MTV's New Show 'Faking It' is Anything But Fake, Shows High School is a LGBT-Tolerant Setting
Carter Covington, showrunner of MTV's new TV show, "Faking It" (which premieres tonight April 22) was once worried that the show will be too fake and turn off the viewers. However, his own experience in high school made him see that the show just might be the most authentic high school drama you will see on TV, at least on today's context and standards.
When he was given the premise for the show, he was quite worried that a show revolving around two high school girls pretending to be lesbians to up their popularity rankings at their school will be perceived as offensive, if not ridiculous. While high school people doing everything to become popular is a reality since time immemorial, Covington was worried that the show just would not fly. However, Covington now claims that this version of high school is hardly a fairy tale. It may be exaggerated for the TV viewers, but anyone in high school or people who went through the grueling life of a teen, especially homosexual teens can still relate.
High school today has already changed to become quite tolerant, what with pop culture and all. So TV shows have to change along with this reality. "It isn't this monolith that we expect, that high school's just this horrible place for gay youth," Covington says, looking back on experience working with the Trevor Project, where he worked with a lot of gay teens. "There are places where you're celebrated for being an individual. I decided to take that and run with it and turn it into a high school that is the most accepting and tolerant high school that we've seen on television."
According to Covington, the title must say "Faking It", but there is nothing fake about the show at all. In fact, according to him, high school and not even college, where most ladies have a 'lesbian' phase, is the right time to set a story like Faking It. Characters are of the age when "experimentation and questioning" is normal and. It is also the time when sexuality is defined for individuals. Who knows, the fakers just might found out that being lesbians is a real deal for them, just watch the trailer!
Covington also shares that, until Faking It, he had no more desires of revisiting school creatively after his popular TV works centering on high school life, Greek and 10 Things I Hate About You. "If you told me five years ago that I'd be doing another high school show I would have laughed," he says; "I thought I'd said everything I had to say."
With this, Covington promises a show that will not only make you reminisce your own high school lives, but probably also one that that will make you think. Faking It premiers on MTV tonight, April 22, 10:30PM EST.
Below is the show's promising trailer: