Born On This Day- May 28th... Chris Colfer

At just 19, Christopher Paul Colfer of Clovis, Calif., a small town near Fresno, rose to TV stardom playing Glee's Kurt Hummel, at the time, one of the rare, realistic gay characters in prime time… & he can really sing. With no professional training, Colfer so impressed Glee creator Ryan Murphy during initial auditions that the character was written specifically for him.

A graduate of Clovis East High School, Colfer was a 3 time speech & debate champion, president of the writer’s club, & wrote & directed a musical spoof of Sweeney Todd called “Shirley Todd.” His closest friends in school were the lunch room ladies because he preferred to stay home to write than to go out with friends. He also took care of his sister, Hannah, who suffers from epilepsy that has kept her in and out of hospitals all of her life.

Colfer: “I was made fun of a lot in high school because of the way I sound & the way I was. I was a lone duck in a swan filled pond who criticized everyone. So I think everyone might be going, ‘Oh, he’s playing the gay character. Figures.’ Just because that’s how they perceived me.” Between the ages of 9 &14, Colfer performed in local plays 4 nights a week. He landed a Hollywood agent & began traveling the 8 hours round trip to LA for auditions with his mother. He tried out for about 30 roles before he was cast on Glee.

I have remained fan of Glee through the end of the just concluded 3rd season, & I am encouraged by the range of gay characters portrayed on the show. On TV, at last, gays are not drawn in non-stereotypical fashion as strictly victims, tragedies, predators or sissies. We now have characters that embrace who they are & are in loving, fulfilling relationships In this way, Kurt Hummel is bound to become a role model for teens in the midst of discovering who they are & also for adults who have been in Kurt’s shoes.

On Glee this spring, a transgender character named Unique is competing in a sing-off. On Grey’s Anatomy, a show I have never viewed, a lesbian couple is adjusting to married life, having been pronounced “wife & wife” last season.

The cultural battlefield of TV has changed since the 1980s with the very neutered portrayal of Tony Randall’s Sidney Schorr on NBC’sLove, Sidney or in the 1990s, when the Religious Right objected to Ellen coming out & Will & Grace coming on.

Today, there is very little complaining about shows like Modern Family, the #1 sitcom or Post Apocalyptic Bohemia favorite- Smash, which has 5 openly gay characters, or the refreshing sitcom-Happy Endings, which, against stereotype, has a husky & lazy gay male character, possibly based on me. Mitt Romney is known to be a fan of Modern Family.

Next season NBC has a new show from Glee creator- Ryan Murphy that features a gay couple trying to have a child & their surrogate, titled The New Normal.

Vice President Biden stated that Will & Grace: “probably did more to educate the American public than almost anything anybody’s ever done so far.” When that sitcom began on NBC, conservatives claimed that would make homosexuality seem desirable. They were correct.

On Ellen, Ellen DeGeneres, came out on the show & in real life in 1997. DeGeneres threatened to quit a year later when ABC preceded an episode that showed her jokingly kissing a friend with a message that warned: “Due to adult content, parental discretion is advised.” Can you imagine such a notice on Modern Family or Glee?

Smash aired a funny & sweet scene of a pair of men in bed, one a Republican, after an evening of bad sex. Now, that is realism.

Steven Levitan, a co-creator of Modern Family: “We thought that when the show started, the inclusion of Cameron & Mitchell would limit our success a bit, because it will perhaps alienate a certain segment of the population.In fact, it’s turned out to be quite the opposite.”

Media watchdogs like the Parents Television Council, one of the most active conservative media groups, do occasionally speak out against TV programming, & the religious fanatics have not been silent & Glee has been scrutinized. The Media Research Center stated: “Glee merely pretends to be a show for young people while actually serving as an assault on our traditional values.”

Colfer: “I don’t personally feel a responsibility to be a role model, but as the actor, I do.” On one of the most the powerful moments to ever air on TV, Glee’s Kurt Hummel came out to his father, played by the always excellent- Mike O’Malley, in a scene that  the show’s creator. Ryan Murphy took verbatim from his life.

Murphy: “The show is about making you feel good in the end. It’s about happy endings & optimism & the power of your personal journey & making you feel that the weird thing about me is the great thing about me. I’ve done other shows with gay characters, & I will say that in many of those cases, the gay characters didn’t have a happy ending, & I thought you know what? Enough.”

Last year Colfer was named to Time Magazine's list of The 100 Most Influential Americans.

This summer, Colfer will star in Struck by Lightning, for which he wrote the screenplay. The plot revolves around a character, who is struck & killed by a bolt of lightning, & looks back on his exploits as he blackmails his fellow senior classmates into contributing to a literary magazine he is publishing.

Colfer turns 22 years old today. Times have really changed, at 22 years old, I would never have dared to be an out & proud actor. Colfer & his creation of the character of Kurt on Glee make him a hero to me.

Glee star trio not leaving after all

Lea Michele © Glee

Although their characters are graduating at the end of season 3, they won't be leaving Glee after all. Glee co-creator Ryan Murphy recently announced plans to let go Lea Michele, Cory Monteith and Chris Colfer after the series third season. Saying that they owe it to the credibility of the show. However, executive producer Brad Falchuk said Sunday at the Comic-Con in San Diego that the show won't be over for the three stars. "They are not done with the show after this season, because they're graduating doesn't mean they're leaving the show. If you have Lea Michele under contract, you don't just say, 'We're going to let you go.'" He adds, "It was never our intention to let them go. They are not done with the show after this season."

Chris Colfer © Glee

Brad Falchuk also addresses the rumours swirling around, that there might be a spin-off featuring Lea, 24, Cory, 29, and Chris, 21. He says, "That was something we were planting as a possibility, but we didn't get much further than that. We're leaning against doing it. We certainly have explored it, but I think we're going to pass."

Cory Monteith © Glee

Even though I'm curious what the spin-off show in New York would have been like, I'm just as curious as to what story line Rachel Berry, Finn Hudson and Kurt Hummel will get, once they have graduated high school. Will they stay in the Glee club? Will they teach the Glee club? Or will it be something completely different, like how the trio survives after high school and what they do with their aspirations as singers and entertainers? What an anticipation and that all before the start of season 3!

Born On This Day- May 27th... Actor/Singer Chris Colfer

I miss UGLY BETTY, which was for me, the gayest TV show ever. I don’t remember the wingnuts complaining or boycotting this show, & they shouldn’t have. Ugly Betty was represented nothing if not Family Values. For a” with it” show, Ugly Betty was at heart, very old fashioned.


Thank the TV Gods for Glee. Glee was made for me. The heightened, eccentric, & dare I say it- queer reality of the world of Glee, is the world I want to live in. I was meant to live in a universe where fully formed, orchestrated, & choreographed musical numbers burst forth as the modus operandi for expression.


Because, at a time when the ugliness of high school bullying is in the news, with tragic stories of kids victimized because they're different, Glee preaches that it's OK to be nerdy in high school. To love Broadway show tunes instead of football in high school. To be gay in high school.


It is easy for me to follow & identify with the characters on Glee. Jane Lynch’s masterful creation of Sue Sylvester is one of TV history’s top characters. I can relate to Emma’s OCD, & Rachel Berry’s Diva-ness; I had the heavy burden of simply being the best singer in my high school. I know how she suffers.


This season I have been most engaged by the character- Kurt Hummel. the fashionista & counter-tenor who is bullied by the jocks. He has a rigorous beauty regime & an impressive collection of designer attire by Marc Jacobs. Kurt is played by openly gay actor Chris Colfer. He originally auditioned for the role of Artie, singing Mr Cellophane from Chicago. Creator/Director/Producer- Ryan Murphy was so impressed by Colfer's audition he wrote the Kurt Hummel character into the show as a vehicle for him. Colfer: "It's good to have something positive, especially for kids in small towns, like myself, who need a little pick-me-up”.

Ryan Murphy: “When we started auditioning, I thought it was kind of ridiculous that we’re doing a musical about kids & expression & we don’t have the gay point of view. I thought it was important, but I would never want Chris to feel weird. More than the gay thing, he understood the thing about being the outsider because he felt that way in high school".

Growing up in Indianapolis, the son of a beauty queen and a semi-pro hockey player, Murphy asked his parents for a Vogue subscription at age 5, was ironing his own clothes at 7, & came out to his dad at 15: “Having a dad that loves you as a young man is a very powerful thing that you carry into the world. Because no matter what you do, in some weird, unconscious way, if you’re a guy, you always try to please your dad. I think it’s a great thing to put on television. You’ve seen the gay character that gets kicked out of the house or is beaten up. You haven’t seen the gay character that is teased a little bit, but wins & triumphs.”


When Chris Colfer auditioned for Murphy, the recent high school graduate with the big blue eyes & pale skin nervously walked into the audition & Ryan asked: “Why do I have the feeling you’ve been Rolf on The Sound of Music before?” Colfer: “I know I have Von Trapp written all over me, I actually was Kurt in The Sound of Music a long time ago.”


Colfer’s response to learning that his character is gay was fear. He grew up in the San Joaquin Valley, in a small town where most people wear cowboy hats & farm. Colfer: “no one has a sense of humor but they all drive trucks.” On a recent visit, Colfer noticed there were still many “Yes on 8” signs on lawns.


Colfer: “At first, I was absolutely terrified because I’m from a very conservative anti-gay town. Then people started saying, ‘Wow, your character is a lot like how Ryan Murphy would be,' & I didn’t know I was & that was good because that would also be terrifying. In the original script, they were leaning on him being overly flamboyant & I didn’t want to do that because it’s so overdone. So I made him more internal & superior.”


In the new century, TV has been representing gay people in non-stereotypical ways. We now have characters like Justin on Ugly Betty that embrace who they are & are in loving, fulfilling relationships. I was so moved by Justin’s coming out scene, which consisted of a tender dance with his BF at his sister-Hilda’s wedding. But, I have never witnessed anything as GAY as Kurt’s version of Roses’s Turn from the brilliant & complicated Laryngitis episode of Glee, earlier this month. Kurt can be a role model for young people who are just discovering who they are & also for adults who have been in Kurt’s shoes, albeit designer footwear.




Christopher Paul Colfer turns 20 years old today.