Riese and I have written about this a lot in our recaps this season,
but it should be repeated (forever, really): Way back during
“Sectionals,” the 13th episode of season one, Brittany said a thing that
wasn’t meant to stick. It was meant as a joke: “Sex isn’t dating; if it
were, Santana and I would be dating.” If she’d said that at any other
time in history, maybe it would have just floated on by. But she said it
during a perfect storm of Prop. 8 backlash, a horrific pandemic of gay
teenagers committing suicide after being bullied, and the rise of
Twitter. Suddenly, lesbian fandom had a way to talk to the people who
made TV, and there was a justified fire inside them, and they were not
backing down.
Santana resonated with so many lesbians who had never seen themselves
represented on TV before (see above) and Brittany resonated with so
many queer women who didn’t feel the need to bag-and-tag their sexual
orientation (see below). And, of course, falling in love with your best
friend is a lesbian rite of passage. For six seasons, lesbian fandom
demanded to be heard, to be represented fairly, to be able to watch see
story that was meant to be, right on their TVs. Every milestone of
Brittany and Santana’s relationship happened because of lesbian fandom.
From their first (actual, real) kiss to their wedding.
The Lesbian Blogger Community didn’t quit when the show’s creators
chided them on social media, mocked them inside the show, or tried very
hard to ignore them. When I write the book on lesbian fandom, I will
point to Brittana fans as the ones who changed the world.
9 Things “Glee” Did Right: On Bullying, Burt, Brittana, One Straight Butch and A Straight-Up Bitch | Autostraddle
