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songbirdlopez · 4 months

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Santana Lopez is lazy. At least, according to herself in New Directions (5x13) "I'm too lazy to do eight shows a week". Now I have many issues with this episode and the entire understudy plot, but that isn't what I want to expand on here. I just want to talk about this one line.

Warning, this is a very long post.

Where on Earth did the writers get that idea? I can see Santana genuinely believing that about herself since her self esteem isn't always the greatest, but Rachel never corrects her. Santana says she is lazy, and that's it. She's lazy. But wait a minute, are we talking about the same Santana here?

Let me bring up the obvious. The cheerios. I don't think it's possible to be lazy and be a cheerleader under the leadership of Sue Sylvester (unless you're Becky, I guess). Santana was a cheerio for all of season 1 and 3, half of season 2 (only because without her, Quinn, and Brittany the cheerios weren't good enough to win), and presumably all of her freshman year. That's three and a half years of gruelling training and death-defying stunts. And for her senior year she is co-captain, so taking on extra responsibilities.

Also cheerios related, in Diva 4x13 Sue offers Santana a job as the cheerios coach. Despite knowing how tough Sue is she says yes. Later when speaking to Britt she says that she'll take over fully when Sue dies and she's gonna make sure that happens within a few years (presumably a joke but who knows what would've happened).

Then there's the New Directions. Santana is in the glee club for three (almost) straight years. We don't often see much more than lessons being introduced and then singing, but it's established in season 1 that they do vocal warm ups/training. There's also booty camp which runs late season 2 and all season 3. After she gets (unfairly imo) kicked out in The Purple Piano Project (3x01), she agrees to join Booty Camp to come back to ND. In universe she is one of the better dancers, so this is just a punishment that she accepts, she wants to be in the glee club and will do extra work for it. There's also practising for their competition numbers (even if it's the day of). In season 1 she helps come up with some choreography. Santana often has solo parts and was one of only a few members to get a full solo where she doesn't just park and bark (obvi Britt and Mike were the featured dancers but Santana has her own choreo). Santana is also one of only four characters who audition for a solo for nationals in Funeral (2x21), and she's one of only two who have some sort of choreography.

Continuing on with glee clubs, the Troubletones. Santana joined TT to get more focus. We saw TT discussions and dance practise, and we know that Shelby did vocal coaching that was better than Will's (Mercedes: "Shelby's a great teacher, I'm hitting notes I didn't even know existed.") Santana also pushed through a majorly distressing event (outing) to perform and used that pain to lift the performance (RHI/SLY).

School musicals. Santana has roles in three different school musicals. The only one she doesn't participate in is Cabaret, but that is just a sham to get Rach away from the New Directions. In season two she plays two different characters in Rocky Horror, she's double cast as Magenta (a supporting character) with Quinn, and she plays the lips (this is a mistake on the show's part, the lips are Riff Raff's actor in the movie, but on stage this song is performed by a character named Trixie the Usherette who does a reprise of the song at the end). In West Side Story she plays Anita. Finally in Grease she plays Rizzo, it's worth noting that she gets the role with very little notice and still (from what little we see) nails it.

Jobs. Throughout highschool Santana doesn't seem to have any part time employment, but that's the case for most characters. While she's at Louisville she doesn't need to get a job since she got a scholarship and a bunch of money from her mom. I mentioned previously that she almost got a job as cheerios coach. Once she moves to New York in season 4 she works a shit ton of jobs, like a ridiculous amount. She's a bouncer, a cage dancer, she works at the Coyote Ugly Saloon Bar, she's a waitress, a reoccurring actor for Yeast-I-Stat, Fanny Brice understudy, Rachel's publicist, back up singer (and maybe dancer?) for Mercedes which includes touring with her, and she is an active member of Pamela Lansbury before she and Rachel are kicked out.

Even ignoring the jobs that were just word of mouth, she had five jobs, that's more than any other character in the show, and we unfortunately never find out what she ends up doing.

In season 4 after a push from her friends she takes on NYADA extension classes.

Also relevant, in season 4 she drops out of college. This isn't because she's "too lazy", it's because of the environment. She didn't gel with her fellow students, there's no mention of the work being too much, it's purely that the other cheerleaders don't respond well to her. Her "brutal honesty" or whatever, still not a reflection of her work ethic, just her lack of tact (to put it lightly). Also worth mentioning, the two times we see her at Louisville she is clearly working hard. She can't talk to Britt because she's too busy, and in the scene where that Virginia Wolfe girl eyes her up she's in the library studying. In Jagged Little Tapestry (6x03) Santana tells Brittany that she would like to go back to college, unfortunately we never see if this comes to fruition.

Volunteering. Santana is also the character who volunteers the most. In Silly Love Songs (2x12) she says that she often volunteers at the hospital which is where she got the candy striper outfit. Two episode earlier in A Very Glee Christmas (2x10) the glee girls are going to sell their hair, Santana is the one to tell the others to "stop yapping" and just do it and is just a about to cut off her hair when Will stops them, so clearly she was willing to do it. The next Christmas Santana joins Sam and Quinn at the homeless shelter with the other New Directions after the tv special (kinda goes against her prior eagerness to help out, but makes sense since fame is her mistress). In Lights Out (4x20) she joins Rachel and Kurt volunteering at the Ballet Gala. Admittedly here it's takes a push and she only goes after being offered dresses.

Mentoring. From season four the ND alumni often come back to mentor the newbies or just to help out in general. Santana comes back in Glease (4x06), Thanksgiving (4x08), Diva (4x13), All or Nothing (4x21), 100/New Directions (5x12, 5x13), Homecoming (6x02), and Jagged Little Tapestry (6x03). (I'm not including The Breakup or The Quarterback because she came back for emotional reasons.)

Knowing all of this about her shows how hardworking and passionate Santana is. She is constantly working at something. She has her down time (watching Facts of Life, scrolling Rizzoli & Isles lesbian subtext blogs), but that seems few and far between when knowing just how much she works. It can also be inferred that she is a good student at WMHS, seeing as she got the scholarship to Louisville and they probably wouldn't accept her on just cheerleading merit alone, and she is seen multiple times with her books open, studying. (Pot O' Gold and Saturday Night Glee-ver come to mind). We also know that she cares about her education because she reported Will for being a sub par teacher in The Spanish Teacher (3x12).

Along with everything I just mentioned, Santana also takes it upon herself to do side quests when she wants something. She is so determined to prove that Quinn and Finn are having an affair that she gives herself mono (she's immune apparently, but still). She also goes full spy to take down Sebastian, and to take down Brody. With everything else she does and the effort she puts into random situations to do with her friends she must be goddamn exhausted.

Something I must bring up is related to her being Rachel's understudy. But first another disclaimer: I don't want this post to become a discussion on who was in the right in the situation, both women did bad things, that is not what this post is about. I only bring it up because it is the plot where this line is said, therefore some parts a relevant.

Santana only gets the idea to audition for the understudy role as Rachel leaves to go judge the auditions. We do not know exactly how much time passes in between but it's presumably only a few hours at most. This means that Santana had to memorise the song, change the key and structure by herself, and choreograph the number in a few hours. That shows dedication. Later on in The Back-Up Plan (5x18) Santana goes on in place of Rachel to try and save her friends job. Again she has very little time to prepare to play the role as the show is that night, and hasn't been the understudy for approximately a good few months. We don't see her perform but Rach herself says she was really good. It's unfortunate that we never see Santana get any opportunities come from this, but it's Glee so I digress.

In conclusion (I feel like I'm back in highschool lol), Santana Lopez has many flaws and there are many valid reasons to criticise her, her work ethic is not one. Santana is shown to be an extremely hard working and dedicated character who aims high and will put in the work to get what she wants, she won't let other people get in her way. She can be her own worst enemy and can get into a slump when she can't see a direction to go in, but she always pushes through. I think it's cowardly that the show not only decided that she was the sole offender of the Understudy Situation, but also shunted her with a negative descriptor that is in complete opposition to what we know of her. Despite also saying cruel things during the understudy plot line Rachel gets away with not apologising, and then lets Santana insult herself. It's an unfortunate result and complete character assassination for Santana and shows how little the writers care for her. It also destroys the friendship that Pezberry developed up until that point. Santana is not the only character to be described in a negative way even when the rest of the show doesn't represent that, Mercedes Jones gets this treatment even worse and more often. I do have a discussion about her in my drafts, hopefully I'll finish it one day. It sucks that two of the most versatile and skilled characters in Glee are constantly said to not be enough.

Santana Lopez is not lazy.

#glee #santana lopez #gleek #glee santana #glee character discussion #rachel berry #I know that this isn't really a necessary rant for anyone who has watched the show #but I still wanted to make it #also this was originally for the glee Reddit but it won't let me post it and won't tell me why #it doesn't break any of the rules and there's no apparent word limit for posts #I contacted the mods about two weeks ago and haven't gotten a response #very annoying

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