I didn’t know what I was missing and you don’t either
When it was removed from Netflix late 2021, I was devastated to know my days of binge-watching Glee had come to an end. Since watching the show for the first time as a Junior in high school and then rewatching it during my early college years, it’s easy to say it impacted me most when I was the same age as the characters in it. Until about a week ago when I was listening to my YouTube playlist of my favorite all-time songs—which may or may not be majorly composed of Glee covers—I had no idea Glee: The Concert Movie existed. One minute I had the “Fire and Rain” cover by the Glee cast on in the background and the next, I suddenly didn’t recognize the beginning of the next music video. The opening credits for a movie began to roll and I was hooked. Here I am weeks later, rewatching it all over again at the library instead of doing homework and it’s killing me not to bust out singing next to people studying for exams.
Glee: The Concert Movie is a ninety-minute documentary featuring Glee songs performed live and interviews from the cast, concert-goers, and a few major fangirls. The coolest part about the concert is that if you’ve seen the show, you’re familiar with the songs already and feel instantly transported back to William McKinley High School. One of my favorite things about the show was not that I knew a lot of the songs already, but also that there were some I did not. There is no other show or movie out there covering such a variety of genres, including oldie covers like The Beatles and Fleetwood Mac, and also more modern artists like Britney Spears and Lady Gaga. Maybe it’s the theater kid inside me, but there was no better feeling than singing and dancing along to the songs in the show. I feel like kids my age have or could have such a special connection to the music in the show. The majority of the songs present in the show came out when I was in middle school or high school, making me feel nostalgic when I hear them. Even stars with iconic musical and acting talents, like Gwyneth Paltrow, Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, make appearances in Glee. It made my jaw drop as a tween to see all of those voices show up on a show about a high school in small town Ohio.
When the camera turns to fans, you can tell they feel the same way I do. It’s clear that the meaning behind the show goes much farther than the lyrics to a song or the lines in a scene. There are instances in this film where people talk about how much there was at least one character—Santana, Archie, Mercedes, Blaine, Tina, Kurt, Rachel, Finn—who they could associate with in one way or another. The entirety of Glee really is about being yourself and accepting others for who they are, no matter our differences. Over the course of around one hundred and twenty episodes, the producers cover anything from bullying and social acceptance to alcoholism, teenage pregnancy, and mental health disorders. When you hear fans in the movie talk about how the show impacted them or what it means to them, it’s obvious that these individuals, no matter their background, could relate to these topics on personal levels. Hearing from the fans was my favorite part of the movie. I felt like it was an accurate representation of how all of us can connect to Glee in some way, whether it is big or small. Although it happened about a decade ago, it felt like a part of me was there in the theater alongside thousands of other fans at a time when the show was in its prime.
After watching the Glee: The Concert Movie, I was taken back to the fictional—yet thrilling, nonetheless—concept of simply bursting into song when faced with uncertainty, confidence or joy. There’s something truly special about seeing the cast during the height of Glee. The characters are always going to be the same but since the final episode aired in 2015, the actors have strayed away from the actors they were during the concert. The concert doesn’t show that Corey Monteith (Finn) overdosed a few years later, that Mark Salling (Puck) went to prison shortly after, or that Naya Rivera (Santana) drowned recently. Although Glee isn’t making a comeback and it will never be the same as it was in the 2010’s, the message it sends to its fans isn’t going anywhere.