Lady Geek Girl’s Wishlist for Season 5 of Teen Wolf

Teen Wolf is coming back at the end of June and I am very excited! Last season, like most seasons of Teen Wolf, was good, bad, and problematic. Every year I hope it will get a little better and every year I’m sadly a little disappointed. Now don’t get me wrong; Teen Wolf is not at the level of Supernatural, which I watched despite the fact that I almost constantly wanted to bang my head against a wall. But Teen Wolf has its own set of problems. Despite the diverse cast, Teen Wolf still tends to portray minorities poorly (or they’re just murdered). The women tend to be portrayed decently, and are usually not just love interests, but they do have a problem with ending up dead far more often than the men. There are many problematic, ableist tones in the show, which seem to just get worse instead of getting better. And don’t get me started on the show having a token gay character, which shouldn’t even be an issue considering there have been at least four gay characters on the show. Then there is the constantly rotating cast that makes it difficult for any good writer to construct a decent plot, especially when your main characters leave every other season. I can already foresee a lot of issues in the upcoming season, but my fingers are crossed that the good parts can be salvaged.

So instead of focusing on everything that could go wrong, I decided to think about what I hope will happen in the upcoming season of Teen Wolf.

Sexualized Saturdays: Does Anyone Care About Coming Out Anymore?

Happy National Coming Out Day! I thought I would mark this special day by writing a post taking a look at the current state of coming out in pop culture media. My knowledge of past and present pop culture is certainly not exhaustive: I’ve watched a lot of TV in my day, but I make no claim to have seen every show. Nevertheless, it seems there has been an overall growing trend in TV shows—characters simply aren’t coming out anymore. Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but as a gay man, I feel that the implicit message of “That story’s been done before, coming out stories are so last decade,” all boils down to, “We don’t really care anymore.” Pop culture routinely inundates us with storylines that have been done time and time again: first (heterosexual) love, star-crossed lovers, first heartbreak, young person coming into their paranormal powers, and people readily consume those same scenarios over and over. Are people really so bored with coming out of the closet stories that writers think they aren’t worth writing anymore?

Teen Wolf Season 3A: This Might Hurt.

[Warning for Spoilers]

Lady Saika: Well, Lady Geek Girl has dragged me into this fandom as well, and I have to say: the season three tagline was a bit of an understatement. “Might” hurt? My ass.

But now we’re on hiatus (does the Teen Wolf fandom have a silly word for hiatuses like Supernatural‘s ‘hellatus’ and Hannibal‘s ‘he-ate-us’? Howlatus?) until January, and we can sit back, lick our wounds, and collect our thoughts about the first twelve episodes of season three.

Lady Geek Girl: Now, Madame Ace and I have delved into Teen Wolf before. We discussed both seasons one and two, as well as feminism in Teen Wolf and race issues in Teen Wolf. I have praised Teen Wolf before, because, while not perfect, it is a very feminist show. This season I had high hopes for the show to continue with its usual feminist themes. And while we still have many strong female characters and feminist themes, the ladies certainly took a hit this season.