After only three seasons, MTV cancelled one of their most unique series, Faking It. The series took a spin off all the regular teen “dramadies” by giving serious focus on dealing with your sexuality as a teenager. Although it has all the facets of all other teen shows, it is also refreshingly different thanks to clever storylines, witty scripts and above all an extremely talented cast pulling it all off. Like a lot of good shows, Faking It was underrated and under-appreciated, so here are 8 interesting facts about the show!
8. The Reality
Faking It isn’t a reality show, but the show’s show-runner and producer, Carter Covington, wanted it to in some ways accurately portray what it is like for teens finding out who they are and who they love. “Growing up in the closet in North Carolina, I was constantly having feelings for my best friends that I couldn’t express. And as I talked to other friends, so many people had that moment of, like, I kind of want this friendship to be more, but I don’t know if the other person feels the same way. I think that it transcends straight or gay. It’s just kind of a universal coming-of-age feeling,” he said. “That, to me, felt like breaking a new barrier and kind of the next evolution of this chain of shows that have broken ground when it comes to sexuality.” Covington added, “I think that, so often, people are pushed into this gay/straight binary that they don’t get to explore. I think that if more people explore, then you would see a lot more diversification in the way that people express their sexual orientation in the world. I don’t believe that everybody is born either gay or straight, and I think that is such an outdated way to think about sexuality.” Although many shows aimed for young adults now include gay, bisexual and transgender characters, Faking It did break new ground with the intersex character, Lauren Cooper. “We came up with Lauren’s intersex storyline at the beginning of the first season, because in a show called Faking It, we felt that everybody had something they were faking, except for Lauren […] Intersex individuals are as common as meeting a redhead, so it was proof that this was shrouded in secrecy and given a lot of shame by the medical community. I think that really resonated with us with why Lauren could be so defensive.”
Source: MTV