Re-examining resistance: Fan-produced queer readings and "Teen Wolf"

Joshua J Espinoza, University of Texas at El Paso

Abstract

MTV’s popular television series, Teen Wolf (2011), has amassed a large online following of fans that create their own queer narratives through fan-fiction, subverting the show’s hegemonic heteronormativity. Through a textual thematic analysis of Teen Wolf, this case study illustrates how online fandoms can subvert hegemony through queer readings of literary characters, resisting the dominant heteronormativity on network television. This article argues that rearticulating the show’s narratives into queer readings functions as a form of LGBT resistance, effectively counteracting the heteronormativity and hegemony portrayed on screen. This study examines how Teen Wolf approaches queer content, including homoeroticism and LGBT themes as comical relief, examined through queer theory, Hall’s model of Encoding/Decoding and Bakhtin’s literary mode of subversion known as the carnivalesque.

Subject Area

Communication|GLBT Studies|Web Studies

Recommended Citation

Espinoza, Joshua J, "Re-examining resistance: Fan-produced queer readings and "Teen Wolf"" (2015). ETD Collection for University of Texas, El Paso. AAI1592986.
https://scholarworks.utep.edu/dissertations/AAI1592986

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