Not just Posey, the Whole Cast Thinks “Teen Wolf” Is An LGBT Gift!

32 thoughts on “Not just Posey, the Whole Cast Thinks “Teen Wolf” Is An LGBT Gift!”

1. Never trust Teen Wolf PR and interviews. Ever. Also don’t trust what characters tell you on Teen Wolf unless you see it happen and cannot detect anything off with the story. 3×08 Visionary was the most explicit example of unreliable narrators and the show vs tell dichotomy in Teen Wolf. Look closely and you’ll find tons more examples of what the characters (and cast, and PR, etc) say can be very different from what you SEE on screen. Remove the bias of what you are told and trust what you see, especially if you see subtext but are told to look the other way.

   1. Would your group please stop trying to tell other people how to do things? You are entitled to your interpretation, but nobody needs to share it. Stop with this condescending attitude, it does not support your point.
      And even if it turns out you are right (which I personally highly doubt, but as long as you have fun, please continue!), their handling of the media is still a thing that should be criticised. If it turns out you are right, their PR is even worse than I could anticipate – and I’d be shocked from a professional point of view.

      1. Did you just tell someone to stop telling people what to do then proceed to tell them what to do? This person is just preparing people to not get false hope. Which they will if they listen to the PR team or Jeff. False hope and regurgitating lies are painful experiences and it’s good to protect yourself and other people from it at all cost. And sorry to break it to you the PR team is horrible and worse than you thought, all the other stuff you said I don’t understand cause it sounds very deluded.

2. I’m more and more ashamed of how much faith I put in this show with each passing day. I hate to see people hurting and feeling less about themselves because of the actions of Jeff Davis, TPBT, and even the cast now, who claimed they were going to do it differently; make it matter. They have let us down spectacularly and are either complicit in the systematic erasure of almost every scrap of LGBT representation on the show, or woefully ignorant. Neither is acceptable.

3. I quit watching this show early this year. Not because of the LGBT issue, which I did notice those people seem to have disappeared. I lost interest because the players who could have been interesting have had no real development and they all seem to just be aimlessly wandering along. This show could have been great but it has somehow lost all forward motion. They compared it to Buffy here, but Buffy at least was funny and the players had some depth.

   1. Very true. Completely agree with you. I started watching season 3….and only got to episode 3 and then I bailed. The writing was horrendous. Plot ? What Plot ? Great characters like Derek and Stiles, and Peter Hale…their stories…man…I can drop the F bomb right now…the introduction of new characters who were just a rehash of characters that left or should I say, actors that left the show. How stupid does Jeff Davis and MTV think people are ? No wonder the ratings went to hell.

4. I’m starting to wonder what show the cast are watching? Once upon a time I thought it was going to be this wonderful show and I had so much hope for it. The message I’m getting from Teen Wolf is that it’s aright to be gay as long as you stick to the background. If you honestly think Teen Wolf is an LGBT gift then please watch In The Flesh, Penny Dreadful or Shameless and then rethink what Teen Wolf has really done for LGBT environment. It’s just disappointing when you look at a show like Spartacus, who is mostly aimed at men, and get to have this brilliant gay couple. They aren’t just there for the scenery but actually get to have lines and personalities. Teen Wolf isn’t a gift.

   1. Completely agree with everything you have said, Teen Wolf should look at the shows you have mentioned, to see how things should be done.

5. I just had to laugh at Teen Wolf PR’s pathetic attempt to draw back in the LGBT fans with the article. People who are actually queer(like me) can see right though the PR bullshit to see it for what it is, them offering up a bread crust of inclusiveness and pretended we’re getting a 5 course meal. During seasons 1 and 2 I actually did have some hope that they’d be great when it comes to LGBTQ* representation, season 3 came around and it started to make me angry, now that season 4 is almost over I just have to laugh at their epic failure. They spent so much time and effort basically shitting on LGBT fans who called for more inclusiveness starting in 3B through this season but now that their ratings are in the toilet they’re trying this to pull fans back in. Too little, too late Teen Wolf.

6. Not to mention taking a lesbian character and making her bisexual after they kill off her gf just for the sake of one little queerbaiting moment with Stiles (oh, and to advance the “plot”). This, and many other reasons, are why many viewers – myself included – won’t be back for Season 5.

   1. Your post took the words right out of my mouth. All this show does is dangle the carrot so to speak, but at the end of the day it’s a show about a bunch of bros who get hair and fangs and make out with a bunch of prop chicks. Then they say “it’s cool to be gay man, but just don’t steal my limelight.”

7. I find it hilarious that Teen Wolf is set in a world were homophobia doesn’t exist yet in season 1 when Scott makes Danny dance with him so Coach won’t throw him out and Coach basically let’s him stay because it would have looked like he was throwing Scott out for dancing with someone of the same sex, Coach looked nervous and let Scott stay, so yeah, I see to he universe that Teen Wolf is set in is devoid of homophobia (sarcasm) if it was then Coach would have kicked Scott out without a problem.

8. Wow, can I watch what they’re watching? Because the version of Teen Wolf that I’ve suffered through this season isn’t anything like the one they describe.

   I really don’t know what happened to it. A year or so ago it seemed to have so much potential. But that’s gone. Hints that Stiles could be bisexual? Nah, supposedly that was just for laughs. Danny isn’t around? No big deal, here’s another background gay character. It’s not like they matter, right? Fans won’t even notice Danny’s gone. Sterek is a popular part of the fanbase? We’ll just keep the two characters apart all season and constantly put them with girlfriends so no one gets the idea there could ever possibly be a slow-burning same-sex romance between two major characters in the show. Wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea, after all.

   I hate the way this show has changed.

   And now that article shows up just in time for the finale. Because we can apparently be ignored and snubbed all season until they need us to boost the ratings.

9. This show started of good with what I would call The CLASSIC TEEN WOLF years ( Season 1-2 )
   It all went to shit pretty quickly after that.

10. Good article. Skipping finale and the rest of the series… if it survives.

    1. Actually, the finale was the best episode of the season. So you’re missing out on that. Just watch it else where and don’t give them the satisfaction of your view.

       1. When you say “best of the season” I think you mean “least worst/tolerable episode” cause the best of a bad season is still pretty bad

11. This has got to be a joke to be honest. The actors aren’t that stupid. I think the PR team 1) made this crap up and sent it into the interviewer saying the statements were from the actors or 2) they told the actors to say this stupid crap. Having a couple of existing, not important gay characters doesn’t count as representation.

    1. I think the actors are under contract to say whatever the PR team wants them to say, and that’s what gets them into trouble. Holland Roden seems to slip up sometimes (and by slipping up I mean actually speaking her mind). Shelley Hennig, who plays Malia, had to ask Jeff Davis (the showrunner) what she was supposed to answer to a specific question asked at a con. That means none of the actors have the freedom to say what they mean. Except maybe Dylan O’Brien, because Jeff Davis loves him and will do anything to keep him on the show.

12. Crystal Reed did the right thing when she bailed at the end of season 3. She probably saw the mess that was 3A and decided that this show wasn’t going to get better, it was going to get worse and she got out before it really crashed in season 4. A wise decision if there ever was one.

    The problem with Teen Wolf is that the showrunner makes promises he never intended to keep. Teen Wolf wants the support of the LGBT community, because it brought a lot of loyal, driven fans. At the same time the whole idea of anything that falls outside of the heterosexual standard creeps Jeff Davis (the showrunner) out, so he put in token background characters to meet “the quota” and gets the most popular actors to pretend everything is all fine and dandy when it’s anything but.

    Meanwhile, the storytelling itself makes zero sense. The characters contradict themselves in their development. When I saw 3×08 Visionary, I lost all hope for the show, because that episode was supposed to delve into Derek Hale’s background, but all it did was contradict the way more interesting backstory that was already there and make Derek seem like an asshole, when we by then knew he wasn’t. Then in season 3B we had Eichen House, and that’s when I stopped watching. Seriously, who in their right mind thinks it’s a good idea to use a mental institution as cheap atmospheric setting to get two (very mentally unstable, mind you) characters together for a steamy scene that added absolutely nothing to the story (and didn’t make any sense)?

    I moved on to In The Flesh, a show that basically gave me everything Teen Wolf promised, but didn’t deliver. And this show managed to pull off compelling storytelling, well developed characters and a canon gay romance without the self indulgent patting on the back, in less than 10 episodes. It can be done. Teen Wolf just doesn’t want to. The showrunner will say basically anything to keep us hooked, but by now most have caught onto the fact he’s lying, so they left.

    1. Absolutely, I have hung on to season 4 by my fingertips, but I have yet to decide if I am going to watch season 5, its looking doubtful right now. I just hope that Jeff and the TPTB see sense and take Teen Wolf back to the show it used to be in seasons 1 & 2. As for In The Flesh, the show is superior in every way possible.

13. I think it’s highly probable that these “quotes” from the cast were written at a PR desk somewhere at MTV and distributed to the Advocate. If you look at the piece, there is no mention of an actual interview, where it took place, or even what the questions were. It’s all just vague enough that they could be talking about anything, and I doubt the actors themselves ever said those things.

    Read the answers carefully and you’ll see that the rhythm and the copious use of vague qualifiers seem to imply one author at work, OR a writer who pulled quotes out of context from earlier, long forgotten interviews with other reporters.

    And one happy thing to take from all this is that if you read the comments, they back up Farid’s take on it 100%. There isn’t a single comment on there that agrees with the article’s POV– just one or two that say “it isn’t as bad as the other commenters say.” The Advocate is taking a thumping in their own comments section for the blatant promotion of the show and its lack of journalistic due diligence.

14. It must really suck for the cast members that their job security relies on them being used to push this absolute shit.

    I know there are a lot of shows that have no LGBTQ inclusiveness, but at least they do not claim to or plan to.
    But Teen Wolf has been pushing this narrative from the beginning, but never truly delivering, while claiming they are a “miracle” LGBTQ show.

15. That article is a joke. If a LGBT character is just a token character then the show isn’t progressive or unusual in anyway… Unless it was filmed in the 80/smaybe?

    To be something other than a minority token, characters must have lines that don’t revolve around being gay or bi and have characteristics beyond those needed to show sexuality. Also when or if romantic pairings occur, then there should be natural growth and development of the relationship…. Rather than situations like Danny & Ethan where they were paired because their minority groups simply matched.

16. TheAdvocate deleted the twitter and the facebook post about that article. With the backslash in the comments I’m not surprised at all. But sadly in this kind of business it’s the “shout out loud and almost everybody will believe it” attitude that wins, not a lot of readers will take their time and read the comments.
    As always, Teen Wolf is all about icing and no cake.

17. I’m beginning to think that some of the actors were instructed on how to answer it, and man as much as I love Hoechlin, I can’t help but cringe at his response. Being queer is not and has never been a central part of the show. It’s just not, and given how heterosexual season 4 was, I’m beginning to doubt that it will ever be more inclusive. I’m not going to deny the small representation it has had, but I really wish TPTB and whoever else would stop praising Teen Wolf for its “amazing” and “groundbreaking” queer representation and inclusiveness. It’s shitty rep at best, and every time they try to bring up and pat themselves on the back for the scraps they throw us, they’re shooting themselves in the foot because fans are starting to be more vocal about their dislike of the crap representation.

    1. *never be more inclusive, whoops

       1. wait no that didn’t need a correction

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19. Excellent article, Farid. I’d love to see you do a follow-up, explaining how the heck this piece ended up in The Advocate. You could also discuss the issue of “queer-baiting”, and how the fandom perceives the Advocate article as part of a co-ordinated queer-baiting plan (involving the show’s canon as well as the PR).

20. It’s been pretty quiet here at The Geekiary regarding Teen Wolf in the last couple of days. Have you guys seen that The Advocate did an Op-Ed addressing the anger their original article unleashed? It is a really interesting read for a couple of reasons:

    1. It acknowledges that the comments claiming that Teen Wolf is no LGBT gift were correct and valid.
    2. It encourages show runners in general (but not JD in particular) to take note that mere tokenism is no longer enough to ensure the loyalty of a LGBT viewership.

    It’s only drawback, in my opinion, is that it fails to acknowledge The Advocate’s sloppy journalism in the first article or take responsibility or the fact that this “interview” with the cast was really a set of recycled quotes from earlier interviews done with other media outlets.

    But all in all, it’s worth checking out and proof that this article got seen by the right people. Farid, your article made a difference and you deserve props for that!

    1. Yes have read the Op-Ed…Thank you for the kind words! Really appreciated!

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