The Glee Generation

Songs from Glee’s Santana Lopez soared from Sophie and Mukue’s bedroom for much of 2020, her angelic voice giving the girls a bit of freedom to get lost in during what was at times an isolating and turbulent adolescence. So it was awfully sad to hear that the Glee character played by Naya Rivera, just 33 years old, had drowned that year—now five years ago this summer—leaving behind a 4-year-old son and, at least in my household, kids who looked up to her and hung on her every note for Glee’s six seasons. Santana’s version of Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal was actually the first time Sophie heard Jackson’s epic 1980s hit. “Wait dad, Santana sings that right? Who’s Michael Jackson again? Wasn’t he a president?”  If you grew up in the 80s, dancing to Smooth Criminal was a rite of passage. You tried to lean over like Jackson did when the FM radio station played it, like you were in a V8 commercial. You wore a turtleneck, bellbottoms, a walk-man, and Reeboks with those air bubbles to pump up before jumping to a Van Halen song, or moonwalking like Michael from locker to locker. You couldn’t afford Air Jordans, but the Reeboks worked. This generation doesn’t really know about these 80s music stars. Glee is their music. Santana is their Madonna, their Michael. Their mental health. Beyond Rivera’s death was the underappreciated power of Glee’s role in breaking down walls between the locker room jocks and the drama club, showing how the quarterback could play football for the team and also sing in the school play. It inspired my son Jack to juggle hoops and trombone, for Sophie to juggle dance and hockey, and may have changed how some high schools think about forcing teens down a single lane when they don’t want to and don’t need to. Glee taught many of my kids and their classmates what gay was and why it didn’t need to be a thing; that it didn’t need to be questioned, but instead celebrated. Glee also tragically gave us 3 deaths that if you ask me have done more to educate youth on mental health than any policy or public campaign has. One of its actors died by suicide, another from drug and alcohol addiction, and the third, Naya Rivera, from heroism saving her 4-year-old son as she had to let go into the water. All 3 transcended the TV show actor roles they played and, in my kids eyes anyways, were superstars, even role models for the characters they portrayed. My daughter now sings Glee songs to help families remember a lost loved one as part of a movement linking music therapy into healthcare. At least on these nights, she’s their hero. I see much of Rivera’s character in her and in so many youngsters now trying to find careers in meaningful jobs like in-home nursing or singing bedside. If I were in healthcare investment, I’d lean into that even if funding for this type of therapy is still in the 1st inning. Rivera’s “If I Die Young” song from the acclaimed TV show is sort of a reminder of music’s influence and power to help us heal. The song often played in our house in 2020 and as haunting as its lyrics are, if you listen closely, they are a lesson for a lot of us on the frontlines of healthcare and education and parenting, and for those struggling with loss, isolation, the emptiness from change, and inevitability of life – be who you are, be thoughtful, find your voice and, whatever you do, do it with courage of conviction while you can. Because as Rivera’s Glee character sang, “there’s a sharp knife from a short life, but well I’ve had just enough time.”