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Is Ryan Murphy trolling “Glee”‘s lesbian fandom?

Nothing fuels fandom like a hiatus, and the way Glee dropped the microphone six weeks ago was like throwing a match on pyre. “The Break Up” featured the break ups of all four of the show’s power couples, including Brittany and Santana, and if you don’t think the fandom fallout was apocalyptic, let me introduce you to my friend Tumblr. We’ve lived through a lot of fictional lesbian breakups and makeups here at AfterEllen, and usually the cycle is the same: A lesbian couple breaks up, we wail and gnash our teeth and vow never to watch a show again, time passes, we process, fanfiction happens, the show returns and so do we.

But this year’s Glee hiatus has been a little different. Rather than letting the fandom flame flare and burn itself out, Ryan Murphy keeps throwing kindling on the Brittana fire. Last week, he tweeted a photo of Brittany and Sam in fancy dress and captioned it, “The Wedding Of The Year.”

 

Two days ago someone apparently tweeted to ask Murphy what’s his ground wire after a long day at work, and he replied, “Red wine. And avoiding Brittana tweets.” (The tweet is no longer available in Murphy’s Twitter timeline.)

 

Add that to the whopping 90 seconds he gave the long-promised “wonderful, eloquent” lesbian couple on The New Normal and the way Sarah Paulson‘s lesbian character is getting literally tortured at every turn on American Horror Story: Asylum (though, to be fair, so is everyone else on that show) and the way he fully killed Portia de Rossi‘s lesbian character during a facelift on Nip/Tuck, and it kind of makes you wonder if Murphy just has it out for gay ladies.

Shipping aside, I think Glee‘s fourth season, especially the New York stuff with Rachel and Kurt, has been really solid. In fact, I think it’s been more cohesive and enjoyable and less preachy and lady-hatey than everything but the first half of the first season. And, as I have mentioned a million times before, despite its flaws, Glee has done vast and wondrous things for the gay community. But I really am starting to wonder what Murphy’s deal is with lesbians. Is he an equal opportunity torturer and I am just more sensitive to the gay lady stuff? Is lesbian fandom just that much more pronounced in its unrest and incivility that he can’t help but single us out as his most calm-damaging viewers? Is that photo of Brittany and Sam just a little in-joke and not some kind of world-class lesbian fandom trolling? I mean, Ali Adler is a lesbian and he and Ali Adler are BFFs and so obviously he doesn’t hate lesbians. Maybe he just likes to see us cry? Well, anyway, Glee returns from its hiatus tomorrow night with a Grease-themed episode that promises some serious Naya Rivera deliciousness, so I guess I’m still in it to win it with season four. Do you care that Glee is back? Or have you been pushed to the edge of your patience with Murphy’s lesbian high jinks?

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