It be been nearly a week since the actress Naya Rivera disappeared whereas boating with her young son on Lake Piru in Southern California, and in devastating facts, evidently her remains were stumbled on. Her pals and family were going through a fantastic ordeal as they dwell up for facts they know can easiest be depraved. The neatly-known person’s fans maintain additionally lived in a perpetual express of stasis these past few days, unable to grieve for no longer precise the lifetime of Naya Rivera the person but additionally for what she has supposed to them over time.
I earn no longer exercise the word “legacy” lightly. But Rivera and her beloved “Glee” persona, Santana Lopez, helped commerce original tv history.
Fans took to social media to beg rescuers and fellow fans no longer to present up hope. It used to be a futile if fitting gesture, as a result of hope is strictly what lifts Naya Rivera’s legacy, as successfully. Hope for a world the put esteem and acceptance are the norm.
I earn no longer exercise the word “legacy” lightly. But Rivera and her beloved “Glee” persona, Santana Lopez, helped commerce original tv history. She paved the arrangement for the Waverly Earps and Elena Alverezes of the world. Santana danced and sang through her peril, her confusion and, within the finish, her joy, and as she did, so did we.
In 2009, a quirky miniature show about a high college glee membership debuted and at as soon as grew to vary into a sensation. Ryan Murphy’s “Glee,” with its biting humor and earnest storylines, used to be unlike the leisure pretty deal of us had ever viewed sooner than. In the show’s first season, Naya Rivera used to be solid because the casually cruel Santana Lopez, a sidekick of forms to switch cheerleader Quinn Fabray. But Rivera’s sparkle like a flash grew to vary into laborious to bask in, and her purpose used to be expanded.
“Glee” grew in popularity similtaneously Twitter, which grew to vary into integral to the show’s success. Fans weren’t insecure about sharing what they loved and loathed about the show. And what they adored used to be the chemistry between Naya’s Santana and Heather Morris’ Brittany S. Pierce. In the 13th episode of the first season, a throwaway line pointing out that Santana and Brittany had slept collectively sent fans into a frenzy. Brittany and Santana, or “Brittana,” as fans call them, had been supposed to be. “Glee” rolled with it, and the connection would quickly be written into the sequence and change into a fave coupling.
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In the second season, “Glee” if truth be told allowed Rivera to unfold her wings. She dazzled with a cowl of “Valerie“ by Amy Winehouse (but any other skill gone too quickly) and started exploring her persona’s sexuality with a combination of steely defensiveness and beautiful vulnerability. Without nuance, Santana might well per chance easily were written off as a one-dimensional high college bully, but Rivera knew the ideally suited chords to hit every single time. As she pleaded for requited esteem whereas singing Fleetwood Mac’s “Songbird“ to Brittany, fans had been precise there beside her.
To her credit score, Rivera embraced the fan esteem and diagnosed early on how critical her purpose used to be to LGBTQ fans and to tv, interval. In 2011, Naya even hosted the GLAAD Awards alongside co-neatly-known person Cory Monteith, who tragically died nearly precisely seven years ago.
Rivera’s purpose remained an integral share of the “Glee” legend, and Santana’s on-again, off-again relationship with Brittany used to be the coronary heart of the sequence for many fans. Many original folks felt viewed in a arrangement they by no arrangement had sooner than. As documented on social media, folks inspired by the Brittana esteem legend got here out. They talked to their fogeys. They fell in esteem. They stumbled on households. They stumbled on courage. There used to be even a conference dedicated to Santana and Brittany.
Many original folks felt viewed in a arrangement they by no arrangement had sooner than. As documented on social media, folks inspired by the Brittana esteem legend got here out.
In my view, my entire career used to be soar-began by the couple: My first respectable journalism project used to be to vlog about “Glee” and the Brittana relationship. It changed the route of my lifestyles in many ideas, and I’m going to the least bit times be delighted about Rivera’s candor and care when it got here to taking part in Santana.
Naya Rivera, after all, used to be much greater than one singular purpose. She had an fabulous sense of comedic timing. Her monologues, delivered with a feverish sense of wit and sting, had been about a of the show’s finest moments of every comedy and drama. Her soaring belt and gentle high notes evoked about a of finest R&B, pop-rock and even folks singers. Her singing evoked in style emotions: the necessity to esteem and be loved, to be in contact and to be heard.
As a chronicler and a share of this “Glee” fandom, I ache for everyone whose lives had been touched by Naya Rivera. Her legacy lives on in all of us and each delighted ending between two original characters. Tonight we deliver for you, Naya.
“And the songbirds withhold singing esteem they
“Know the get
“And I esteem you I esteem you I esteem you
“Like by no arrangement sooner than.”
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Dana Piccoli is an entertainment creator and pa culture critic. She’s the editor-in-chief of QueerMediaMatters.
