The Misunderstood Beiste

Now in its second season, the television show Glee has become a hit for the Fox network. The show revolves around a high school glee club comprised of various high school stereotypes: Rachel, the drama club queen, Brittany and Santana, the cheerleaders, Finn, the quarterback, Puck, the bad boy, Kurt, the homosexual, and Mercedes, the token black girl. Some attribute the show’s popularity to the music singles released every episode, but most would agree audiences tune in every week for the witty social commentary. “The result of all this cliché-lifting should be a mess. Instead, it’s an exhilarating hour satirizing American socialization processes, with a wicked soundtrack.” http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/93526-glee/

The topics discussed on the show range from trivial high school problems (how to regain one’s popularity) to more serious issues including homophobia. The show is a virtual lightning rod for criticisms of American culture. Especially applicable are feminist theories; the women on the show frequently deal with problems with their sexuality, relationships with men, power struggles, body issues, and girl on girl competition. One particular episode is especially pertinent to feminist theories. It is the first episode of the second season when a new character, Shannon Beiste, joins the cast. http://glee.wikia.com/wiki/Shannon_Beiste

Beiste is the new female coach of the boy’s football team; she joins after the former male coach had a nervous breakdown resulting from the end of his engagement. The show continues to explain that the school has hired her because she has won 5 consecutive all Missouri football championships and the school hopes to increase alumni donations with a successful athletic program. In hopes of more wins, the school has cut funding from the glee club and the cheerleading team in order to delegate a larger portion of the budget to the football team. Sue Sylvester, the cheerleading coach, and Will Schuester, the glee club leader, hope to regain their funding by making Beiste miserable and forcing her to leave the school.
With a 6’3” frame and muscular build, Beiste is a formidable woman. She has a cropped short haircut, wears a tracksuit, and her only visible makeup is tacky red lipstick. Her name alone, pronounced like “beast”, distances her from traditional femininity. Furthermore, as a football coach, she holds a position very few women do. Beiste therefore challenges all traditional female norms and her coworkers are not afraid to point it out, “Female football coach, like a male nurse, sin against nature.”
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLq4ilmZ5aQ
Applying feminist theory, we can understand Sylvester and Schuester as trying to reinforce patriarchal social norms via ridicule because “A woman who- not deliberately or defiantly, but just because of who she was- challenged the very foundations of patriarchy and consumerism, gave men, in particular, the heebie- jeebies” (Douglas 73). Moreover, the fact that a female coworker is mainly responsible for the taunting goes to show that it is the patriarchal system responsible for enforcing these social norms, not necessarily just men. Men and woman are taught at a young age to act a certain way, “it is supposed to be second nature for straight men and women to constantly make sure that we are marked as members of one sex and not the other” (Douglas 72). Nonconformists that gain power threaten the stability of the patriarchal system and therefore anyone that defies these norms is henceforth shunned by “normal” men and women
Susan Douglas writes about a similar case that occurred for Janet Reno. Reno was an accomplished attorney general that won various awards and had an extremely high approval rating. Yet, she was forced to endure endless taunting. This was not the typical political ridicule, and was aimed directly at her sexuality. “The jokes which sought to tame her in three basic ways. The first was to suggest that she was more mannish than any man…The second was to undermine her power by sexualizing her…the third was to fantasize that her refusal to ‘just say yes’ to femininity left her hopelessly lonely, desperate for love, and desperate for sex,” (Dougls 73). The last way that Janet Reno was targeted was exactly the tactic used in Glee. Schuester and Sylvester enact “Operation Mean Girls” in order to make Beiste horribly lonely. In one scene, Beiste enters the faculty break room and asks Sylvester if she can share a table. Sylvester unabashedly remarks back that her ghost friends are sitting there. Schuester also refuses her a spot at his table. Sylvester refers to this as “good old fashioned school yard bullying.” She purposefully drives to make Beiste feel like an outsider that is unwelcome at school because of her anti-feminine ways. Sylvester even goes so far as to say, “I know gals like Beiste, her high school life must have been miserable. Oversized, humorless, refers to herself in the third person like an animal. This kind of abuse will bring back all those childhood memories and she’ll be shaken to her core. Humiliated, devastated, she’ll have no choice but to quit her job.” Sylvester is therefore capitalizing on the childish teasing that an outsider like Beiste would have endured. Sylvester knows that because Beiste is not the typical high school girl, she must have endured endless bullying, she is exploiting social norms to manipulate Beiste.
To some extent it seems like the teasing does affect Beiste. Initially, she accepts the pranks with a dignified smile and does not retaliate. When Will refuses her a seat at his table she quietly remarks that she expected more from him and was greatly disappointed in his behavior. As the episode continues it is clear that the taunting is affecting her. She sheds a tear alone in the locker room just as one of her students enters with a snarky sexist joke, “You guys know why Helen Keller couldn’t drive right? Because she was a woman!” In the same scene, Beiste finally cracks. When a student asks Beiste if a handicapped classmate can join the team, Beiste feels that she is being mocked and undermined. She throws the student out of the locker room and kicks him off the team. Beiste therefore exhibits the typical over emotional reactions associated with female stereotypes. Such an emotional outburst makes her seem ridiculous and completely unreasonable- unfit for coaching. Furthermore, the juxtaposition of the stereotypical female response with her masculine demeanor makes her even more of a social outcast; she’s almost a man but deep down is still a woman.
Ultimately, Beiste conquers Schuester’s hatred and teaches him a valuable lesson. Schuester realizes at lunch the errors of his way when he refuses Beiste a seat and she replies, “You think its easy being a female football coach? Being different? You think I don’t get this everywhere I go?” He begins to feel sympathetic and hesitates before participating further in “operation mean girls.” Beiste finally changes Schuester after she dismisses the student from the football team. Schuester stands up for the student, claiming that Beiste should give him a chance because he is really a good kid. Beiste retaliates, “you mean don’t make a snap judgment about how he is? Don’t make his life miserable because you assume he’s a certain way?” Schuester realizes that he had been unfairly treating Beiste and it is not right to treat people cruelly because they are different and therefore somehow bad. Schuester publicly denounces Sylvester and her “operation mean girls.”
Thankfully, Glee ended on a positive note and the teasing will decrease for Beiste. Unfortunately, the real world is not the same. Women are constantly being chastised if they do not obey the standards of femininity as set by societal norms. Any woman that does not conform to these norms is deemed a social outcast because they are a threat to the patriarchal system currently in place. Their ambiguous nature, if accepted, could crumble the entire socialization process; therefore, men and women that partake in the system restore order by ostracizing the “outsiders”. If we somehow hope to end such bullying, we must abolish standards for genders and let individuals develop without societal influence.