In “The Rocky Horror Glee Show,” episode 2×5, Will Schuester decides to push all barriers and have his students perform “The Rocky Horror Show” because he knows Emma likes it. His plan is to get Emma to feel closer to him, and through inviting her to act as costume designer and spend more time with him, he also hopes to take her away from Carl. The episode touches upon many important themes, including the fact that men don’t necessarily feel comfortable in their bodies and also have unreasonable expectations imposed on them by society via the media. Sometimes people forget this and believe it’s only women who are taught to feel self-conscious.
Perhaps one of the most important conversations of the episode takes place between Will and Sue. It goes like so:
Sue: There are limits, Will. There is a line. And for reasons I suspect have nothing to do with your kids, you crossed it. You can’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater and you can’t expose kids to material like this. Not on the taxpayer’s dime.
Will: Please, Sue. They have the Internet. They are exposed.
Sue: Don’t lead them to it! Don’t make it okay. They’re kids. And now more than ever high school’s a dangerous place and it’s our job to guide them through it safely. And we still get to torture them along the way; it’s a fabulous system.
While Sue’s motivation has less to do with her true dismay over the content of the show and more to do with her desire to win a local Emmy by reporting it, her concerns raise an important question. How much is too much? Is there a concept of not exposing children to certain ideas even if they have access to it on their own? Is legitimizing sex and prurience a problem? And can we claim that if these concepts appear within the context of art, they become acceptable?
Numbers 15:39 cautions a person against following his own eyes or heart, which cause him to go astray, so that one may remember God and remain holy. Commentaries read this to refer to the sexual thoughts that cause one to become lustful without the commitment of a true marriage, and thus a sanctified framework within which to give to one another. Maimonides in his Guide to the Perplexed 3:8 notes that thoughts are the very treasure of a person and the purpose of the mind is to cling to God; to deliberately fill it with erotic thoughts that can come to no fruition is to degrade that mind.
Will Schuester comes to that realization himself when he states, “Carl’s actually making you better and if I really love you, then I need to back off and accept the fact that at least for now being with him is the best thing for you.” Love is not about the body, the objectification of men or women, conquests or contests. It’s not about trying to manipulate Emma into coming back to Will. Rather, as R’ Eliyahu Dessler states, it’s about the giving of the self.