High School is a bit of a nightmare at the best of times, with peer pressure, exams and detention. But for TV drama that’s not enough so adding some supernatural elements into the mix is a well worn storytelling path.
Buffy was high school with vampires, Roswell was high school with aliens and Smallville was high school with Superman – now it’s time for Teenwolf, high school plus Werewolves.
Teen Wolf is based on the 1985 film of the same name that starred Michael J Fox back when he was a sex symbol. The premise was simple enough, Fox’s character, Scott, is a new student at a prestigious school, whose quest to become cool fails spectacularly, until he becomes a werewolf.
At which point he becomes the most popular kid in school. Scott’s rise in popularity is primarily due to his prowess at Basketball, since as everyone knows from the classical werewolf myth, being afflicted with lycanthropy makes you sprout hair and fangs during a full moon, burn when in contact with silver, and be able to score nothing but net from the three-point line.
The film was fairly dire, not in the least due to an insidious streak of homophobia running through it. Scott tells his friend Stiles about his big secret and Stiles retorts, ‘You’re not going to tell me you’re a faggot, are you?’ to which Scott answers, ‘Of course I’m not a faggot… I’m a werewolf’.
Now 26 years later we have a TV series that ditches Eighties hair and clothes for a Buffy-esque feel, swaps the High School Basketball team storyline for a High School Lacrosse team, and best of all, dumps the homophobia for a whole lot of gayness.
The new Scott is, of course, no longer Michael J Fox, who is nearing 50, but the younger and cuter Tyler Posey. Posey looks quite similar to Twilight’s resident werewolf, Jacob Black and has a similar penchant for appearing shirtless.
This version of Teen Wolf favours nurture over nature, as rather than being born a werewolf in this version, Scott is transformed after he’s bitten by the series’ Big Bad Wolf in the pilot episode.
Overnight, Scott goes from an unpopular, asthmatic geek to a cool, muscular jock with preternatural reflexes, strength and an innate gift for sports which gets him top place on the school Lacrosse team, not to mention the attentions of the hot new girl in school, Allison (Crystal Reed). Becoming a werewolf also has Scott having to fight the urge to eat people every full moon and avoid the attention of a dedicated band of werewolf slayers who are led by his girlfriends father- talk about hostile in-laws.
On top of all this, Scott has to deal with a territorial battle between the evil alpha wolf that bit him and the good and very sexy, mysterious werewolf Derek Hale (Tyler Hoechlin). Derek alternates between helping Scott cope with his ‘time of the month’ and standing around looking all enigmatic and hot.
The show is awesome enough already, and we haven’t even gotten to the gay stuff yet. The show has an openly gay character- Danny (Keahu Kahuanui), the Lacrosse team’s goalie. He hasn’t gotten much screen time yet, but he’s already ogled several guys openly.
This new MTV produced version of Teen Wolf has also completely overhauled the character of Rupert ‘Stiles’ Stilinski. In the original film Scott’s best friend and the only person who knows that Scott is battling a lot more hair than one usually gets at puberty was portrayed as a homophobic butthead. Contrastingly 2011 Stiles (Dylan O’Brien) is completely at ease with GLBT issues, to the point of admitting to several ‘sexually confused weeks’ some months before the show started. It’s also a running gag that Stiles wants everyone to be attracted to him, every time he bumps into Danny, he asks if gay men would find him attractive.
Scott’s primary rival on the Lacrosse team, the outwardly-aggressive, inwardly-unsure Jackson Whittmore, is played by out, gay actor Colton Haynes. The supernaturally gorgeous Haynes plays Jackson as straight but every scene he shares with Scott’s mentor monster Derek Hale is so homoerotic you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d accidentally switched over to a Queer as Folk rerun.
Lycanthropy, latent lust, lessons learned and lacrosse, Teen Wolf is a howling good time!
Teenwolf is screening on Channel 7 at 10:30pm Tuesdays
Gavin Pitts
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