Brittana fandom changed the world for me, not just by shaping what I got to see on this show — and the revolutionary thing I am seeing right this second with this double gay wedding — but also by showing me the blazing blue magic of fandom power.
Someone on Tumblr, after my proposal recap, was like, “Glad to see you admitting the fact that Glee‘s writers only put Brittany and Santana together because lesbian fandom forced them to.” And I was like, “Admitting the fact?” Girl, no. “Celebrating the fact.” “Praising the fact.” “Proclaiming the fact.” “Glorifying the fact.” These writers steered this show off of sexist cliff after sexist cliff over the last six years. The fact that a fandom full of queer women kept them on the path of goodness with this one thing? I’ll never shut up about it.
It’s a different thing in pop culture now, but in December 2009, when Brittany said what was meant to be a throwaway line about having sex with Santana, it was: 90210 and Melrose Place reboots using women kissing as ratings stunts. It was FlashForward, a broadcast TV show with a lesbian character that was cancelled in a hot minute. It was Stargate Universe on Syfy, but the lesbian character was a on spaceship ten million light years away from a wife she never even saw. Callie and Arizona were the only thing we had to believe in back then, and even that was up in the air because of the way Grey’s Anatomy unceremoniously dumped Erica Hahn off into a parking lot and never mentioned her again just a few months before Glee aired its pilot.
It’s important to know what the world looked like when Brittana fandom decided to change it.
We like to think equality for gay people is a done deal in this country, but it’s not. “Are you ready to give America what at least 52% of it will legally tolerate?” is a thing Sue said when she was coaxing Kurt and Blaine into their tuxes, and that’s the fact of it. Seeing a double gay wedding on broadcast television is still a big damn deal. The culture war isn’t over.
Brittany and Santana’s, and Kurt and Blaine’s vows are very T.S. Eliot, very Alfred J. Prufrock, very “all of the suffering and heartache that has come from and will come from loving you is worth it, and will always be worth it, and I will say yes to the hard parts forever, because it means I get to wrap myself up in the fact of you, to see and be seen by you — the only one who has ever truly known me — for the rest of my life.”
Kurt was hurled into the dumpster in the McKinley High School parking lot, the collateral damage of gladiator culture, but he crawled out. And he came out. And he wondered if he would be alone forever, in his one-queer town. He had nothing but the strength of his own voice and the fire of the dreams he hid away from everyone, even himself sometimes. Blaine had everything. Well, everything except a place where the curtain closed. The world was his stage and the lights were always on. Kurt and Blaine found each other, and danced around each other, until they realized they didn’t have to stand alone in the cold outside.
Santana was trapped in a barbed closet of her own construction, sharpening her knives and testing them on other people in case she ever had to turn them on herself. She forced herself to be alone, to not give in to the only thing she really ever wanted. Brittany was never afraid. And she was never understood, except by Santana. They were everything to each other, but they kept finding ways not to say it. They built their own obstacles, and they toppled them. They built them again with reinforcements. Santana and Brittany ran with each other and from each other, colliding and colliding, a supernova of inevitability.
Riese: Is this like Obama’s last term in office? Murphy’s last season? You know how we fantasize about like Obama doing everything we’ve wanted him to do in his last year because why the fuck not? (I mean i know it’s more complicated than that.) Is that’s what Ryan Murphy’s doing?
They say “I do.” All four of them. And everyone kisses, husbands and wives.
Pierce Pierce gives a rousing speech about how Brittany is the most beautiful person in the barn, and not just because everyone else in here is ugly as butts. And then, confirming my buddy Lauren’s suspicion that people who aren’t on Tumblr don’t understand 80 percent of what is happening this season, everyone puts on OTP hats and dances around Heya to “Hey Ya!” It’s pretty special.
Tina proposes to Mike and it goes about as well as you’d expect.He tells her they’re way too young to get married and that this show is going to piss on her right up until the very end. But he did save a slow dance for her, so that’s something.
Riese: Seriously everybody STOP. There are other things to do besides getting married. Like: going bowling, moving into an apartment place for the two of you to share, looking at puppies in the park, rowing boats on a river.
And then! All the moms sing “I’m So Excited!” The only one who gives Gloria Estafan a run for her money is Amber Riley, obviously. And then! Kurt and Blaine and Santana and Brittany sing “Our Day Will Come.” (Relevant lyric: “Nobody can tell me I’m too young to know I love you, so.”)
Riese: Haiiiii Sugar Motta! Double wedding solid, this is such a deal. This is so weird and gay. Look at this show!
The next day, Tina and Artie have a champagne brunch in the choir room and agree to make some Slytherin babies together if they’re not married by the time they’re 30.
And finally, Sue invites the newly married couples to the auditorium to give them wedding presents. They’re good ones! Honeymoons! She cancelled the one Kurt and Blaine had planned for themselves. (Kurt, give me that shirt!) For Kurt and Blaine, a weekend trip to Provincetown staying at Andrew Sullivan’s Cabana House. For Santana and Brittany, a month-long, all expenses paid trip to Paradise Island. Brittany says my favorite thing she’s ever said in this show. Ever. “That’s where Wonder Woman was born!” And Sue says, “Lassos of Truth included!”
And then Sue says her next legacy couple is Faberry. Because she can’t get enough of the lesbians. Oh, Glee. You’re so Glee.
Klaine and Brittana agree to Skype every year on their anniversary and celebrate together every fifth year. And they leave hand-in-hand for their honeymoons.
Riese: “Your notes should just read 9:23 Where’s Quinn? 9:26 Where’s Quinn? 9:32 Where’s Quinn? 9:46 Where’s Quinn? 9:50 Have they, like, talked about Quinn not being there?” – Abby
I can’t believe it’s real. I can’t believe Brittany and Santana are married. They were secondary characters. They were held pinkies and background hugs. Their relationship was meant to be a joke, was morphed into a sexy placation. But the goddamn thing about stories is they come to life in ways writers never expect. They are, quite literally, magical.
Like the story of Brittany S. Pierce, who saw the truth of Santana Lopez’s heartspace, knew her straight through and right down to her toes, the hidden parts of her, the wounded kitten behind the caustic roar. The story of how Santana saw Brittany too, the brilliance of her brain, her unicorn spirit. And the story of how Santana built her life around Brittany and built walls around herself, insisting it was just friends, and not the kind of love that rearranges the alchemy of your whole soul. And then Santana came out of the closet. And Brittany was never in it. They lifted each other up; they held each other close; they broke each other’s heart sometimes, the way wild things always do; they healed each other; they eased the violence and the hatred and the cruelty of the world, alone together, for each other. Santana asked Brittany to be her wife, and Brittany said yes because her genius math brain understood that in a world full of infinite variables, there are some things you just Know. They were married in a barn in Indiana. Mrs. and Mrs. Pierce-Lopez.
Call it fantasy if you want, but here’s a thing Neil Gaiman taught me: “Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
Dorothy Snarker, your brownies are in the mail.
