When conservative Fox News pundit went after the show "
Glee" last week, it was not entirely surprising. Given that the series recently ran a dedicated 90-minute show about self-acceptance and self-expression, celebrating Lady Gaga and supporting openness about homosexuality, it was no shocker that Beck realized he could grab headlines and ratings by picking a fight with the highly rated show.
"I've watched it in stunned horror combined with a sense of admiring awe," said Beck about "Glee."
"It is a brilliant brilliant show...but it is a horror show...everybody in here is somebody your kids would want to be like, except everyone is sleeping with everyone else, it's all about self-gratification...it's a nightmare."
What was weird about Beck's rant was his choice to single out the song "Sing," from a February episode of "Glee" by emo rockers My Chemical Romance, to illustrate his point. The song was just re-released as a charity single for Japanese earthquake and tsunami relief.
As the band's guitarist Ray Toro told MTV News, "we talked about something that we could do, and at first we were thinking about writing a new song to raise money for charity and on Twitter, something we had seen was #SINGitforjapan, and it was kids starting this Twitter feed, writing messages of hope. And that really inspired us, and we just set to work, and after a couple weeks, we were able to pull this thing together."
While you'd think a song dedicated to charitable relief efforts might inspire positive press, Beck instead decided to go after the song for its lyrics, which include the passage:
"Cleaned up corporation progress
Dying in the process,
Children that can talk about it
Living on the webways,
People moving sideways
Sell it till your last days
Buy yourself the motivation
Generation nothing
Nothing but a dead scene
Product of a white dream"
"Pay attention to the lyrics," Beck said. "This is propaganda. It's an anthem saying 'Join us'. How can you and I possibly win against that?" He went on to use the song as a key example of how "our whole culture ... is set up for you and the values you grew up on to lose."
The only problem? Beck forgot to pay attention to the lyrics himself, and made several factually inaccurate statements to back up his Evil Glee-pothesis.
Beck said the song was by the band "Chemical Romance" and that the lyrics included verses about children "living on the railways."
As "My Chemical Romance" frontman Gerard Way pointed out on his blog yesterday, the lyrics are "living on the webways."
"Railways? Is it 1863? Seen any children living on these lately instead of the internet?" asked Way.
"I'm actually shocked that no fact-checking was done on the lyrics. I mean Fox is a major news channel, covering factual topics in an unbiased and intelligent – oh wait – to quote the man himself – 'You don't have to live by the standards that society has set'. I couldn't agree more," said Way.
While he doesn't disagree with Becks' synopsis of how radical the song is, Way does have qualms with Beck's use of the term "propaganda."
“I think the word Glenn Beck was looking for was ‘subversion’ not ‘propaganda,’” singer Gerard Way said. “I can’t tell what he’s angrier about–-the fact that it’s how I feel about the persistent sterilization of our culture or the fact that it’s on network television for everyone to hear.”
Of course, we have to wonder if this is Beck's way of biting the hand that will no longer be feeding him. "Glee," is a ratings smash hit for its parent company Fox and its founder Rupert Murdoch, who own Fox News. After his ratings have seen a precipitous decline this year, Beck has decided he will be leaving the network in December, but will continue producing shows on his own.
Watch Glenn Beck's Anti-"Glee" Rant
When conservative Fox News pundit went after the show "