Actor Chris Colfer at the 68th Annual Golden Globe Awards. Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage. Glee has frequently been called “the gayest show on television—mostly by me—but at Sunday’s Golden Globes, the series took that honorific to new levels. Nominated for a range-topping five awards, Glee had three openly homosexual members of the cast and crew—actors Jane Lynch and Chris Colfer, and series creator Ryan Murphy—win one of the H.F.P.A.’s coveted auric orbs.As the author of the weekly, and bitchy, column “The Gay Guide to Glee” here at VF Daily, this suited me just fine—not just because it continued to demonstrate the series’s vanguard position in the homosexual takeover of America (we are now at Stage Green in our official ROY G BIV Cultural Onslaught Spectrum). It suited me primarily because it rewarded what I think is the show’s most complex and sensitive portrayal—Chris Colfer’s character, Kurt Hummel—while denying recognition to what I believe to be some of the weaker representations (Matt Morrison’s Will Schuester and Lea Michele’s Rachel Berry).

More important than any of this, however, is the politics these awards convoke in the form of acceptance speeches. Naysayers may refute them as self-indulgent and ineffectual forms of lip-service activism, like the “It Gets Better” campaign, which allegedly offers little beyond recognition and reassurance to L.G.B.T. youth. And it may be true that, on their own—without stronger legal standards and recourse like the full federal civil rights engendered by the Employment Non-Discrimination Act—statements and viral videos will not solve the problems faced by the gay community, and especially by our vulnerable youth.

But I know, from talking to real young people struggling with these issues (and from having been one of these young people myself, many years ago), that seeing the young, proudly swishy star of the most popular program on television inveighing against crushing social constraints (Colfer’s exact words were, “screw that”) has true meaning and resonance. If you’ve ever met a teenager, you know that they believe, and believe in, the power of what occurs on their screens. And if you’re not too old and bitter to still love movies, plays, and television, you’ll recall the emotional and transformative power of dramatic representations. Moreover, to the lame-oids like Sasha Stone at Awards Daily and Newsweek’s Ramin Setoodeh, who think there’s only one proper way to be gay (and that’s not the Kurt way), I point to the layers of resilience, fortitude, courage, subversion, and self-awareness Colfer brings to a role they denounce as uni-dimensional, and echo Chris’s sentiment: Screw that!

Brett Berk writes gaily about culture, politics, and cars for VF.com, and is the author of The Gay Uncle’s Guide to Parenting. Visit him at www.brettberk.com or follow him on Twitter.