Can I just say that I love your blog and everything you say is genius. You may have addressed this before, (I haven't found it), but I was just wondering what your thoughts are about Santana's voice over in Born This Way when she's talking about being prom queen and says Brittany's so gullible she'd believe that Santana had made it law for Brittany to dump Artie and be with her instead. If Santana is one of the only ones who really sees Brittany's intelligence then what's this about? Thanks.
Asketh - Anonymous
Hey, Anon!
First of all, I’m so glad you like my blog! It really makes me day.
Secondly, in response to your question: I have an outdated Brittanalysis on this subject here, but, honestly, I wouldn’t bother to read it.
Bottom line?
I don’t think Santana really believes what she says about Brittany in that voice over, even though Santana ostensibly talks only to herself in that scene.
Indeed, I tend to believe that voice over represents halfhearted and wishful thinking on Santana’s part.
The fact is that Santana wants things to be easy with Brittany. She wants to just snap her fingers and have Brittany be hers.
And if Brittany were half as gullible as people make her out to be, things would be easy: Santana could just feed Brittany some lie and Brittany would drop Artie and come running to Santana, no questions asked.
But the truth is that Brittany isn’t gullible and things aren’t easy and that Santana knows it all too well.
If Brittany were in fact gullible, Brittany would have dumped Artie the second Santana made her Hurt Locker confession.
But she didn’t.
Brittany knows that it would be wrong to ditch Artie the second Santana gives her the time of day and Santana remembers that point very clearly.
How can she forget? “But it wouldn’t be right. Santana, you have to know, if Artie and I were to ever break up and I’m lucky enough that you’re still single…”
Santana realizes that even if Brittany were to leave Artie, she herself still isn’t ready to be with Brittany or come out of the closet—hence why Santana undertakes the whole prom queen scheme with which to begin (see here).
The key to this scene lies not in what Santana says about Brittany being gullible, then, but in what she says immediately afterwards, namely: “But that’s never gonna happen. I don’t have the votes.”
For as much as Santana wishes that she could magically make Brittany hers, she nevertheless acknowledges that that can’t happen—not only because Brittany won’t go for that, but also because Santana still has some work to do on herself, at this point.
So is it mean of Santana to think such things about Brittany, even in voice over? Yeah. But does Santana believe what she purports in the voice over? No.
And how do we know?
Because, frankly, for all her talk, Santana never tries to trick or coerce Brittany into dating her, even after she puts her prom queen scheme into effect. Instead, she still just hangs back. She doesn’t even swoop in to date Brittany immediately following the Bartie breakup of 2x19.
Santana knows that she and Brittany will only date each other once both of them are ready.
Her actions speak louder than her words.
Thanks for writing in!
