentially watching the same storylines over and over. How many times can we watch Sue try to destroy New Directions? And watching Rachel blow a big opportunity loses its suspense or impact when she’s done it for like the fiftieth time and you know she’s going to get what she wants, just like she did the other 49 times before it. Rachel also wasn’t often someone you wanted to root for. She was determined to achieve her dreams to the point that she didn’t care who she trampled on the way to getting it. You often wanted her to be taken down several pegs and it never really stuck.

And since the writers have said they incorporated aspects of the actors into their characters as well as used some of their stories as inspiration, there was always a debate over how much of Rachel Berry was based on Lea. Turns out, it may have been a lot more than we thought. And it also may show that the writers/producers didn’t think the behavior was troublesome either.

The behavior also apparently stretched back to her days on Broadway. Gerard Canonico, recently seen on Broadway in Be More Chill, was an understudy in the original Broadway production of Spring Awakening when Lea Michele was playing Wendla. He left a comment on Lea’s apology on Instagram saying that she had been awful to him and the other understudies in Spring Awakening, not treating them as if they were cast members.

You can read about that here.

(Gerard Canonico)

Suddenly a plotline that has bugged me for years (far longer than it should’ve, I’ll admit) made sense. It was the plotline where Santana auditioned and was cast as Rachel’s understudy, which caused a rift between the two just as they were starting to build a friendship.

So what bugged me about this plotline, besides the fact that they decided the best thing to do was blow up a budding friendship between two women rather than explore it? Well, it was the fact that Rachel went on a warpath and felt personally insulted that the producers wanted her to have an understudy. Something that is common practice in almost every Broadway shows. Those without understudies are the exceptions, not the rule. Having an understudy doesn’t mean that there isn’t confidence in you as a performer or that you aren’t a good performer. It just means that the motto of show business is “The show must go on” and so there needs to be someone who can step in the role if you get sick, need some time off, want some time off, have a personal or family emergency, etc.

And it was perfectly logical for the producers to want to have an understudy or two. Rachel is an untested talent and has no experience with the grueling schedule of Broadway. She has never done eight shows a week, including 2 two show days (Wednesdays and Saturdays) or even a touring schedule. That’s not to mention the publicity she would be expected to do as well – interviews, early morning shows after late night performances, etc. Smash showed this in the second season, where the cast of Bombshell was dead tired but pushing through everything. It’s very likely that Rachel could get sick from running her body down or hurt her vocal chords. We also know that she took to her bed after Finn’s death and stayed there for weeks, no doubt messing up the rehearsal schedule and possibly causing delays. She is also known to travel to Ohio at the drop of hat. So of course they want to make sure there’s someone who can go on if something prevents Rachel from doing that.

She also was acting like she’s a BIG DEAL and not a nobody about to star in her first Broadway show. No one is going to go to the show to see Rachel Berry – they are going to go to see Funny Girl. She may start to pick up a following as the show progresses but especially in the beginning, she will not be the big draw – though the producers may play up the fact that she’s a new discovery and try to sell her as the next big star. 

And it was framed as Rachel being right as even the director seemed to be on her side, saying the producers took the decision out of his hands. I think we the audience was supposed to be outraged that they would want Rachel to have an understudy rather than someone just telling Rachel it was common practice and was not a reflection on her talent or dedication. I wondered if Lea ever spoke up and questioned why Rachel would take such a position or point out that it was a ridiculous position since almost everyone has understudies.

Now I know after reading Canonico’s comment to her – she had no respect for understudies herself and so probably didn’t think Rachel’s stance was unreasonable.

I do want to note that it doesn’t appear that Lea Michele’s actions were necessarily born out of racism as it does appear she is just an awful person to work with across the board. And we should all re-evaluate why no one said anything when Naya first spoke up about this back in 2016 (after Glee ended) and why it took to 2020 for this to come out.

Lea released the usual apology and I hope she means it when she says she’s going to do some introspection and learn how to be a better person. I know she’s due to give birth soon and I don’t know what her professional plans are after that, but given that she lost an endorsement deal over this, she might find it difficult to get work until she can prove she’s changed for the better. More criticism of her keeps coming forward, all of it confirming that she has been an awful person on set (the newest says that she referred to extras as “cockroaches” and behaved so horribly to one extra, a crew member apologized to the person).

And I hope Hollywood (movies and TV) start to have deep and serious conversations about why some people are allowed to get away with that behavior on set while others aren’t so they can address it. They also need to re-evaluate what will have someone be labeled as “difficult to work with” and make sure it’s stuff like Lea Michele pulled and not because an actress or an actor of color tried to advocate for themselves.

Honestly, that probably needs to be addressed in several industries.

We all need to do better.