The Magical is Political: Deconstructing the Gendered Supernatural in Teen Wolf

Abstract

Fantasy scholars have increasingly recognised that the genre’s key convention, magic, is useful for interrogating accepted ideas about gender and sexuality. Yet little attention has been paid to how magic effects the body, and how it transforms masculine and feminine bodies in different ways. In this paper we build upon existing debates about the magical lycanthropic body to analyse how the supernatural shapes masculine and feminine characters in the MTV young adult series Teen Wolf (2011-2017). Masculine characters in Teen Wolf develop strong, muscular, eroticised bodies, and gain greater access to violence even as they reject this practice as a means of obtaining power. Conversely, supernatural feminine characters are disempowered by magic in ways that reinforce conservative ideas about the female body, femininity, and female sexuality. This is not to say that Teen Wolf unfalteringly promotes subversive masculinities and polices femininities; the text engages in a complex and ongoing ideological struggle over gender normativity and transgression. This interplay is constant throughout Teen Wolf, and by analysing how magic operates upon masculine and feminine subjects, we reveal the complex and often contradictory meanings that young audiences are invited to accept.