on naya rivera, santana lopez, and being a (not so) straight up bitch

I've been finding it very difficult to distill my feelings about Naya Rivera's devastating passing this week. The accidental nature of her death means there's no one to blame, nothing to be angry at beyond the random cruelty of life, and the fragility of human bodies. One minute we're here, the next, gone. That's the nature of these flesh prisons we're in.

I watched Glee religiously during the majority of its run — of course I did, I'm a queer former theater & choir kid. Glee was about me and my friends. Those kids were all kids I knew and had grown up with. Glee was a fantasy I recognized: a space where bursting into song was normal and encouraged — where control over your own narrative could be enacted, where you were seen and heard.

The itch to perform was always strong in me. I'm the youngest of three, younger than my siblings by quite a bit, and a Scorpio. The show-off gene is strong with this one. I have a distinct memory of my first role on stage, in a first grade play-version of Are You My Mother?, and it was all downhill from there. I spent the summers of my youth attending, and then teaching at theater camps, wherein I took classes in voice, dance, acting, improv, set design, playwriting, and directing. I was involved in choirs and a cappella groups throughout my high school career, and only stopped because the onset of my anxiety in my college years prevented me from doing anything. It was during those dark college years that Glee was on, and it always made me feel that same thrill. I would get chills up my spine whenever story, emotion, and song connected on screen. It was a show for people like me, who loved the stage for all its possibilities.

Glee was intended to be a show about weirdos finding happiness, love, and found family.

But Glee was not a queer utopia.

As a show about misfit choir kids, it very well could have been. It could have taken the hopepunk route and been a space free of homophobia, where everyone was happy and safe and loved. When we talk about queer shows that are on today, like Schitt's Creek or She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, we talk about the need to move beyond painful queer narratives. For so long our stories were told from the perspective of doom and damage — one could not have a queer life free of pain. Any happiness that was found would be snatched out from under you. This is probably a holdover from Regan-era homophobia, when queerness was a death sentence. We can now point out clear tropes, and fight back against Bury Your Gays, or stories about queer kids getting kicked out of the house, or enabling the cycle of violence due to internalized homophobia, etc. We are now in a position where queer writers and creators are ready to move towards hope, joy, and total acceptance. For as long as the show airs, any pain that occurs isn't because of your sexuality, and isn't inextricable from our identities.

But Glee wasn't that kind of show. Glee was on during a time when it was rare to see more than one openly queer character on a show, especially on network television. Its predecessors, like Queer as Folk, were too adult and too much about sex to reach the kind of massive audience that Glee reached. At its peak, Glee was watched by something like 27 million people — it won Emmy and Golden Globe awards, and had songs on the iTunes Charts. The cast was rocketed to fame and did multiple international tours. Glee was everywhere. And for lots of young folks, Glee allowed them the space to talk about queerness with their families.

However, Glee's queerness was messy and traumatizing and heartbreaking. Glee was unique in that it was a network television show with a variety of queer characters, a variety of queer experiences. Kurt's story was not Brittany's story was not Karofsky's story was not Blaine's story was not Santana's story. Within the universe of Glee, there are many ways to be queer, and many journeys to take.

None of them were pain-free.

At the time I was watching the show, I don't remember thinking about representation. It wasn't part of the conversation around media at the time — I think we'd all just kind of accepted that we'd get little breadcrumbs here and there, but most shows would be about white, straight people, and that was that. So I don't remember seeing Santana on screen and thinking, oh my god, a queer Latina like me. I don't remember thinking much about her being a woman of color, but then again, I didn't think about my own identity that way either. My relationship with Latinidad is complicated and involves a lot of imposter feelings. And it wasn't until later seasons that her identity is discussed, in relationship to her abuela, and where she comes from (there's a "Santana's from the other side of the tracks" conversation somewhere in there). So I don't remember immediately seeing myself in that character with relationship to being Latinx.

But I did see myself in her, because Santana was a raging bitch.

"The only straight I am is straight up bitch"

Santana, on screen, was a villain. Her character starts out as a spy for the cheerleaders and their coach, Sue Sylvester, who wants to take down the Glee club. She sleeps around, she's a bully, she's egocentric. She calls people out on their shit. Santana is a character who knows what she wants, knows she's hot, and knows she's good at what she does. I always admired that.

I am also a bitch. I was very angry for a very long time, and I still am. I was bullied and excluded and left behind, so I learned how to be hard and distant on purpose. I didn't know how to be any other way. I thought, for a while, that's what people liked about me, they were amused by my lack of filter, my willingness to say absolutely everything that I thought no matter how harsh it was. I painted it as honesty. But at the time, a lot of that was a gloss on how deeply lonely and unsettled I felt. I was incredibly unhappy for a very long time.

I'm softer now, more willing to have my emotions on display, more willing to seek out love and joy. But for most of my life, I enjoyed being a bitch. I think Santana did too, and she filled the role that was needed in that show, and in those characters lives. Everyone needs a bitch in their lives.

But like me, Santana was also deeply unhappy — she's scared of being outed, she's lonely and holding herself back from love because of that, and scared to admit she truly enjoys being around the people she once was pitted against. Santana is hurt many times over during the course of the show, by friends and lovers and mentors and family, and each time she picks herself up again, because that's what bitches do. We say, fuck that person. I won't ever let that happen to me again. Trust nothing anymore. Santana uses her coldness and confidence to keep herself safe. While she becomes a loyal friend and a good partner as she grows up, there's also a deeply broken part of her that can never be repaired. That's what makes us bitches — we have to protect the cracks in our own roads.

Santana isn't perfect queer representation. She isn't Kurt — the victim, the good boy. She's a messy, slutty, self-centered, dramatic bitch. She fucks up a lot. And I needed her. I needed her more than I think I realized at the time. I needed to see someone like me on screen who wasn't perfect, who was in pain, who lashed out, who lost out on roles and solos to the Rachel Berrys of the world, who others simply tolerated, who struggled to be a good friend and partner. I needed to see that someone like that could still have a happy ending. I needed to see that someone like that could still find love and friendship.

I think a lot about Glee's performance of Born This Way — the characters wear t-shirts printed with the phrases that others have used against them, a show of reclamation and defiance against bullying. It's a performance that Santana sits out. In the previous episode, Brittany admits to feeling confused about their relationship, and though Santana has accepted her sexuality in private, she isn't fully ready to be public about it. Her anger and disappointment at the world gets to her, and so she doesn’t join the others in singing and dancing about their differences.

But she’s wearing the shirt that Brittany made her. She’s making her own way, messy and tough as it may be. She gets there.

And more than anything, it was that sentiment that stuck with me. It isn’t always a joyous dance number. Sometimes we need to sit in our bitchiness for a while. Sometimes it’s painful and uncomfortable. Sometimes we need the shields we make for ourselves.

It’s okay. We’ll put them down when the time is right.

Thank you, Naya, for being the messy queer bitch I needed.

xx

C

Wishes: lavender, emerald

Reading: The Starless Sea, Erin Morgenstern

Listening: How You Like That, BLACKPINK

Wanting: waterfalls, cake

Loving: baby Olivia