Sue Good to be True
Pam Cesarec, friend of YIL, and enemy of the capital letter, pays homage to the Season of Sue.
with the fall t.v. season coming to a close, viewers are left to pause, take stock, and reflect upon what we have to be thankful for from these past few months. the answer should come easily and can be summed up in a single name: sue.
2009 introduced us to two classy characters who share a first name: sue sylvester of the campy, but surprisingly good-natured “glee” and sue “rhymes with weenie” collini, of showtime’s surprisingly not so good-natured “californication.” played by golden globe nominee jane lynch and kathleen turner, respectively. these broads know how to deliver a line. (and i can’t, in good conscience, write this without an honorable mention. there’s a third sue– sue who’s always “so FRICKIN’ excited”. the baggy sweater-wearing super geek who can never contain herself when a surprise is a’brewin- played by the incomparable kristin wiig on SNL).
sue syl loves blackmailing, making ridiculously unseemly remarks to students and fellow faculty at her school, tucking the jacket of her adidas track suit into her pants, encouraging people to “cane” their children on the local news in order to toughen them up, and – on occasion – donning a zoot suit for some hardcore swing dancing.
collini has very different priorities- including, but not by any means limited to, having coke blown up her ass, throwing swinger parties in her sex toy-filled LA mansion, and engaging in incredibly aggressive and explicit sexual harassment at the workplace. she was neither afraid nor ashamed in the least to propose to her brand new employee charlie runkle that they “slip out of this business casual and see what kind of sodomy laws we can break.”
these sues are two classy ladies. i use the term “ladies” liberally here. very. at any rate, i’m relatively sure that the unflappable/wicked-cool jane lynch improvises a lot of her lines, but we gotta give kudos to the writers of “glee” for crafting her dialogue in such a fashion that she gets away with some remarkably whack stuff without getting banned by the censors. and if collini wasn’t on a pay channel, her character simply wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of even existing. that is one filthy, filthy post-menopausal woman. just imagining her growling “rrrrrunkle” in her, ahem, sexy, ahem, baritone gives me goosebumps… in a profoundly creepy way. 
(one observation that i feel compelled to mention here: kathleen turner has the second-deepest human voice i’ve heard, next to yao defen, aka the world’s tallest woman [look her up!]. when i read on IMDB that turner was born in 1954 and did that quick math in my head, i had to do further research because i felt it simply couldn’t be. weeks after this discovery, i still find myself disturbed that she’s only 55 years old.)
bottom line: at first, i was not a bit excited to see kathleen turner join the cast of “californication” but, man, now i can’t get enough. and i have no doubt that sue sylvester will go down in t.v. history as one of the crudest, rudest, most clever villains we’ll ever have the pleasure of gasping at. all right, ladies and gents, i could write for days on this topic but i shall leave you with some random sue/sue quotes. do enjoy. and please remember during this holiday season– sue: it’s the gift that keeps on giving.
“that was the most offensive thing i’ve seen in 20 years of teaching— and that includes an elementary school production of ‘hair.’” -sue sylvester
“i used to run lines with margot kidder before she went ape shit.” -sue collini
(really this was the only amusing thing collini said all season that was clean enough to quote.)
cesarec… out!
