Rory Flanagan

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by Anna Lucy0 views·Updated Feb 7, 2022
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  1. Hi, my name is anna lucy and I did my critical viewing project over Rory flanagan,
  2. A character from the show.
  3. Glee.
  4. There's actually a pretty school cool story
  5. behind the story that Rory flanagan has.
  6. Damian McGinty was the co winner of season one of the Glee project,
  7. which won him a short stint on the show Glee, which had to be at least seven episodes.
  8. He appeared as the character Rory flanagan.
  9. Rory flanagan was introduced as the exchange student that
  10. Brittany Pierce and her family are hosting from Ireland.
  11. To start off the jokes he originally appears in an episode called
  12. pot of Gold and his very first song is called being green
  13. marginalization is the act of placing a person or thing
  14. in a position of lesser importance influence for power.
  15. The main form of marginalization towards Rory's character is stereotyping,
  16. but there are some instances of bullying throughout his episodes,
  17. such as shown in the picture where he is being thrown up against the lockers
  18. first.
  19. The biggest original form of stereotyping is the fact
  20. that Brittany thinks that Rory is a leprechaun.
  21. She believes this because she believes that
  22. anyone from Ireland must be a leprechaun.
  23. This escalates into her asking for wishes and him
  24. trying to grant them because he likes her.
  25. One of her wishes is to have a bag full of lucky charms marshmallows
  26. because he doesn't stop her.
  27. She continues to believe in this leprechaun theory and he
  28. eventually does give her a bag of lucky charms,
  29. marshmallows.
  30. Another form of stereotyping and bullying is through
  31. the nicknames that are used towards Rory.
  32. These include Ireland's potato eating poser, great kazoo kid
  33. pet irish and leprechaun.
  34. The
  35. Kazoo kid reference is
  36. a reference to a green character from the Flintstones called the Great Kazoo.
  37. So is glee reinforcing the status quote or trying to make a point to the viewers.
  38. In my opinion,
  39. the show only aims to reinforce the status quo of
  40. what people already thought about the irish culture in general.
  41. It seems as though the production team saw a kid who won a competition
  42. and the fact that it is very clear that he is irish when he speaks
  43. and decided that they would make the longest running joke
  44. that they could out of his stint on the show.
  45. However, this is not the only time that they do this within the show.
  46. For example, another character Tina,
  47. who is Asian is constantly seen as being a quiet, reserved smart kid.
  48. This was not something that was meant to
  49. challenge the public's perception of irish people,
  50. but to make a joke, there was no deeper meaning or
  51. um
  52. lesson that was meant to be taught because all that was seen throughout his entire
  53. acting portion of the show was that he was a joke character.
  54. What was the impact? Well
  55. maybe it wasn't intentional,
  56. but Rory's character does impact two different groups of people.
  57. For me personally,
  58. I was not impacted by the portrayal of his character because I chose not to,
  59. I choose not to believe that your
  60. ethnic background dictates your entire lifestyle.
  61. I knew from the beginning of his character being in the show
  62. that this was a joke and nothing more than a joke.
  63. However,
  64. for the public,
  65. Glee turned an amazing singer with an extensive
  66. career into that irish kid from Glee.
  67. Well this wasn't an intentional effect.
  68. It does cause a massive shift in the perception of Damian McGinty.
  69. Lee has a different perspective when it comes to viewing the
  70. actor who's playing the character because it is not animated.
  71. Like some shows,
  72. it is more likely that
  73. the
  74. Character from one show may follow that actor into other forms of media or art.
  75. I did ask a few of my friends while compiling
  76. my information for this project. If they knew who Damian McGinty was
  77. and they would say no.
  78. So I would show them a picture of him and even if
  79. it wasn't a picture that had anything to do with the show,
  80. Glee,
  81. people would immediately say, oh, it's the irish kid from Glee.
  82. They didn't know anything about his extensive background with
  83. Celtic Thunder or his solo career after the show.
  84. Mm hmm.
  85. But you know, why does this matter? Well,
  86. the outrage appears in different places. Depending on where you want to view
  87. on a smaller scope.
  88. A production team managed to discredit an entire
  89. career because of a massively overused joke.
  90. However, on a more broad topic,
  91. the show helped to set a precedent in modern
  92. media that making fun of irish people is okay,
  93. as long as the joke is funny.
  94. Well, this may not cause a massive political issue,
  95. like some other stereotypes do in different forms of media.
  96. It doesn't make it okay or write these jokes in this perception of Rory flanagan as a
  97. character still cause a bias that is seen towards
  98. irish irish culture and other forms of media.
  99. While this wasn't the first show to do it, and it won't be the last. It
  100. did help
  101. teach a new generation of people
  102. that it is completely okay to make these jokes,
  103. but we have to make sure that they're funny.