Man, have you heard about the new scripted MTV show, Faking It? It was just announced at a Television Critics Association panel today, and it's like totally about these two high school girls who become SO popular when they pretend to be lesbians.
Like, I can totally relate to Faking It! My best friend and I also pretended to be a lesbian couple in high school! Crazy, right? I know! Except, we didn’t pretend to be gay to become popular. We had to pretend to be gay because pretending to be a couple was the only way to get a boy to stop sexually harassing her! Oh, and this is hilarious—perfect for a teenage sitcom—we got called dykes for a year! LOL!
If this goes wrong, it'll be the teen sitcom version of drunk girls making out at the party for a crowd of cheering guys.
But here’s the real kicker: I am a lesbian. I didn’t come out in high school, but I saw girls who did become super popular, just like Faking It promises. And by popular I do mean that guys would constantly harass them and tell them that their dick would make them straight.
No one has seen an episode yet, but based on the premise, Faking It appears to send one message: It’s okay to be a lesbian, as long as you aren’t really a lesbian, and you end up with dudes. That message again, for all those young LGBT kids out there, it’s totally okay to be a lesbian as long as you’re doing it for attention.
But who knows? Maybe that won't happen. Maybe Faking It will take a satirical route and eviscerate America for how it sexualizes young lesbians while simultaneously degrading young gay men. Maybe it'll be the super smart show that captures the sexism ingrained in America that allows for stuff like, IDK, Wild Things, and displays it for all to see. It'll capture this ugly shit and make people contemplate it, and then hopefully they'll change. Maybe this scripted comedy will help us dismantle the patriarchy! Here’s hoping, at least.
It doesn't look good for that kind of progressive thinking, though. Show creator Carter Covington said he never considered making the show about two male best friends who pretend to be a couple. He explained that males don’t share the same type of friendships as females. Welp. Sorry, Carter. That's bullshit.
Oh, wait—did you mean to say that female friendship is more easily sexualized? Because lesbians aren’t more accepted in society than gay males—please don’t get that confused—they’re just more sexualized.
Covington, a gay man himself, said, “tolerance is changing,” but this doesn't feel like it. Tolerance is changing, but not the way Faking It is making it seem. Gay marriage is more and more accepted across the nation, but LGBT teens are still living on the street after their families kick them out, they’re still subjected to horrible bullying, they’re still made outcasts by friends. Gay teens are five times more likely to commit suicide. And Faking It wants to make joke about these struggles.
If this goes wrong, it'll be the teen sitcom version of drunk girls making out at the party for a crowd of cheering guys.
But everybody likes that, don't they?
Written by Hope Schreiber (@HopeSchreiber)
