Dead of Summer

Pilot Episode.

Available Summary:

"Set in 1989, school is out for the summer, and a sun-drenched season of firsts beckons the counselors at Camp Stillwater, a seemingly idyllic Midwestern summer camp, including first loves, first kisses—and first kills. Stillwater's dark, ancient mythology awakens, and what was supposed to be a summer of fun soon turns into one of unforgettable scares and evil at every turn." -Wikipedia.

Jack's Summary:

In Dead of Summer, a group of former camp attendees return to a summer camp as adult counsellors, each with their own motivation for recapturing their youth. The episodes lean pretty heavily on horror tropes and cheesy themes, but most of the character stereotypes are subverted, making the show more substantial than it initially seems.

One of the counsellors is a moody, aloof guy named Drew. He's a mysterious stranger who talks very little and doesn't seem at all interested in befriending his fellow counsellors, at least initially. Blair, another counsellor who is an openly gay cis man, is immediately attracted to Drew and intensely curious about him.

Partway through episode 1, Drew is distracted by a stereotypically spooky girl holding a red balloon, who lingers in the distance and stares directly at him. This moment sets the tone for the rest of his arc. At the end of this episode, Drew is revealed to be trans when he sneaks away from the other guys and takes a shower in a separate building.

Over the ensuing episodes, we learn more about Drew. Unfortunately, some of what we learn is courtesy of Jessie, a cis young woman who deadnames Drew and blackmails him on the basis of his trans male status. She sneaks up on him when he's soaking wet and reeling from a supernatural vision. He's frantically trying to pull his shirt off his chest, dysphoric about his pre-op body, when Jessie throws a towel at him and says, "Dry off, Andrea".

Jessie tells Drew that she has taken photographs of him showering, calling him a "freak" and threatening to out him to the rest of the counsellors. Despite how awful this is, she has a change of heart, later admitting that she never took any such photos.

As a trans man myself, I was surprised by how little I hated Jessie, following this conflict. For a cheesy show, some of the character exploration and acting is top-notch, enough that I was keen to continue watching beyond Jessie's transphobia. (Jessie actually turned into my favourite character.) Plus, Drew isn't helpless, and quickly gets over Jessie's bullshit. The pair become unlikely friends. With Jessie's encouragement, Drew remains at the camp and comes out to Blair, the cis gay counsellor who had been attracted to Drew from the very beginning. When this goes badly, Jessie is the one to comfort Drew and support him.

Throughout episode 4, Drew has flashback scenes where we witness his childhood and adolescence. Viewers get to see a range of experiences, from the heartwarming to the bittersweet to the utterly devastating. (If you are sensitive to parental abandonment of trans men, or conversion therapy, you should proceed with caution.) The little girl haunting modern-day Drew, as it turns out, is a version of his past self. Specifically, the apparition is reminiscent of a photograph taken of him in his youth. Drew triumphs over the spooky vision pretty easily, and the show mostly moves onto other storylines. From that victory onwards, Drew is treated to some really sweet scenes of romance and friendship. He fares better than most of the other main characters, actually.

One of my favourite pieces of dialogue occurs when Blair and Drew are walking through the forest together:

The scene that follows this conversation is even more sweet.

Ultimately, I really enjoyed this show for the trans/gay storyline. If you want to watch it for that reason, though, there are a few things that you should prepare for. Beyond the gore, blood, violence, ritual sacrifice, zombies, and death (all of which are pretty typical for a horror show), episode 5 has some particularly confronting scenes.

Joel, a main character, had a brother who committed suicide after experiencing hallucinations and delusions. In flashbacks, Joel remembers finding his brother's dead body, and recalls family discussions which frame his brother's death as the result of mental illness. Later, Joel began to experience hallucinations too, leading to a violent outburst and a graphic self harm incident. If you or a loved one has experienced hallucinations or psychosis, you might be uncomfortable with the conflation of these experiences with supernatural themes. I don't think the end result is particularly well handled, and could be harmful, although that's a matter of opinion.

I'm basing that opinion on the fact that the show introduces a character as a sufferer of mental illness, and then reveals that his delusional beliefs and hallucinations were actually caused by real supernatural forces, external to his brain. While this is a fanciful concept for most viewers, it could be a dangerous concept for people who experience psychosis or fixed false beliefs as part of their mental illness.

To understand why, consider this interview with a woman who lives with schizophrenia. She explains how harmful it is for others to legitimise her hallucinations, and how dangerous it is to believe that the hallucinations are caused by something external to her brain. She even shares that, before being diagnosed, she believed she was possessed, as nothing else explained the things she was seeing and hearing every single day. The storyline in Dead of Summer legitimises hallucinations, making them real things which are observable by others and can be interacted with, and supports that idea of sufferers being possessed or haunted by real things. I believe this storyline would have been better without the framing of mental illness. I don't think the showrunners intended to legitimise hallucinations in the way that they did.

All that to say, if you're sensitive to potentially harmful depictions of suicide, self harm, or psychosis, episode 5 is best avoided... or just approached with caution.

This is all my interpretation, you do not have to agree with anything I say.

My other main criticism of Dead of Summer would be the casting of Drew. Zelda Williams got the role, despite being aware that she wasn't the best fit as a cis female actress. That in itself isn't necessarily the worst thing, given how well she performed as Drew, but what really stings is that she was chosen over trans actors who also auditioned for the role.

While I do like Drew, I would've liked him all the more if he'd been played by a member of the trans male community. In the modern-day film industry, I'm prepared to forgive the casting of cis actors in trans roles when trans actors simply didn't audition or couldn't be found, as occurred in Brace (2015) with Harry Rundle (who performed alongside a trans male actor)... but trans actors did audition to play Drew.

We could've had a trans man involved in the publicity for Dead of Summer, and all of the trans viewers who connected with Drew would've then had a trans actor to follow and be inspired by. Connections like that can be lifesaving when you have no other trans men in your life. As nice as Williams's performance was, the impact ended there. And, beyond the impact that a trans male actor would've made both behind the camera and in front of it (trans actors have been known to positively influence the trans storylines they're involved in), it's also important to consider the context of anti-FTM transphobia. The idea that we're just women playing dress-up is reinforced, especially to cis audiences, by actresses playing trans men. I became pretty firm in that opinion when I saw pictures of Elle Fanning attending the 3 Generations (2015) premiere, regardless of Fanning's good intentions.

Plus, in the interview above, it's exasperating to hear Williams say that the trans community wanted "a transgender actress" to play a trans man. (The comment is made at 1:59.) At best, this is a pretty awkward slip of the tongue. FTM actors are not actresses.

So, taking all of that into consideration...

Yes, I did enjoy Dead of Summer. It has plot holes and cheesy themes, but it's alright. If you want to see a trans man coming out on top, despite all of the challenges he faces, this show will provide that. If you want to see a pre-everything trans male character in a relationship with a gay man, this show will provide that. As a cherry on top, he also gets a happy ending. Taken in isolation, the casting aside, this is a fun show.

I'm a man who looks critically at the media I consume, especially when it comes to trans representation. If you're a more casual viewer, Dead of Summer might just be the trans/gay horror series you've been looking for. After all, there aren't that many such shows in existence.

One final note on the casting of cis actors in trans roles: There is always the additional factor that a presumed-cisgender actor might be a closeted trans person, and may have taken the role as a way to explore their own identity. I'm not ignoring that reality as I criticise Dead of Summer, and I'm aware that the public can never truly know what exists in an actor's heart. My criticism of Williams is based on the fact that, in the above interview, she resolutely labelled herself as a "cisgender actress", and spoke directly about choosing to take the role as a non-trans person.