#teen wolf racism

[princeescaluswords]

Villainizing Grief

I was thinking about @theobule-caul's post here about how often fandom defends its celebration of villains (but only if they're good-looking white male villains) at the expense of female characters and characters of color. What's insidious about this is how subtle it can be, so subtle that fandom can tell itself that it's just telling an alternative story and not actively engaging in racist double standards and erasure of female characters and characters of color.

I can think of no better example than the way the Sterek fandom loves to rewrite the end of Season 3B of Teen Wolf. In Insatiable (3x11), the nogitsune, wearing Stiles's original body, has the oni kill Allison Argent. It was a shocking moment for the audience as well as for the characters. Scott ends the episode having led Allison to her death and holding her cooling corpse. It's tragic.

For a traditional television hero, the next episode would have been about Scott coming to terms with the love of his life dying in his arms, but Teen Wolf chose not to do that. The first scene in the next episode is Chris Argent instructing Scott on how to create an effective cover story about Allison's death, implying in the line "it's what we do" that Scott can't grieve right now. He must be the leader that he never wanted to be. Instead, other people -- Stiles, Isaac, Chris himself, and even freaking Ethan (notice a pattern) -- get emotional scenes which express a reaction to Allison's death. Scott won't be able to mourn Allison until the season ending montage, where he gets ten seconds of silent crying in his dining room (as I frequently say at this point - Don't strain yourself, Davis). Instead, Scott spends the final episode focusing entirely on saving Stiles to the point that even after such loss, Scott won't contemplate Stiles's sacrificing himself to save others.

Jeff Davis did know his audience. He knew that he should have only white male characters get to express feelings about Allison's death in The Divine Move (3x12). Scott doesn't. Lydia doesn't. Noshiko doesn't, and it was her oni that killed an innocent girl. In fact, Scott won't mention Allison by name until the Benefactor (4x04) -- four episodes into the next season -- when he's forced to tell the Sheriff that her name is a key word for the dead pool. He won't get to actually verbally admit that she died because he led her to fight the nogitsune until Monstrous (4x10) when he's talking to Liam and even then doesn't have time to actually express more than a fleeting emotion about it. Scott won't perform any sort of mourning until the first episode of Season 5. For a relationship that Jeff obviously considered one of the cornerstones of the series (so much that it was the focus of the reunion movie), it seems strangely thin, doesn't it? But Davis understood how little his audience cares about a character of color's feelings.

But don't worry! Here comes the Sterek Fandom to the rescue! They will give Scott the opportunity to grieve! Yay!

AND THEN THEY WILL CONDEMN HIM FOR IT.

It appears all the time; it's very popular. When you look at stories where Scott is a Bad Friend or Stiles is Pushed Out of the Pack, it is very frequently due to Scott's reaction to Allison's death. There's a new story today where Scott is angry and blames Stiles. Don't worry, Scott will be made to apologize for grieving by the end of the story. In various and numerous stories, Scott has been lectured or scorned by his mother, by Derek, by Lydia, by the Sheriff, or by Peter (!?!?) when it's made perfectly clear that Scott McCall's primary and unending mission is to focus entirely on Stiles's emotional state and accept anything that his "best friend" decides to do, whether it's show up drunk to Allison's funeral, abandoning Beacon Hills, refusing to talk to Scott and instead choosing Jackson to be his new best friend or sleeping with a Hale.

The twisted part of this is that the Sterek fandom takes what happened in canon -- Scott sets his grief aside to take care of Stiles -- changes it to its opposite in their writing, and then uses that grief to make him the bad guy. It might seem strange, but it serves very specific purposes.

Doing this undermines Scott's and Allison's relationship as the predominant relationship of the show. Sterek fandom has been wanting to do this since Season 1. It's necessary for them to argue that Scott didn't reject Derek or Peter because they were brutal and selfish, he rejected them because Scott was obsessed with Allison. The fact that Scott clearly wasn't -- especially in this situation -- reinforces the canon reason that Scott wouldn't follow Derek or Peter, and it is hard to write apologia for a villain character if the lead protagonist had a legitimate grievance against them.

Doing this denies Scott's virtues as the lead protagonist. This is basic bashing. Even though canon Scott again and again showed compassion and concern for people he had every right not to do so (to the point that Stiles keeps scolding him about it), if they can portray Scott as focusing on his own emotions, they can argue that he's essentially selfish. Think about that -- they leapt at a chance to show a boy grieving for the girlfriend that died in his arms in order to convince their audience he's a villain.

Doing this makes it easier to conjure a relationship for Stiles and a white male character which supplants Scott's relationship with Stiles. It isn't enough for them to craft a relationship between Derek and Stiles (or Jackson and Stiles or Peter and Stiles) that didn't exist in canon -- which are completely legitimate ships, by the way -- because they also have to destroy his pre-existing relationships in a feat of bitter envy.

On the surface, it might easy to miss the connection between allowing a character of color to grieve and using it to promote white male characters (and defend white male villains), but it exists. Grief isn't bad in Sterek stories if it's Stiles or Derek grieving. Grief is bad when Scott grieves (someone other than Derek or Stiles and even then he can be scolded for even thinking that his grief is on the same level as Derek or Stiles's). This is exactly what the original post was talking about it when it complained about "sometimes transplanting whole story/personality elements of characters of color / female characters onto their white villain faves to explain why they're 'sympathetic' while also denigrating the CoCs/FCs for the exact same traits." Grief, as Jeff Davis perceived, is only heroic when a white man does it. In a character of color or a female character, it's an obstacle.

#scott mccall #scott mccall defense squad #stiles stilinski #derek hale #anti jeff davis #teen wolf racism #fandom racism #fandom problems #teen wolf fandom problems #anti sterek

[camelotpark]

Anon. I know she says disgusting crap because she's a disgusting person, but we know that already and I'm not feeding her clear want of attention more then I have too.

#racism #fandom racism #teen wolf racism

[yenvengerberg]

since the trailer for teen wolf: the movie just dropped, i feel like now is an excellent time to inform/remind everyone of the treatment of arden cho.

arden, who played the show’s only lead woc, was written off the show with zero warning - the excuse being that there wasn’t enough room for her storyline. in fact, she had been doing press saying she was excited to see what the next season would bring. she also had to announce this herself via her youtube and her character, who had been the main character’s love interest, didn’t even get a proper goodbye.

then, the teen wolf movie came around. you would think this would be an opportunity for kira to be treated better and finally get her ending, but no: arden cho was offered less than half the salary of her female counterparts to return.

so what did teen wolf do about this? they decided to replace her with another actress who would only be offered basic pay.

after the release of the trailer today, it’s become increasingly obvious that arden’s character kira was a crucial part of this movie. the movie brings back several ‘big bads’ that were introduced because of kira, the nogitsune and the oni. so why wasn’t arden offered equal pay? why make the mythology that was centered around your lead woc as the plotline for this film, but not treat her equally?

i’m begging everyone to not financially support this movie. if you're that desperate to watch it there are ways to do so without paying (i’ll even help you find a link if you need it!). but please, don’t sweep this under the rug. let this movie flop.

#arden cho #arden cho deserves better #teen wolf #tw racism #i should sleep but i'm sat here getting angry about this AGAIN #i feel like everyone's just shut up about this and i'm still sat here FUMING #seriously idc if you want to watch it to laugh at it or to chase the nostalgia #just PLEASE don't pay for it

[punkeropercyjackson]

I'm so glad i never watched Teen Wolf.Imagine having to deal with not only everyone insisting your brown biracial mc is actually the sidekick to his white boy comic relief best friend AND the white boy in question getting nonstop queerbait accusations over an adult white man even though both of them are high schoolers.Scott Mccall stans and minors in the TW fandom in lending you my strength since they ain't shuttin' up ever even i can tell

#teen wolf #scott mccall #stiles stilinski #sciles #t4t sciles #derek hale #antisterek #age gap cw #grooming cw #sexualization of minors cw #adultification tw #racism cw #white favoritism #pro scott mccall #latina tag #biracial tag #homophobia #poc #anti latino racism #💌 #summerposting

[thehollowprince]

For anyone interested, this is the post I saw on the Teen Wolf subreddit this morning.

I included the top comment because it's incredibly relevant to this "argument," and surprisingly, with a few exceptions, most people seemed to agree that the main post was bullshit and out of pocket.

At the time I'm writing this post, it's been six years since Teen Wolf ended its run. That means it's been eleven years since the referenced episode Master Plan aired. Eleven years! And still, there are people who remove any and all context and go out of their way to shit on the main character and protagonist of a show. This person didn't once mention the fact that during the scene where Scott held up Derek to bite Gerard, Allison's life was in imminent danger. Nor is it mentioned that Gerard threatened to kill Scott's mother more than once, one of the times literally having her suspended from the ceiling by her neck and the other he shoved a knife into a sixteen-year-old boy.

It's safe to say that Gerard would have followed through.

None of that's ever mentioned. Because these people don't care. They don't care that Scott was forced into a corner and that the choice was between making Derek bite Gerard (for which he had a contingency plan if it got that far) and watching people he loved die.

I guarantee you that if it had been Stiles instead of Derek, the fandom would have a different opinion on this scene.

But here's the thing. If it's considered "rape" because Scott (really Gerard) took away Derek's autonomy, why does that never apply to other characters? Why is Peter not considered a rapist by these same people for biting a teenage boy and trying to force him into his pack? Or when Peter bit Lydia? Or hell, even Derek himself! Derek, who assaulted a teenager multiple times, breaking into his house, stalking him, destroying his property, breaking his arm, using him to gain power, and even beating him into unconsciousness with his literal boot on this boy's neck. Does that not count as violating bodily autonomy? Or how about when Derek preyed upon three emotionally and socially vulnerable teenagers to trick them into joining his pack of child soldiers?

Why do these things never count?

And I want everyone to understand, I'm not saying these things about Derek because I hate him. These are things that he did in the show, and ultimately, it worked out because Derek had one of the best character arcs in the show.

I'm just trying to understand why Scott is vilified when other (white) characters who do similar, if not worse, things never receive the same level of hostility. I mean, we all know why (it's the racism), but since a large part of the fandom continues to deny it, I'm waiting for whatever this other reason is.

#scott mccall defense squad #scott mccall #derek hale #teen wolf fandom problems #fandom racism

[grapecaseschoices]

there is always some clown that shows their ass about wyll on youtube. like no one wants your bad opinion on a positive video about wyll. no one wants your regurgitated bile that you yucked down from some other clown who has also never played his route or had him in their party or really spoken to him in camp, but wants to say The Reasoning Why Has Nothing To Do With His Blackness, I Just Don't Like Goody-Too-Shoes CharactersTM.

get out of here and misinterpret YOUR faves, not mine.

#grapecase rants #fandom sucks #grapecase plays bg3 #i was so pleasantly surprised to see a positive wyll video #and i needed to see him beiing cute before i rest after a long day and just bc do i really need an excuse to wyll? #and these people show they cant read/listen #wyll has no sense of humor. wyll is boring. wyll is flat. wyll is too serious. wyll is everything that shows that i never spent the time to #pay attention to him #and im probably [definitely] am a racist #idc to me anyone who dislikes wyll but cannot give actual critical reasons is a racist #especially when you are pulling shit that isn't even REAL or TRUE TO HIS ACTUAL CHARACTER #yall got teen wolf-itis aka when that ridiculous fandom could no longer see or hear or understand anything scott mccall did #RACISM #/end rant #im over tired #and over annoyed #been biting back #tho my first thought on this days ago was wittier #/ragrats #idky they dont go and give a bad astarion or gortash or whomever take in their own vids

[vicontheinternet]

An ick that I will forever have in fandom spaces is when ppl demonize a black love interest to soothe their non existent fanon mlm ship then get mad when it never becomes canon

#they’ll be quick to call queerbaiting like they didn’t queerbait themselves into shipping them #and that’s why I’m happy Harley was written out of teen wolf #because besides the rabbit stydia fans that actress would’ve had to deal with sterek fans too #fandom racism #i hope this doesn't come of as homophobic because i wasn't trying to be

[lydslovr]

the double standards in teen wolf is honestly just straight out disgusting.

you will always see people praise theo or peter, but hate on allison and hayden.

what makes it more upsetting is that their entire storyline is based around the boy, and it's even worse if they're a poc, like kira.

ALLISON WAS LITERALLY DEAD HOW DID KIRA STEAL SCOTT?

STILES PERSUED MALIA, JUST LIKE LIAM DID WITH HAYDEN!

hayden didn't "ruin" thiam and she certainly didn't "get in the way of it". it's so upsetting to see characters like hikari getting hate for "ruining" a ship that never existed in the first place.

erica was tormented and bullied her entire life for something she couldn't control, but when it's liam, it's not his fault IT'S NOT ERICA'S EITHER!

lydia isn't stuck up, everything she ever did was for jackson. he was the stuck up one and not to forget that he literally abused her, so of course she would do whatever he asked, that's how abuse works.

allison and theo were both manipulated so why does he get the praise?

also she wasn't a "slut", she was a teenage girl figuring out who she liked and if she liked isaac over scott then so be it, but she never asked scott to wait for her, she explicitly told him not to.

HE TOLD HER THAT HE WOULD WAIT!

THE RACISM ALONE IS DISGUSTING!

it's literally built from the inside out, with holland, ian and colton.

arden can't catch a break without people coming at her for the movie, which was her own right, but the fact that holland jumped on it too is worse. whereas dylan (a white man) is getting praised where she is getting all the hate!

not to mention the fact that scott is the main character NOT STILES!

- here us a list of all the teen wolf woman that were "assigned" to the boys the moment they stepped on screen just for your visual:

lydia - jackson/ ethan/ parrish/ stiles

allison - scott/ isaac

kira - scott

heather - stiles

malia - stiles/ theo/ scott/ parrish

catlin - stiles

hayden - liam

hikari - liam

tracy - theo

erica - boyd

braeden - derek

jennifer - derek

kate - derek

teirney - jhang

mama mccall - noah/ chris

- 15 women with 14 men between them

#SERIOUSLY JEFF #THE RACISM AND SEXISM IN THIS FANDOM IS HORRIFIC #EQUAL RIGHTS IN 2023 #teen wolf

[capricornsicle]

So here's a comment I received on this post (I shared the promo picture of Amy Workman as Hikari Zhang for the Teen Wolf movie, as well as a behind-the-scenes of her that was posted on her official Instagram page).

(Image: Comment from Tumblr user @thyfggfy. It reads, "I don't see a problem as long as she looks the part. I mean isn't that the whole idea of acting? Pretending to be someone you are not. Should we also be mad that Stiles wasn't portrayed by a half Polish actor?")

My tags on this post, which thyfggfy responds to, are basically "hope they don't send her to the desert" and "there's a joke here about Hollywood assuming all East Asians are the same".

To take things one at a time, the first statement. I am assuming none of this is meant in malice, and is genuine, as I see no reason to assume otherwise.

"She looks the part." But does she? Amy Workman is a Chinese-American actor. Hikari Zhang is a Chinese-Japanese character. There's a similar situation with Arden Cho (Korean-American) as a Korean-Japanese character. Can you hire any East Asian to play another, or to play a mixed East Asian character when they are not mixed?

Well, yes. You can hire anyone to play anyone. But is it good? No. Because saying a Chinese actor looks enough like Japanese to play the character is like to say a Russian is basically Serbian or Bulgarian or Polish or Swedish. It's not the same, and people will get offended if you assume it is. Especially when there is race involved, because it's so common in the US (where the show/movie is made) to hear "all Asians look the same" or "all brown people look the same" or "all poc look the same", or so on. A close Chinese friend of mine is often asked to translate something from Japanese or Korean. I am often called Mexican (I am mixed Native American/Cree and Arab/Syrian). It's rude, and it's racism.

Not to mention, you can circumvent this problem easily. Either send a casting call for a Chinese-Japanese character, if one is needed, or change the character to be just Chinese when you hire a Chinese actor. I like the second, as Amy Workman is fantastic and I'm excited to see her in the movie. It's not like kitsune is specific to Japan. In Japan there's きつね/kitsune, in China there's 狐狸精/huili jing, in Korea there's 구미호/kumiho or gumiho, in Vietnamese there's 狐狸精/hồ ly tinh. All are fox spirits. So why keep the character mixed Japanese? I think because, to Hollywood, and especially to the Teen Wolf writers, it's close enough, right? But it's really not.

Next, "acting is pretending". You're right, it is. In grade school productions, I pretended to be Brutus in Julius Caesar, a forest fairy in Midsummer Night's Dream, a man with a broken hip in The Man Who Came to Dinner, and, in other plays, variously dead, grieving, injured, drunk, old, young, rich, poor, a traitor, a villain, a hero, a martyr, and so on. But I was pretending to be a kind of person having a certain experience. I wasn't pretending to be another race. Because that is a bad thing.

Lastly, "should we therefore insist Stiles is half Polish?". Well, first of all, he's not. What we know about Stiles' ancestry is this: he is named after his mother's father, his grandfather, who is Mieczysław, a Polish name. That's all we know. We don't know if his maternal grandfather is Polish or he was a first- or second- or x-generation immigrant or anything else. We don't even know if this person was Polish, or if it was another Slavic country. We certainly can't say that Stiles is half-Polish. We don't know that his maternal grandmother is, we don't know that his mother is. But it's fair to assume that Stiles is around 1/4 Polish and his grandfather is a first- or second-generation immigrant.

And because literally all we know about Stiles and being Polish is a name, we can't say that the character himself would identify as Polish, would speak the language, would practice Polish culture. We simply don't know. Fandom likes to assert that fanon and headcanon is basically canon, but headcanon does not make absolute truth, and it doesn't serve in place of canon. We can't assume a level of Polish heritage is absolute fact that may or may not exist.

That's not to say that you can't headcanon Stiles as being thoroughly Polish, because you can do whatever you want, and that's why there are such excellent fanworks as this one by KuriKuri (a fantastic Sciles fic that heavily involves Polish language, food, and overbearing grandmothers -- go read it!). I enjoy anything that expands upon the world characters live in.

But another important thing here is that Polish is not a race. It's a nationality. You can cast one white American guy to play another white American guy no problem, because you can't visually tell one white American from another. The only real differences are language -- there are dialects and accents in English that are harder to imitate and, depending on what kind of story you're telling, might have benefited from a different actor or a change to the character.

And if casting for a character who is European-American, you can often benefit from an actor who is the same, especially if the story involves them speaking the language a lot, but it doesn't necessarily mean you need an actor of the same heritage. For example, while Crystal Reed is a great actor, she did not make a very convincing French woman in 5x18 Maid of Gevaudan, and as a native French speaker I would have preferred if they had taken some measures to alleviate listening to a fake French accent that wasn't very good -- an American accent would have done less to take me out of the story, or if her lines had been dubbed over by a French speaker, or whatever. But it's not hurting anyone to have someone do an unconvincing French accent, because French is not a race which is often discriminated against and subject to racism. The same does not apply for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean actors and characters, because racism is always hurting people.

In fanwork, though, you can do whatever you want. Let me not be maliciously misquoted as saying anything but. You can write characters with how much or how little heritage you like, because you're not tracking ancestry, you're telling a story, through writing, through art, through audio, through any medium. But it is vitally important to recognize fanwork as just that. Fan-made work that appreciates some part of the source material, and fills in a gap that the source doesn't go into depth on -- or tears it down and rebuilds it, for fix-its and AUs and the like. Fanwork isn't canon, and you cannot treat it like canon. Everyone's interpretation of the source is valid and acceptable, because it is an individual, personal interpretation they have chosen to share. Biased? Often. Prejudiced? Unfortunately, also often. But acceptable? Always.

Though when it comes to Teen Wolf, well... A lot of the time people who headcanon Stiles as more Polish than he appears to be on the show also refuse to believe that Scott is Latino. His mother's maiden name is Delgado, both his parents are Latino, the actor is Mexican. And yet so often fandom will, on the one hand, call Stiles Polish and talk about his heritage and culture, refer to Derek's "Native American cheekbones" (I wish this was fake. I wish I did not read the post that talked about this. Sometimes I hate it here.) and assume based on a later-retracted tweet by Hoechlin that he was learning more about his ancestry and believed there was something Native American there (and I have a lot of posts about dubious Native American "ancestry") that Derek is therefore Native American (I love fanwork as much as the next person, but No.), or blah blah blah, and insist that Scott cannot be Latino.

And of course there is a lot of racism there, because there is a lot of racism in this fandom. I don't think the vast majority of people are doing it on purpose (although I can think of a few people who have all the resources to know better and remain obstinate about being a tool), but it's impossible not to notice when you look for it.

If fans want to talk about characters having interesting heritage to connect with, how about the Hispanic/Latino heritage of Scott McCall/his family (actor/mentioned in canon), Erica Reyes (by surname), Nolan Holloway (actor is Latino/Caxcan), Gabe Valet (actor is Brazilian), Josh Diaz (surname/actor is Brazilian), Theo Raeken (actor is Penobscot tribe -- like, actually a member), Tracy Stewart (actor is Chinese -- and while there's a lot to dislike about Kelsey Asbille her character remains interesting), Danny Mahealani (actor/character is Hawaiian), Corinne/The Desert Wolf (actor is Latina), Nathan Pierce (actor is Singaporean), the Calaveras (all Mexican), Hayden Romero (surname/actor is Latina), Jiang (actor is Chinese), Satomi Ito (Japanese), the Yukimuras (Korean and Japanese).

The reason no one seems to want to write about these characters, and Stiles is always the center of attention, even in posts like these where he was never even implied? Well, to paraphrase @princeescaluswords, I'm sure it has nothing to do with race.

#this deleted my entire post the first time. hate it here btw #hellsite moment #to clarify: this post is for educational purposes NOT hate/shame/etc. do not be a dick on my behalf #and in general. a hard concept for some of this fandom #teen wolf #fandom problems #fandom racism #teen wolf fandom problems #feel free to reblog/comment/send asks/message me (in good faith) about any of this! #I love to talk to other fans in a positive and constructive way #also if anyone has recs for work exploring the heritage/culture of the aforementioned characters please let me know! love to see stuff #new post bc I don't want this to clog a nice post about a new character

[mneiai]

Watching Season 5 and reminded again of how much I checked out of Teen Wolf during this season because of the heavy reliance on the lazy writing tropes I absolutely despise, such as people acting like someone reacting in a reasonable manner is being completely unreasonable, that someone clearly under a ton of stress is acting like a monster when they're like slightly meaner than normal, and no one just fucking talking to each other about what they're doing even when in previous seasons they would have.

#anti teen wolf #teen wolf rewatch #also the fandom/showrunners racism and misogyny didn't help

[satellitesunset]

I don't think its really that much of a hot take to say that teen wolf has always been quintessentially camp. and I don't mean this is an 'anti-intellectual-people-shouldnt-analyze-the-media-they-consume' sort of way, I mean it in, this is a supernatural teen drama. loosely based on a cheesy comedy coming of age 80s movie. sure at times it undeniably leaned heavily into the thriller genre and at times even psychological horror. but at the end of day, it's strength was its at times absolutely absurd and out of pocket plotlines and it's witty often corny but hysterical because of the delivery dialogue. the characters are so frustrating and flawed but they're full of heart and humanity with just enough loose threads to have potential to be explored more. it's absolutely chaotic ! and messy ! that's why it's so alluring ! and entertaining !!

#it absolutely should be viewed through a critical lense !! #especially the racist themes of season 3 for example. the mistreatment of kira (and arden cho). #dont get me started on how the perception of Scott by the fandom is rooted in racism #especially in comparison to the uwu-ification of everyone's favourite white boy derek #but that's not the point #anyways i disappear for ages and i come back for my first hot take in a year-ish how exciting <3 #teen wolf #also spoilers !!! #(glad ***** died <3) #myle mummers #the teen wolf movie #teen wolf: the movie

[princeescaluswords]

Do you think the plot of the show would drastically change, If Scott was above 18?

It wouldn't need to, and that's not a good thing.

I talk about racism in the Teen Wolf fandom a lot. The way our fandom interacts with the show is so riddled with noxious racist influence that it's impossible to participate in it without having to hold your nose. Yet, we can't pretend that there isn't racist influence in the show itself. Some of it is not so subtle, but I would argue that the most pervasive example can be very easy to miss. There is a tendency in Hollywood when it comes to dealing with minority children which mimics the greater culture and Teen Wolf is not immune to it. To wit: when it comes to teenagers, white teenagers are treated by productions as if they were children and minority teenagers are treated by productions as if they were adults.

Scott McCall as the lead protagonist is expected to be heroic, and that's a good thing, but unfortunately, attached to this is the idea that he neither needs nor deserves the attention and care that other teenagers are given. In fact, it's as if there in the writing there are two standards of behavior, and his standard is far higher. Let me give you some examples:

Compare in Tattoo (3x01) the way the Sheriff tries to make Stiles go to school -- begging, bribing, brute force -- to the way that Melissa (who is completely absent from the process of Scott getting ready to go to school) implies that her main concern in involving Scott with what is happening to Isaac is that it will cause him to mess up again. There is never a Be-A-Better-Stiles-Stilinski program, because Stiles is a teenager who is a child, and children don't have to be better. They get to be children.

Compare the way the parental sacrifices in Alpha Pact (3x11) and Lunar Ellipse (3x12), talk about and treat their children. Noah gives this passionate speech about the night Claudia died and what it meant to Stiles. He gives Stiles a big old hug when Stiles appears with that stupid bat. Chris works closely with Allison, makes sure she's safe, and then they agree to change the Code. And Melissa? The words "And Scott?" as an afterthought to another Sherriff-Demanding-Where-His-Son-Is? Dialogue is the only time she mentions him in those two episodes. Melissa doesn't defend Scott from Jennifer's insinuation that he's a threat. There's no reunion scene. Because Scott doesn't need his mother nor his father. He's an adult.

Compare the way the aftermath of the heroic sacrifices is portrayed in Anchors (3x13) and More Bad Than Good (3x14). Scott has issues with control, Stiles can't read, and Allison is no longer able to aim her bow, and all three of them suffer hallucinations. Stiles gets comforted by his father and by Scott, and he gets direct help from Scott and Deaton. Allison gets comforted and gets direct help from Lydia and Isaac. And what does Scott get? He gets scolded repeatedly by his mother, who is so fundamentally disconnected from Scott's life that she can't tell something's changed ("You told me you and Stiles learned a way to control this.") He gets erectile dysfunction jokes from his "friends." And, of course, he gets the shit beaten out of him by the twins because his problem is he's afraid and that's a weakness adults can't afford.

I kept waiting for Chris Argent to take off his belt and whale the shit out of Allison until she stopped seeing Kate. I kept waiting for everyone to point and laugh at Stiles because he couldn't read. But that wasn't going to happen, because they're teenagers who are treated as children. You don't do that to children! But Scott isn't a child and, in this show, he never has been. As Stiles said "Hey, you know, that's funny. I've actually tried something like this one time using a heart monitor and lacrosse balls. But you're right, beating the living crap out of him is probably a lot better."

Here's the sad part: I could go on for like an hour. I could talk about how at the beginning of the Divine Move (3x24), moments after Scott had the first girl he ever loved die in his arms, Chris Argent demanded that he pull his shit together and help him create a cover story together because "It's what we (adults) do." But don't worry, Chris would go home and give Poor Baby Isaac his huggies later. I could talk about how, after Scott was kidnapped in A Promise to the Dead (4x12), the Sheriff got to demonstrate that Stiles's safety was the most important thing on his mind but Melissa and Rafael were nowhere to be seen, because Scott's an adult and thus responsible for his own fate. I could talk about how in Status Asthmaticus (5x10) and The Last Chimera (5x11) Melissa underlined again and again that Scott is not a child, because the first words she said to Scott once his heart started beating again was how he should give hope to children and then how, as a professional nurse and good mother, she left the badly wounded assassination target that is her son alone to bandage his own wounds in order to take care of poor widdle Stiles.

But PEW, I hear you say, this has nothing to do with racism! Scott's the alpha, he's the hero, it's the hero's tragedy! Okay, I would reply, so let's look at some other minority teenagers on the show.

Let's look at Vernon Boyd, who literally never said one word to Derek Hale about Derek's season two behavior, unlike Isaac! It sure was mature of Boyd to forgive Derek without even a conversation. There's a reason that Derek drove Isaac away and not Boyd; as a child, Isaac was more deserving of protection. And then there was Boyd's death, where a 16- to 18-year-old spent his last moments on earth in Currents (3x07) making sure that the Giant White Manbaby who got him killed didn't feel too bad. (Ask yourself this -- when the writers of the episode had Boyd, bleeding out, say "The full moon. That feeling... That was worth it," were they talking about the full moon Boyd spent locked in a dirty train station getting the shit kicked out of him by Derek and Isaac or were they talking about the full moon Boyd spent crazed and running through the forest and getting shit kicked out of him by Derek? Because the writers either A) didn't care enough about Boyd to remember that those were the only two full moons he felt, the rest he spent locked in a bank vault where he couldn't feel the moon, B) they remembered but they thought the audience was far too racist to give a shit, or C) they intended to portray Boyd the same way that happens in the cliched' scene where the dying mentor comforts the child hero. )

Let's look at Mason Hewitt, who experienced extreme danger and physical hurt in the library with Scott, but no one ever talked about it or even brought it up. Where was his anger at Liam for leaving him there with Assassination-Target Scott, who the same Liam had beat to the point of death or at least to the point of being unable to defend himself, which coincidentally left Mason at Theo's mercy? Why, instead of, I don't know, taping Liam up with duct tape and hurting him with lacrosse balls, did he offer comfort and excuses? Because that was the mature thing to do. I mean compare how Mason is considered too black, I mean too adult, I mean too good to have any after effects from being possessed by a monstrous 18th century resurrected French serial killer?

Let's look at the Yukimuras! Noshiko Yukimura, who summoned a nogitsune to punish corrupt government officials, does nothing to punish the corrupt government official who "made a mistake" and imprisoned her daughter and husband. Or Kira Yukimura, who -- aside from Scott -- is the only person who bears the responsibility to fix what Theo and the Doctors did to her, even if it means she can never see her family or friends again. Compare the benevolence of Meredith, who encourages Lydia to 'find her own way' to the malevolence of the Skin-Walkers, who constantly threaten Kira with perpetual exile. And in the end, she can't be even comforted and healed for what was done to her, she must go off and improve, "Not for you, or my parents, but for me." How mature of her, too! I think no greater demonstration is the last mention of Kira in Apotheosis (5x20), after she's gone off to the desert, and Lydia say "But she'll be back. She still has to graduate." She's got responsibilities to fulfill!

Look, I'm not trying to diminish the virtue of the actions that these minority characters took or say that their arcs were invalid. I'm not trying to say that the white characters didn't deserve comfort. I'm arguing that there is a definite pattern where greater expectations of mature behavior were placed by the writers on characters of color, especially teenagers, and that this message was successfully transmitted to the audience. I mean, look, there's a reason that Scott's violation of Corey in Ouroboros (5x08) to get his memories was treated as an unforgivable crime by the production and the audience, but La Bete's violation of Scott in Apotheosis (5x20) to get his memories was treated as a triumph for a WHITE character. Stiles didn't say "Scott's love for Allison saved him," he said "Allison saved him." There is one standard for white teenagers and another for minority teenagers.

So I think I can confidently say that if Scott had been eighteen there wouldn't have necessarily been any change at all.

#scott mccall #teen wolf racism #teen wolf fandom racism #scott mccall defense squad #vernon boyd #mason hewitt #kira yukimura

[camelotpark]

Someone sent me a link to Twitter. We talked about racism in fandom, and for years and years, we were told it wasn't true. That it was "the fringe"

They have a sizeable following. I wonder how many of the big Scott antis follow them and have said nothing to this user?

Also, their follow-up

Fuck this person and everyone who made them this comfortable to say this so boldly.

#racism #fandom racism #teen wolf

[brydeswhale]

@corrodxdcoffin decided to help Kit out with their, by now, decade long stalking and harassment campaign against me and other people who speak out against racism in the teen wolf fandom. Block and report accordingly.

#teen wolf #teen wolf fandom problems #teen wolf fandom racism #scott mccall #Tyler Posey

[msginnymalfoy]

Saw someone argue about scott's racial identity saying he was written white because white actors auditioned for the role but then they said melissa who is WRITTEN mexican character isn't mexican because irl ponzio is Italian. THIS CHAOS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU TRY ARGUING WITH RACISTS😭😭😭

#scott mccall #tyler posey #teen wolf #melissa ponzio #melissa mccall #melissa Delgado #fandom racism

[thehollowprince]

In a predictable turn of events, someone on the Teen Wolf subreddit is complaining about Scott having literal plot armor to survive the encounter with the Nogitsune (referencing the scene where Hikari protected him with her foxfire).

I'm going to take this opportunity to remind everyone that these people don't have any issue with plot armor. They only care about plot armor when it comes to a character they don't like and want out of the way.

Not a single one of these people had a problem with Stiles, a teenager with no supernatural powers or training or skills, surviving the show due to his plot armor. They didn't care when when Derek survived his various encounters with the Alpha Pack due to his plot armor, especially when he was so wounded that everyone thought he was dead. They didn't care when Sheriff also survived all the shit that circled him.

They only seem to care about plot armor when it comes to a character they don't like. And weirdly enough, that character happens to be a brown boy.

Tell me again how these fans aren't racist.

#teen wolf fandom problems #teen wolf fandom racism #scott mccall defense squad