I Feel Pretty / Unpretty on Lady Gaga Episode of Glee

"I feel pretty, oh so pretty, I feel pretty, and witty, and gay"

For those of you who are uneducated in musicals, this is the start of a song in the popular musical "Westside Story." It's a beautiful song and probably the most recognizable in the play.

This week, Fox's hit show Glee was aimed at featuring Lady Gaga on April 26, 2011. The show's final song was "Born This Way" but leading up to that, each member of the New Directions took time and some sang songs about themselves and how they should learn to accept themselves and accept others for who they are.

There were some clear gay overtones and the show was naturally aiming to show acceptance to homosexuals. In the episode, Kurt returned to McKinley High after Dave Karofsky made amends, with much encouragement from Santana, who figured out that Dave is also gay.

Anyway, for me the best part of the show was the duet with Quinn and Rachel. They sang a number that was a mix between TLC's hit from 2000 "Unpretty" and "I Feel Pretty," previously mentioned from The Westside Story. The two have such beautiful voices - personally I like Quinn much more - but the song was so fitting with the events in the show at the time. The two songs actually merge quite well together.

However, there was one part that I didn't quite understand. In the lyrics I posted at the beginning, they substituted bright for gay. I suppose they didn't want kids to get confused between the two definitions of gay. Since they were using gay in the homosexual sense many times throughout the episode, it might be confusing to them to hear Rachel singing that she is gay. But it is also important that kids learn that gay can mean happy, as it does in the West Side Story song. I don't like the word substitution but it is still a beautiful song and one I have already listened to over and over.

A streaming version of the music is here but you can also buy the song on iTunes if you want to download it.

The finale featured everyone singing Lady Gaga's "Born This Way." Each member of the New Directions wrote a word or phrase on their t-shirt of something they don't like about themselves - something they and everyone else needs to just accept and deal with maturely. Having OCD or being gay isn't something to be ashamed of but accepted and cherished.