Board Thread:False Info and Speculative Discussion/@comment-25184427-20140722165407/@comment-19765459-20140723030645

HolyDrumstickofLove wrote:

Ok...see this actually makes a lot of sense as to why it feels so forced. More sense than what I thought. Still, you admit, it doesn't feel seemless and natural...it does seem forced...like they are throwing it out there instead of telling a story. Sorry I may have misworded my intial post....it seems like you took offense. It seems like almost everyone took offense. I only mean to say TW isn't doing it right...even if I can't pinpoint what it is they are doing wrong. Well, Ryan Murphy really overdid it on Glee, going to the opposite extreme. Kurt wasn't just a stereotye, he was a caricature. Blaine was pure wish fulfillment for Kurt. The bullying storyline was part of Murphy's general lingering hatred of Ohio.

While I wasn't out in high school, I have to say that Kurt is unrelatable for me. I can't sing karaoke, much mess muscial theater, and never cared to try to learn. I lifted weights, was into mountain biking and generally hung around a clique of guys that was mainly into the gym and cars. So in that regard, Danny was actually a more believable gay character for me personally than Kurt could ever be.

The problem on TW is that they are gay baiting, which is a term for luring gay viewers (and yaoi fangirls) by having gay characters on the show. But despite the fact that Jeff Davis is himself gay, he does not seem to want to develop any of his gay characters, instead introducing a seemingly-endless stream of new straight characters who proceed to get more character development.

Danny has been a fan favorite since S1. But he explained his own existence right from the beginning: he was Jackson's best friend (because Jackson could not possibly be the big man on campus and not have any friends!) and was guaranteed to never hit on Jackson's girlfriend. Indeed, despite their respective roles as Jackson's best friend and girlfriend, Danny and Lydia were never close, to the point where one would get the impression that they disliked each other.

Danny was pretty heavily promoted through gay media as a reason gay viewers should watch TW. But he was never more than an extra and most of his scenes involved some kind of gay joke. So really, he was a little insulting actually. Things did not improve with the introduction of Ethan, because so much of their relationship happened offscreen that it was like they were crossover characters from another show! Meanwhile, Jeff brought in new straight characters like Isaac, Erica, Boyd and Cora and proceeded to develop them a lot more than Danny and Ethan!

So you are right, Danny's presence on the show is very forced. As was Ethan's. Neither was a significant character, at least until the very end of 3a where Ethan turned the tide in Scott's and Derek's favor. But again in 3b they were background characters, and this was acknowledged even onscreen by Scott not accepting Ethan (and Aiden) as part of his core pack, despite the casual ease with which he took in new girlfriend Kira the Kitsune, whose mother was responsible for all the misery they were going through!

Danny was always depicted as smart. He was the only one besides the druids and Chris to figure out the telluric currents. He apparently knew about werewolves, although Jackson might have told him either before or since he left. We may never know, since we probably won't see him again. He could have/should have been a more prominent character but simply wasn't because the writers chose for him not to be.

Mason looks no different. Like Danny he appears to be the deliverer of occasional lines but otherwise insignificant. His presence does not affect the story one way or another and he is only there to provide gay bait. Only it's not working this time because our expectations of the show have gotten so low that we no longer perceive it as gay-friendly. This means we hang on out of habit and the hope that the storyline isn't headed towards a True Blood like disaster where Stiles and his Dad are the only non-supernaturals left in Beacon Hills!

Your original post was a little offensive to be honest. Gay fans do not see TW as one of the more gay-friendly shows on the air just because it has gay extras on it. The only "agenda" it has is to attract gay viewers, because it is already in a small enough niche that it can use the boost in numbers.

But it treats us very much as nothing more than accessories for straight people. They're the friends in the background who support the real characters. They have no independent meaning in the story, do little to advance it and have no real role that is defined by themselves. Ethan's most overtly heroic moment, in "Lunar Ellipse", saw him with Lydia, not Danny, by his side. As an indentical twin of her actual boyfriend, he basically played the role of Aiden's good side, and Aiden explicitly turned on Kali because of Lydia. Ethan's motives may have been guilt over the Alpha Pack's misdeeds or love for Danny, but again, we really just don't know because it was never clarified as with Aiden and Lydia. S3b did nothing to make the point any clearer.

So, you touched a sore spot. Sorry if the reaction was flames. But it is a touchy subject. It is bad enough when the gay presence on the show is so badly handled, but to refer to it as a "gay agenda" was, to be frank, a direct insult. Which is why you got flamed. But I appreciate that you weren't aiming for that. I hope this has been helpful in understanding how we view this. Thanks!