Tonight will see the premiere of MTV’s newest angst-driven slap to what the network once was. Faking It airs at 10:30 p.m. and narrates the lives of two fictional teenage girls who pretend to be lesbians to gain popularity in their high school.
Never mind the fact that this show’s very premise preys on the stereotype that teenage girls will do anything for the sake of being liked. The show reflects a problem within our society that emerges at any hint of the word oppression.
It’s the same problem we see any time someone says, “I don’t see color,” whenever the topic of race in the United States happens to come up.
Any time someone proclaims, “We’re all human,” instead of truly accepting diversity, the problem emerges.
Saying “I don’t see color” denies people of color their racial background and the historic, systematic and institutionalized discrimination against them, much of which is still at work today.
Much in the same vain, saying “We’re all human” completely contradicts the notion of diversity, as it implies the speaker cannot accept all people without finding some level of connection. The phrase is a complete detraction from the issues at hand and encourages ignorance in a society built on the stratification of different groups of people and their social classes.
Aptly titled, Faking It pretends that discrimination against gay and lesbian people is a thing of the past. In this hyper-fictional world, not only are people not bullied for being gay, they’re actually so revered that people would pretend to be gay just to make it to the top of the social hierarchy.
But this is not the case in the real world.
In the real world, 84 percent of LGBT teenagers report having been verbally harassed, and 25 percent of gay and lesbian teenagers report having been physically attacked due to their sexual preference or gender expression, according to the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network.
In the real world, young LGBT people account for 30 percent of suicides each year, according to Lambda Legal.
In the real world, gay and lesbian teens know to be cautious about coming out, lest they fall victim to bullying and harassment at the hands of their peers and friends. They are left “faking it” in a way MTV doesn’t seem to understand.
Of course, that’s not to say gays and lesbians never come out or that they aren’t sometimes lauded for their bravery. And this certainly is not to say that gay and lesbian people can’t be cool or praised on a network television show.
But a show about two teenagers exploiting homosexuality for popularity—in high school, no less—is just a distraction. It’s an ignorant and blissful distraction from the fact that 28 percent of LGBT high school students drop out due to peer harassment, according to one Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network study.
If we have a television program about two straight girls pretending to be lesbians, we won’t gain an appreciation for homosexual women but a deeper one for straight women who either “act gay” through stereotypical behavior or hook up with one another, presumably to impress some guy.
If this is the case, not only does this dismiss lesbian women, but it also glorifies the perpetuation of stereotypes about them and turns female sexuality into something intended for men’s enjoyment.
Pretending problems don’t exist will never make them go away. It will just make them harder to address, as these sorts of attitudes allow people to brush problems under the rug.
The more people accept the idea that our society has no grand prevailing issues, the more they can dismiss those who wish to address them. But we must address them.
Send your thoughts to Nicky at technician-viewpoint@ncsu.edu.
