Last night, Million Matchmaker story producer Jordan Papadopoulos gifted me with the most fabulous gift EVER: A Teen Wolf poster signed by THE ENTIRE CAST. Can you IMAGINE MY DELIGHT? Turns out, he’s friends with the GORGEOUS Gage Golightly (Erica from Derek’s wolf pack, of course), and she procured the autographs. I’m GOBSMACKED. Thankyouthankyouthankyou Gage! I’m off to frame it RIGHT NOW and hang it above my bed. On the ceiling, so it will be the last thing I see before I drift off to sleep.
On a related note: That’s not a cold sore on my lip, I promise, it’s probably a bit of chewed-up bagel, which is even more embarrassing.
On another related note: The Advocate just came out with an op-ed piece slamming Teen Wolf for it’s queerbaiting tactics. That is: For a long time now, they’ve been giving us just enough gay subtext to keep us interested, but not enough to satisfy us or make us truly represented.
For a generation that has never known a time when LGBT people were not represented on the small screen in some form, limited visibility and queer subtext are no longer enough to hold their interest.
The continued teases that a character might be bisexual with no payoff, the same-sex romances that end as quickly as they begin with little development, the disappearance of gay characters without explanation, and the absence of any well-developed LGBT character four seasons into a show that appeared to bank heavily on its queer appeal early on have left vocal fans howling.
That’s a shame, considering how groundbreaking the show was in the first three seasons. Back then,
Teen Wolf flipped the objectification script by flaunting the buff bods of the boys in its cast at every opportunity, including numerous homoerotic locker room scenes, and then took it even further. Boys would flirt with boys as well as girls — most frequently by Stiles Stilinski (played by Dylan O’Brien). Before long, it became obvious that the creative minds behind Teen Wolf weren’t simply using queer elements to infuse the show with gay appeal, they were ramping up the gay appeal to court a young audience. And this audience had grown up with LGBT visibility in various forms.
The show existed in a world where homophobia was nonexistent — a groundbreaking concept, even in basic cable. The presence of out gay teen Danny Mahealani (played by Keahu Kahuanui) among the show’s cast of supporting characters was a monumental shift for a gay character on a TV series aimed at a young teen audience. Not because Danny was a part of the world, but because of the way every other character reacted to him. The straight characters on the series weren’t simply OK with the fact that Danny was gay. His sexuality was treated no differently than differences in eye color. Instead of being taunted by the star jock of Beacon Hills High — Jackson (played by Colton Haynes) — Danny was his best friend.
Read the entire piece here.
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