Glee's Sebastian: TV's Most-Hated New Character?

Glee's Sebastian: TV's Most-Hated New Character?

It's any young musical theater actor's dream: A plum role on Glee. But stardom isn't all it's cracked up to be for Grant Gustin, who plays the villainous Sebastian on the show: a new Warbler dead-set on breaking up Blaine and Kurt. Sebastian is everything Kurt is not: conventionally handsome, manipulative, slutty, and audaciously meanspirited. In his debut, in the excellent episode "The First Time," he blatantly made a play for Blaine on a dance floor as Kurt sat at a bar and watched. Gleeks are apparently enraged that Sebastian would try to destroy the heaven-sent gift that is Klaine's eternal love. They absolutely hate, hate, HATE Sebastian. Sadly, some of them have trouble separating fiction from reality, so they also hate Gustin.

The show's writers are showing no signs of toning Sebastian down. In tonight's episode, "Hold On to Sixteen," Sebastian returns and is more aggressive than ever. He has a showdown with Kurt that is one for the ages:

Okay, how great was that? "Smirky little meerkat face." "One of us has a hard-luck case of the gayface, and it ain't me." "You smell like Craigslist." So many catty, great lines! Of course, it's only going to make Sebastian's H8Rs H8 him all the more. Luckily, however, someone has his back.

The Grant Gustin FTW Project is something I accidentally stumbled up on YouTube. It's kind of like an It Gets Better video for Grant to deal with the groundswell of hatred currently being directed his way by Klaine lovers. From their description:

"The Grant Gustin FTW Project was created by Grant Gustin's Runaways in response to the negativity that Grant has received due to his new character on Glee (airing 11/8/11!) We wanted him to know that he has fans that support him in his career, despite those who may not."

The video consists of footage of Grant singing and even a morning-show appearance with the cast of West Side Story (he was in the national tour), interspersed with Runaways members holding up various snippets of lyrics. Don't worry—none of them are actually carved into their arms with razor blades.