Wardrobe Symbolism in Duets
A rewritten version of an analysis I originally posted in 2024.
In Duets, Kurt wears a blue cardigan with paint-smeared handprints on the chest. This cardigan is one of my favorite clothing choices in the show because it gives us a lot of insight into Kurt's character and a recurring theme throughout his storylines.
Along with Wheels and Theatricality, Duets is one of the most defining episodes that shapes Kurt's character! In this episode:
He gets called out for his previous behavior with Finn in season 1.
We learn just how lonely he feels, and how he wants to be able to live and experience romance just like anyone else.
He tries to overcome said loneliness by owning it and doing a duet with himself that celebrates both masculinity and femininity.
He becomes closer friends with Rachel.
He also learns two lessons thatβll have a lasting impact on his character. While there's the obvious "don't hit on straight boys", that Kurt takes to heart as he never does again, there's an underlying message of "your problems are not anyone else's" that will actually have a negative effect on Kurt and his communication skills, and itβs why he struggles with his relationship with Blaine later on.
To fully understand Duets, you also have to understand that:
Kurt's crush on Finn was gone at the end of Home and by Theatricality, he was completely over Finn.
Theatricality is about how Finn and Kurt have completely different perceptions of each other and the miscommunication between them because of it. While Finn took Kurt trying to wipe his makeup off with a moist towelette as something flirty, to Kurt, it really was just a moist towelette. When Finn got angry over the room, Kurt was confused because, as he said, he did it as a peace offering after all their fighting. He had even gotten Finn a privacy partition since in Home, he acknowledged that Finn probably didn't want to move in with him. So in Theatricality, while Finn was overwhelmed by all the changes in his life and feeling as if his masculinity was being threatened by being in glee (which is why the whole Kiss VS Gaga thing and Azimio and Karofsky's harrassment happened the same episode), Kurt's frustration towards Finn stems from feeling misunderstood by him, and he's hurt by Finn misconstruing his actions as creepy. Especially because in Sexy, we learn that Kurt actually has an innocent view of love. Even in Duets, his greatest wish is to just hold hands with someone.
You can't just pay attention to what only Finn and Burt were saying this episode, like I think a lot of people do.
What Rachel says to him at the end of the episode, "I canβt imagine what it would be like to have feelings you canβt act on, for fear of being humiliated, ridiculed, or worseβ, is just as important to understanding this episode and Kurt. The situation is more than just βKurt was wrong for wanting to sing with Samβ. The treatment he gets for being gay is unfair.
In this scene, Kurt says he thought βno one pushes the Hummels aroundβ because he believes abandoning the duet will mean letting the homophobes win. Burt replies that Kurt might be trying to βpush this kid, Sam, aroundβ and that Kurt might be βtaking advantageβ of Sam, a loaded phrase to use for wanting to sing a duet. So it really is vital that people keep Rachel's speech at the end of the episode in mind. This episode isn't solely about Sam's consent being ignored by Kurt, because Sam explicitly agrees to sing with Kurt. It's also about other people's reactions to finding out Kurt sang with another boy, fair or not. Like Finn said, they live in βtheirβ world.
On the surface, this handprint sweater in this specific episode, in this specific scene, are meant to represent Kurt's lack of boundaries towards Finn in season 1, the assumption that he'll act the same with Sam, and the reality that no matter how innocent his intentions with Sam might be, they will automatically be misconstrued as sexual or predatory because of his sexuality.
Burt tells Kurt he might be trying to push Sam around and take advantage of him. Finn tells Kurt he doesnβt know when no means no. Hence, the blue sweater depicting two messy handprints on his chest.
But while those are the obvious reasons why this cardigan is used in this scene, thereβs something else thatβs prevalent with Kurtβs character that will become a major plot point in just two episodes. An issue Kurt faces time and time again throughout the show: a disrespect of his own consent/boundaries and the lack of agency he feels over his life and body, which affects how he sees himself and interacts with others. Itβs foreshadowing for the upcoming arc where Karofsky crosses the line and kisses him. The hands are, after all, ultimately on him.
From episode 1, our very first introduction to Kurt is him being thrown into a dumpster by a group of boys, and ignored by Will. Even in episode 2, when the rest of the glee club seems to be having a great morning, this scenario repeats with Kurt. Everyone in the glee club gets bullied, but they make it a point to show that for Kurt, it's worse. Since before glee starts, Kurt is used to other people putting their hands on him without permission.
With a distant, tense relationship with his father (though the audience tends to think of Burt as "the best TV dad ever!" and that sometimes makes people think heβs flawless, he and Kurt hadn't always been super close, especially before Kurt had come out), a dead mother, and no friends, pre-glee club Kurt had almost no support system and very little control over his life. Most of his βrelationshipsβ at this point were with the guys who harassed him. And while Finn was a bystander to most of the bullying, even actively participating in some of it as mentioned in the Pilot (he and the football team threw eggs and pee balloons at Kurt!), Kurt still developed a crush on him because Finn was the nicest guy of them all. Of course if your main form of contact with other people is them bullying and harming you, if you become used to people constantly trampling over your personal space, it's going to affect how you view relationships, yourself, and what youβre willing to tolerate.
An example of something he had little control over: he had no say in how he was able to come out to most people. In Acafellas, even though Mercedes tells him he shouldn't be ashamed and the club will be there for him, Kurt tells her he isn't that confident. In Preggers, he still denies being gay to Finn. It was something that he wasn't ready to share with the world just yet. But while he was able to tell Mercedes and his dad on his own terms, two monumental and emotional moments for him, everyone else always automatically assumed he was gay and treated him accordingly. Aka badly, because [burt in theatricality voice] being gay is wrong. He couldn't come out to other people by choice, because everyone had already decided for him. And with that loss of choice came harassment.
I believe all of these things contributed to him having a muddied view of boundaries (like thinking it's okay to set his and Finn's parents up) since he wasnβt allowed to have any himself and a lower self worth, because like Puck had stated in Laryngitis, being thrown into a dumpster made him feel like human garbage (Kurt obviously wasnβt shy or completely self conscious though, but it was more like it made him susceptible to accepting less which Iβll get into later. he also used his cold demeanor as a defense mechanism). It also aided in his need for control (which he usually exercised over his dad, as thatβs the only person he could truly influence, and what he attempted in Home with Finn, but that blew up in his face in the very same episode. Kurt might try to control people, but heβs not very good at it!) because he felt as if he had so little of it over his own life.
Of course, in season 1, Kurt never took the bullying meekly, nor was he particularly scared of his bullies. He usually had a snide comment to make, even right to their faces, and in Theatricality, he told them no matter how they treated him, he wasnβt going to change who he was. He also wasn't afraid to stand up for others, like shouting at Azimio and Karofsky when they pushed Tina that episode. But as we see from the first two episodes, he mostly accepted his own bullying passively because he knew there was really no way he could stop it himself or get help, as people like Mr. Schue would walk by, oblivious.
Because of that lack of trust in others, because he was afraid of these things affecting his relationship with his dad, Kurt believed he needed to deal with his issues on his own. It's something we already see him feel in Wheels, when he made the decision to blow the note to protect Burt from further harassment, the harassment that Kurt faced daily. Duets further cements this for him as Finn and Burt tell Kurt that if he sings with Sam, he'll be setting Sam up to get mocked, and thatβs not fair to Sam, even if Sam had agreed to sing with him. Itβs not about the fact that Kurt gets bullied, because itβs treated as an almost inevitable fact of life, itβs that he shouldnβt get others involved. So Kurt decides to dissolve the partnership. He βsets Sam freeβ.
As time went on, he began to become resistant to the idea of asking for help. In Theatricality, Kurt is still able to (curtly) ask Finn to tell Azimio and Karofsky to at least leave his clothes alone if theyβre going to bully him (not even to stop the bullying, but just to leave his clothes out of it), while in comparison, in Furt, heβs uncomfortable with the club trying to defend him because itβs not their problem.
Things escalate in season 2. In Never Been Kissed, Karofsky forcibly kisses Kurt after Kurt tries to stand up for himself, and even tries to kiss him again before Kurt pushes him away. Along with Dave physically assaulting him daily by slamming him into lockers, he begins to covertly sexually harass Kurt (the wink in The Substitute, touching Kurt's chest in Furt, along with trying to spin the situation as if Kurt had kissed him and telling his dad he thinks Kurt likes him during one of the meetings). This is when Kurt goes from being passively annoyed/tired to being legitimately afraid. Because of the kiss, Karofsky's previous and current targeted harassment towards Kurt takes on a whole new meaning. It's alarming to know that someone who has shown over and over again that they have no problem being violent towards you, who doesn't care about your consent, also has sexual/romantic feelings for you. Karofsky steals the cake topper from Kurt, and it leaves Kurt the most afraid weβve seen him so far.
(And Iβm fully aware there are giant, glaring differences between how Finn and Karofsky had treated Kurt, but I do find it interesting that, at a certain point, Kurt had been hoping for the "bully is secretly in love with him" trope to be true, but the actual reality ended up being scarier than he imagined. Again, not really comparable situations, as Finn's main selling point to Kurt was that he was nice, but I do think Kurt's crush on him showed that he could be someone willing to overlook some abuse. The implications of Kurtβs crush on Finn, and what it said about himself and his experience as a lonely gay teen, are often lost because people focus solely on what Finn felt.)
Yet, after the kiss, Kurt is more concerned with not outing Karofsky. While he does get to express some sadness over his first kiss being with Karofsky for a scene with Blaine, what happens prior is not a confrontation meant to tell Karofsky he doesnβt know when no means no, or anything about what Kurt feels, itβs Kurt (through Blaine) extending an olive branch to Karofsky and telling Karofsky that heβs not alone and he can talk to them. When Karofsky asks him in The Substitute if heβs told anyone else, Kurt says he knows how hard it is for him, so he wonβt tell anyone. Despite everything, Kurt ultimately puts Karofsky first, even before Karofsky threatens him over it.
The purely canonical reason why Kurt didn't tell anyone else Karofsky had kissed him was that Kurt didn't want to out Karofsky. The show basically spells it out for you, this is Kurt's main motivation for keeping the kiss a secret from others. It could be dangerous for Dave if he's outed, Kurt knows that better than anyone, and it's the main message of the arc: it's never okay to out people. And most importantly, this is the kind of person Kurt is. He won't out someone because he knows it's wrong to take that choice away from someone. I donβt want to minimize this about his character because I think it can even be glossed over by fans what a selfless act that was, that came from Kurtβs morals and not based on pure fear.
But based on past experiences Kurt has had, I think there are 2 subtextual motivations behind his refusal to tell anyone outside of Blaine:
He knew he wouldnβt be helped. And he kinda wasnβt. Despite the meetings with their parents about the bullying and even with Sue on his side, Karofsky wasnβt expelled for good and Kurt had to move to Dalton for his safety, which only furthered his belief that telling people about his problems yields little result.
He felt he would be blamed for his own assault. He'd already been blamed for his own bullying multiple times (Theatricality, Duets, Wheels, though that was him more, him feeling responsible for it when Burt gets that phone call), and he knew people take issue with him interacting with other guys. He knows that his intentions might be assumed to be sexual or flirty in nature just by virtue of being gay. It could be likely, especially as Karofsky had tried to weaponize this against him by trying to frame it as if Kurt had kissed him and had a crush on him, that the situation could turn on him and he would be the one blamed for trying to kiss Karofsky. It doesnβt help that Blaine, the only person who knew about the kiss and why Dave was specifically targeting Kurt which had more to do than just bigotry, compared Kurt to Karofsky after an argument in Blame It On The Alcohol. Of course he meant that Kurt was being ignorant like Karofsky, but being compared to the person who assaulted him could not have been a good feeling.
And so Kurt keeps it in.
I already mentioned that the sweater in Duets foreshadowed this plotline, but it isn't the only arc where Kurt's boundaries are disrespected. Itβs a theme thatβs pervasive with his character: other characters disregarding Kurtβs consent.
As the show goes on, he's:
"stalked" (using the term rather loosely, but I think it would be natural if Kurt had been extra creeped out by Karofsky, who now goes to a different school, had been visiting him everyday as a "secret admirer") and confessed to by Karofsky in Heart
pressured by Blaine to have sex in a parking lot, and when he says no Blaine storms off angrily in The First Time (and to be clear here since this is a sensitive topic: regardless of what you feel about Blaineβs intentions in the first part of this scene, I feel like it should be easy to admit his reaction to Kurt rejecting him was still objectively guilt trippy/mean/wrong. And thatβs even without the added context of the Sebastian/school play, which adds more layers to an already rather messy situation.)
tied up by Sexy Santana for not wanting to roleplay in Previously Unaired Christmas (and I know this is meant to be an AU, not canon, but it's interesting to me that even in an AU, Kurt is punished in this way)
lied to by Walter, who is deceitful about his age when he and Kurt talked online in The Hurt Locker Part 1.
There are also non-romantic/sexual moments where his boundaries are pushed and Kurt's autonomy is overridden by others. In Grilled Cheesus, he asks the club not to pray for his dad and he's ignored, even by the other adults in his life, like Will and Emma, because they think they know whatβs best for him. In the end, he relents and says he should have just let them pray and he sings a religious song with the club. His own wedding with Blaine wasnβt exactly βhis choiceβ either, as it's sprung on him last minute by Brittana and Sue (even though we know it was something he ultimately wanted).
Of course canonically, most of this doesn't actually affect Kurt in a way thatβs super explicitly obvious. He never outright says, βwow, I felt very disrespected by this thing that happened. I think I'm going to have communication issues from now on.β lol. The show did not actually care to tell the story of sexual assault with NBK, but instead that of a closeted bullyβs troubles so they could deliver a message about outing people. When Blaine gets upset that Kurt didnβt want to have sex in TFT, itβs seen as no big deal by Kurt or the narrative. He even says it was worse when Blaine made out with Rachel. And itβs not hard to understand why itβs framed that way. The show itself already has a questionable view of consent (ex: Puck/Quinn...RIB also got super pissed at a contestant in the glee project for being upset when he got kissed without consent on the show, which is pretty revealing...), so, to the writers, the narrative, and Kurt, itβs no bigger argument than any other. Itβs not meant to be that serious. This stuff, as it seems, doesnβt faze him as much as you might think it would. He's willing to have sex with Blaine literally the next day, and heβs able to move on without problem. And, if you want to believe that none of this affected Kurt, because that is somewhat textually factual, you can. Itβs right there in canon. In fact, even as someone who dislikes TFT, I still think itβs a bittt disingenuous to overblow the effect this has on Kurt by acting as if this forever traumatized him when it feels like the show went out of its way to be like βno, actually it was fine!!β
However, while Glee is not a subtext heavy show, I think you can still make inferences based on what the text presents. Because of everything we know about Kurt's past, itβs possible to draw the conclusion that Kurtβs nonchalance towards these situations is because Kurt had already been conditioned to believe he didnβt deserve better treatment, he had no faith heβd be helped even if he did tell anyone else, and he believed he brought this stuff on himself because heβs the one who doesnβt know when no means no. Things like being "stalked", catfished, and yelled at for not wanting to have sex when he already felt uncomfortable and disrespected didnβt register to him as something that maybe he should feel more upset about. Instead, his focus is usually on what the other person might feel. He seeks out and apologizes to Blaine (and this is done for a very specific reason in TFT, to reassure the audience that having sex was 100% Kurtβs choice. But while I understand their intentions, I still think it's a clumsily written episode, and having Kurt apologize made the situation come off worse than they had intended). He blames himself for not picking up Karofskyβs calls. He continues to date Walter.
It's also metatextual in a way, where Kurt's storylines have this overall subtext about how little control he has in his life. In Choke, instead of performing a trite Phantom of the Opera song, Kurt auditions with a song of his choice, a song that perfectly represents him and his specific journey instead. Not The Boy Next Door is about Kurt rejecting the status quo, making a decision that is entirely of his own, and performing in a way he feels most confident in. And yet he is narratively punished for this when he's rejected by NYADA. This performance, which had so much build up to it from the Tony and class president rejection, to Finn saying "Why do you have to make such a spectacle of yourself?", is deemed soulless. It is, apparently, a bad thing to make a spectacle of yourself. (And the whole βwell, youβre not supposed to do all that during an audition!β is a boring way to look at it. this isnβt a reality show, itβs a scripted narrative thatβs supposed to have some meaning. no audition in this show is meant to be realistic, itβs meant to give insight to the characters.) The way he eventually gets in is almost entirely the opposite of NTBND, because almost nothing about the situation ends up being his choice. The chance to reaudition at the NYADA winter showcase is randomly sprung on him by Carmen, he has to have Rachel tell him what his strength is, and he performs a song that in Choke is mentioned as one of the most popular and overdone audition songs. Only then, at the permission of others, at the expense of his own opinion, is he "allowed" to become a NYADA student.
And we see how much brushing off these instances affected him throughout the show. Because he feels like he can't go to anyone about his problems, he bottles up his emotions and has a lack of communication skills that ended up causing a rift between him and Blaine when they moved to New York (telling Blaine they need to talk more, then saying they talk too much in Tested), he has an intense need for control (being upset when Blaine moved a desk in New New York, his developed OCD in Wonder-ful, his restrictive diet in Tested, which was only further exacerbated by his bashing). Though it was condensed in the actual episode to just being about how men fight to stay connected, I think itβs still pretty indicative of where Kurtβs mindset was and what the writers intended for him: in Loser Like Me, Kurt was meant to say that in therapy he felt as if there was something wrong with him, so when Blaine loved him, he felt as if there was something wrong with Blaine too.
Kurt was conditioned to believe he had to be alone (Burtβs speech to him in Duets). And so, despite how badly he craved connection, he ended up internalizing it and was unable to cope when Blaine did anything but leave him alone. (Along with the cheating as well lol I donβt think Kurt would have grown nearly as sick of Blaine as he had been in season 5 if it werenβt for the cheating, which is of course another boundary crossed. βBut Kurt cheatedββ okay yes.)
And Iβd like to add one disclaimer: this post isn't meant to perpetually "victimize" Kurt. What I love most about Kurt is how strong he was, he could handle so much grief where most other characters would crumble. In fact, I think "Kurt had a victim complex" is a huge misconception about his character, because he often tried to brush aside his bigger problems, which was one of my points here. But there's no shame in being a victim. Kurt, and by extension any person, is not lesser than because they had bad things happen to them, and Kurt shouldnβt have these parts of his storylines erased or ignored because itβs uncomfortable, because itβs such a huge part of what shaped Kurt to be character he is. Despite all the bad, Kurt was still able to be strong and kind, and personally, thatβs why I find his character so interesting. This is more about how character development isn't always just "this character became a better person", sometimes it's a character internalizing lessons that actually negatively affect them! I feel like so many of the issues Kurt continued to have later on in the show stemmed from Duets, and this cardigan being worn in the episode is such a strong visual symbol of this.
TLDR:
The hands on his sweater represent a persistent theme in Kurt's character, from before glee started until the very end of the show, canonically and in a narrative sense, where Kurtβs boundaries/consent were often disrespected and ignored.
And I have a lot less to say about this, but the shirt Sam wears when he gets slushied was also a bit of symbolism. Heβs wearing a target tee, representing that now that heβs in the glee club, heβs a target for harassment. Obviously lol. Itβs interesting to me that he gets slushied before he even duets with Kurt though, proving that it isn't Kurt's sole responsibility to keep Sam from being harassed, because being in the club is already enough of a reason. Iβve also talked about how this could represent how he's about to be in between duet partners as he gets to know Quinn.
