Board Thread:False Info and Speculative Discussion/@comment-25184427-20140722165407/@comment-19765459-20140727181926

Grahamburglar wrote:

Is it total and complete BS that Jeff Davis gets praised as some savior of television for his "world without racism or homophobia" when what he's actually gotten rid of is almost every trace of the cultural diversity that really drives such prejudices? Why, yes, yes it is. Well I am by no means one to praise Jeff (just as Paul.rea!). Nor do I think that Teen Wolf is presented as a bigotry-free utopia for any particular social reason. As I said before, it is simply because there isn't enough screen time to spend on those kinds off issues so they simply discard them.

Back during the 1950's were there people who would have disapproved of the marriage between Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz? Their show didn't spend time calling that issue out though. Not because the issue wasn't there at all, but because it wasn't what the show was about.

Also, what is your definition of "mainstream" society or culture? Because you would actually find that the definition of that is variable depending greatly on where you live. People from New York City (heavily multicultural) and somebody from rural Montana (probably rather less so) would probably have radically different definitions, even if they were both white! These things are highly subjective. Also, often subject to many influences.

The initial premise of this thread was that Jeff was somehow pushing a "pro-gay agenda" on the show. In reality, he is not. As we've discussed, the gay characters are there to try to buy him some extra gay viewers and pad his ratings. They are not, however, well-depicted because they are not significant characters on the show. Since addressing issues like homophobia would take screen time, and Jeff wants to spend as little as possible on real-world social issues (as opposed to supernatural world social issues) he simply bypasses the issue entirely.

By the same premise, Scott happens to be part-Mexican (just like Tyler Posey). Note the emphasis. Like Tyler, Scott does not have a Latin surname, indicating that Rafael himself is also probably not fully Latino (unless he was adopted). I don't think that Melissa's exact ethnicity has ever been addressed (although the actress herself is not at all Latino). So there is no basis for such a bunch of mixed-race/ethnicity people to latch onto just one of their many lines of ancestry and call special attention to it. The show is not about a teenaged Mexican werewolf living in California! Their dominant cultural background is Northern Californian, as is that of most of the town.

Indeed, the characters are contrasted with real foreigners in-show (notably actual Mexicans and Japanese) who do have foreign cultures. There are minor call-out's to differences in American culture scattered around if you look hard. For example, when Allison first came to BHHS she asked about football (which is a big deal in the Midwest where she had moved from) only to be told by Jackson that lacrosse was more important at BHHS.

But overall, the show is not written to get into comparative sociology, and the character's ethnic backgrounds are not a major aspect of their lives. The Argent's are French, but Allison still had to take French class because they apparently did not speak it in the home enough for her to have learned it from her family. It just added a bit of color to the characters but was not a significantly addressed topic. The show does not devote screen time analyzing American social paradigms in much detail.