Written by Max Thornton.
Early in my embarrassingly emotional addiction to Supernatural, a friend pointed out that Supernatural picks up right where Buffy the Vampire Slayer left off – not only chronologically, having begun just two years after Buffy ended, but also in terms of the characters’ ages and stages in life. The Buffy gang took us demon-slaying through high school and college, while the Supernatural boys launch us on a quarter-life-crisis monster hunt as a career.
Both shows use a campy sensibility to explore questions of family, loyalty, and identity through monster metaphors. Both were resurrected after a self-contained five-season run to flounder a bit in seeking direction for continuing. Both have passionate fanbases who love to overanalyze every detail of the show.
Unfortunately, the major distinction between them arguably reflects a disturbing turn in US society at large: from the ongoing war on reproductive agency to the escalating violence against trans women, misogyny seems to be on the uptick.
It would, of course, be disingenuous to claim that the Joss Whedon brand of feminism is above reproach. We’ve covered the issues here at Bitch Flicks many times before, but the fact is, everything we criticize Whedon for – his failings with respect to race, sexuality, gender – is dialed up to 11 in Supernatural.
There’s a certain charmingly riot-grrrl sensibility about the fabled origin of the concept for Buffy, Whedon’s well-documented desire to subvert the horror-movie cliché of the petite blonde victim by turning her into the superhero who punches monsters and stabs vamps. Ongoing critique of the whole “strong female character” trope problematizes the simplicity of this image, but only the most determined of naysayers could deny that Buffy Summers is a truly well-rounded, three-dimensional female character.
Supernatural, by contrast, has absolutely no feminist ambitions whatsoever. It’s a show about two estranged brothers reuniting to spend (at least) a decade working through their vast and multitudinous daddy issues by hunting and killing demons. The hunter substratum in which Dean and Sam Winchester operate is pretty traditionally macho, featuring a lot of roadtripping around the lower 48 in a ’67 Chevy Impala, listening to classic rock, being emotionally unavailable to an identikit parade of conventionally attractive women, and bottling up secrets from each other until they emerge at the most inconvenient possible moment for a melodramatic climax of raw fraternal honesty and man-tears.
The simplistic machismo of Supernatural is particularly frustrating because there is so much potential for the show to challenge the norms of conventional masculinity – and yet it just doesn’t.
After its first few seasons, which were more broadly monster-centered, Supernatural has turned its focus heavenward, to the metaphysical ministries of angels and demons. Now, a show that poaches so liberally from every belief system it’s ever met should be able to have some fun here with sexuality and gender. Angels in much of Christian tradition are ungendered beings of pure spirit, so it would make sense for the show’s angels to routinely transgress gender norms in the human bodies they take on as their vessels. It would be a great way to portray the angels’ non-humanity, showing them unwittingly and uncomprehendingly steamrolling over human gender roles because they simply do not know or care about this petty aspect of human life.
Alas, the show takes the lazy way out, adhering to the most narrowly patriarchal interpretation of angel gender. Most of the important angels are male, the female ones are seductive temptresses, and there’s no crossing or blurring of gender boundaries.
This is especially egregious, because the UST between Dean Winchester and the angel Castiel is off the charts. “Destiel” is Tumblr’s favorite romantic pairing, and it’s not hard to see why.
The chemistry between actors Jensen Ackles and Misha Collins could lay the foundation for corroboration of Dean’s obvious yet canonically unacknowledged bisexuality, for an in-depth exploration of angelic nature, for a thorough dismantling of the gender binary… but of course absolutely none of that has happened. Instead, the show has taunted fans with an ongoing equilibrium of cynical queerbaiting, while acting as though a handful of episodes featuring a nerdy redheaded lesbian femme constitutes sufficient compensation.
Supernatural‘s other greatest sin is its wanton murder of female characters. Buffy may have come under a lot of criticism for fridging a beloved female character, but Supernatural winkingly lampshades its tendency to fridge women as if that somehow makes it okay.
I won’t pretend I don’t love Supernatural – I’m the middle of three brothers, so it always had me on that count alone – but I also can’t pretend that it’s not a profoundly, epically, perhaps fatally flawed show. I’ll watch the forthcoming tenth season, and I’ll hope that it gets better, but I know better than to hold my breath.
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Max Thornton blogs at Gay Christian Geek, tumbles as trans substantial, and is slowly learning to twitter at @RainicornMax. He wishes he knew how to quit Supernatural.
I’m pretty sure everyone who watches Supernatural at some point has an “embarrassingly emotional addiction” to it. I’m still in recovery, but I’m a few tumblr gif sets away from a relapse.
There are two problems with articles like this (of which there are many and they are all nearly identical to the point that it has become extremely tiresome).
The first problem is that there have been many strong female characters over the years that writers tend to conveniently forget about in their quest to fill every TV show with adequate representation for every possible group. Ellen. Jo. Ruby. Bella. Lisa. Charlie. Most recently, Abaddon, who can not possibly be thought of as anything other than the “strong female character” you claim is missing from this show. There are and have always been plenty of fantastic, strong, smart, badass female characters. There are no PERMANENT female characters. That’s the difference. And honestly, to suggest that there should be shows a profound lack of understanding as to what this show is about. What would feminists have said if fans and media outlets demanded the introduction of a male main character on Sex And The City for representation? It isn’t about feminism or sexism. Sex And The City was a show about a group of women. Supernatural is a show about a group of men. The fact that Sam and Dean do not have a constant female sidekick does not make the show sexist.
The second problem, is that every single article or fan rant or tumblr post I have ever read clamouring for more representation for all different types of sexuality has been written by someone who, in the course of the article, reveals themselves to be a Destiel shipper. Doing so not only completely undermines your point, but it makes your real motivations for writing this piece painfully obvious. First of all, Dean Winchester is not, and has never been, bisexual. The man who plays him has stated that categorically on several occasions – and his opinion carries more weight that the opinions of a million fans because if Dean was bisexual, Jensen would be the one choosing to play him that way. So the fact that fans have interpreted Dean as bisexual because they wish he was, does not make it canon. Further, it is clear that the majority of people who claim the show “queer-baits” and demand LGBTQ representation, are not being forthcoming about their real reasons for wanting it. Would these people (yourself included) be satisfied if the writers decided to make Sam a gay character? Hardly. People don’t want “gay representation”, they want two very specific characters to be gay – namely, they want Dean to sleep with Castiel and are just presenting this desire as if it were a No-H8 campaign. Both Dean and Sam have always considered themselves completely heterosexual. That is the sexuality they identify with and it is every bit as valid as if they identified as anything else on the vast spectrum of human sexuality. For the writers to change that basic fact in order to appease fans of slash-shipping would be both bad writing and irresponsible.
Having media representation for the LGBTQ community is an extremely important issue in our world today. Every year there are more and more shows with gay and lesbian characters, and that’s an amazing, wonderful sign of positive progress. But yelling about social injustice in the hopes of an enjoyed male/male ship becoming canon does not make this an actual issue of social injustice.
The reason no one’s clamoring for Sam to be gay is that the show hasn’t spent literally years teasing his queerness, only to withdraw it. It’s a tactic that belongs under the Hayes Code: get as close to the line as you dare, signaling queerness to a queer audience, while officially maintaining plausible deniability. Once, this was a necessary ploy to get forbidden queer content into media. Now, the only purpose it serves is to attract a queer audience and get your show a subcultural reputation for queer-friendliness without having to do anything that might alienate the heterosexual majority. It’s cowardly, it’s lazy, and it’s cynical, and trust me, the writers know exactly what they’re doing.
Same goes for the argument that there have been Strong Female Characters (TM) on the show. Throw in a handful of hot women spouting one-liners, and then when people criticize you for misogyny you have something to wave in their faces. It’s a distraction from the real problem, a deflection from the underlying issue, and an (evidently successful) way to get fans to go on the internet and defend the show on entirely spurious grounds.
–Max
The issue of female characters I will leave alone because that is a difference of opinion. You believe the show should have better representation of women and I don’t feel it’s necessary. My own empowerment as a strong and indecently bisexual woman does not require physical representation on my favorite TV shows in order for my existence to be validated. And that’s fine. We both have the right to feel the way we feel. There are lots of people who would agree with your assessment that this show needs more strong women, and they’re entitled to feel that way as well.
However, in your other arguments you utterly fail to acknowledge the fact that it is your perception of the show that leads you to accuse it of reprehensible practices such as queer-bating. All this is based on YOUR personal perception of Dean as a bisexual character. When in fact, Dean has never done either of the things that would make a person bisexual – a) claimed to be bisexual, or b) or acted on that bisexuality. I have seen every episode of the show and the thought that Dean might be bisexual never entered my mind before Destiel fans started yelling about it. Why would it have? He has never done anything that would make me think he might enjoy having sex with another man. Yes he has a close bond with Cas, but he has arguably an even closer bond with Sam. A bromance or friendship is not the same thing as a romance. I have extremely strong feelings for my best friend and yet I have no desire to sleep with her. I know many, many other people who have also seen all the episodes and have always perceived him to be straight. Among these people are Wincest shippers, non shippers such as my brother, and Destiel shippers who understand that shipping is supposed to stay in the fandom and that Destiel exists only in a fantasy world. Unless you know the writers personally and have actually heard them say that they are intentionally, to use your words, operating under the Hayes Code, you have absolutely no grounds to assert that you know for a fact that’s what they’re doing. Presenting opinions as fact does not make them fact.
It is the way you choose to perceive Dean that leads you to believe his bisexuality has been teased but never admitted in a malicious attempt to draw in viewers, whereas people like me see the situation quite differently. We see that Destiel quickly gained popularity as a fandom ship because of the chemistry between Dean and Cas (chemistry that, again, is by no means more intense than the chemistry Dean has always had with Sam – made obvious by the fact that there are just as many Wincest shippers as there are Destiel shippers), and that when a certain group of unreasonable fans decided their ship should become canon, they began to use hot-button phrases like “queer-bating” in an attempt to pressure the writers into giving them what they want – even though making Dean and Cas’s relationship a romantic one would involve completely changing the character of Dean and the personality traits he has exhibited for nine years. It is akin to a visible minority who is not actually being discriminated against crying “racism” in order to manipulate a person or a situation in their own favor.
As not only a fan of the show but also an online journalist with the potential power to influence people, you have the opportunity to write in a way that is empirical, professional, and unbiased. It is disappointing that you chose not to take that opportunity and that this article will undoubtedly fuel the flames of what already so often makes the Supernatural fandom a very unpleasant place to be.
OMG, you don’t seem to understand either the Hayes Code or how queerbaiting WORKS. The whole point is that it is done in such a way that there is always plausible deniability. That is the whole freaking idea. Being like, the writers have never SAID they’re queerbaiting, so you can’t accuse them of that, is a nonsensical argument and demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of how queerbaiting is designed to function. It is supposed to be a thing you never overtly cop-to or out-right admit. THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT MAKES IT QUEERBAITING. The whole idea is to slip it in in such a way so that you can draw people in with the queer reading, but then later always backpedal and be like, we never meant for that and you can’t hold us to it. (However, some of the show’s producers basically DO cop to it in their DVD commentary of the ep. “Everyone Hates Hitler” when they talk about Dean’s scene with Aaron)
Several scholars have written on a similar phenomenon known as “gay window advertizing” (see D.Clark “Commodity Lesbianism” and F. Fejes “Advertising and the Political economy of Lesbian/Gay identity”) It was a strategy developed by marketers to deliberately include queer subtext in advertizements that queer people would respond to, but which would not tip off homophobic straight people. It is a strategy that links back to a media studies concept known as “polysemy.” As discussed by scholar John Fiske, polysemy is an intentional tactic commonly employed by media producers (esp. TV writers/producers, who have to maintain audiences over long periods of time) to construct texts that have a multiplicity of possible meanings built into them, so the audience can decide for themselves which readings are most favorable to them.
Ambiguity is often INTENTIONAL, so that viewers can decide which interpretations they most favor, and can continue to derive pleasure from a text, thus maintaining audience loyalty. If you *want* hetero-Dean you can have him, simply by IGNORING or dismissing the moments in the text when he is queer-coded as ‘just jokes.’ If you want queer-Dean you can *also* have him, by reading those moments earnestly and further extrapolating from them. That is CLASSIC polysemy and it is doing exactly what is it designed to do – keep contrary interpretations at play and in tension with one another so as not to lose any audience members one way or the other.
Also, when people try to claim that Dean’s queercoding is imaginary, I never know whether to laugh or bang my head against something hard.
*Episode 4.14 he had a freaking MALE SIREN.
*Episode 5.08 he is visibly flustered when he gets to meet Dr. Sexy, with whom he clearly is quite infatuated.
*Episode 6.09 Dean is abducted by faeries; afterwards Sam & Dean talk to a woman who says she thinks people abducted by faeries are sent to Avalon to service Oberon King of the Faeries and Sam asks (with a *blatantly* queer implication) “Dean, did you service Oberon King of the Faeries?”
*Episode 6.17 Balthazar says to Dean, “Oh, I’m sorry, you have me confused with the other angel, the one in the dirty trench-coat who’s in love with you.”
*Episode 6.18 Sam describes Dean as having a “fetish” for cowboys (something that actually further queers his encounter with Dr. Sexy, whom he castigates as not being the real Dr. Sexy precisely because he isn’t wearing his signature cowboy boots) Also, Dean’s infatuation with the whole cowboy motif clearly harkens to Brokeback Mountain, arguably one of the most culturally visible modern gay love-stories.
*Episode 7.12 Sam says to Dean, “You want to look at some more anime [porn], or are you strictly into Dick now?” (I know this is supposed to be about Dick Roman the character, but its also CLEARLY a gay joke) (And frankly the entirety of season 7 was an ongoing parade of ‘dick’ jokes, the majority of them deployed at Dean’s expense)
*7.12 cont. there is a shot of Dean giving a solider who passes in front of him a pretty blatant up-and-down. (GIFs of it are widely circulated on Tumblr)
*7.12 cont. Elliot Ness calls Dean a “nancy,” which is a fairly well-known pejorative for a queer man.
* Episode 7.20 Dean ‘flirts’ with a male security guard through a lesbian character.
* Episode 7.21 a random angel says to Dean “The very touch of you corrupts. The moment Castiel laid a hand on you in hell he was lost!”
* Episode 7.23 Meg says to Dean about Cas “He was your boyfriend first.”
* Episode 8.10 Dean cuts off his relationship with the character Benny and then in the next episode 8.11 Charlie asks him – after he says something significant about letting go of attachments – “Did you just break up with someone?” (That whole conversation makes an overt textual parallel between Sam’s relationship with Amelia & Dean’s relationship with Benny)
*There’s the infamous scene in 8.13 between Dean & Aaron, when Aaron hits on him, and he gets very flustered.
*Episode 8.23 when Crowley is planning to make a trade with the Winchester. Dean says “We’ll show you ours if you show us yours” and Crowley replies, “Really, Dean? I’m trying to conduct a professional negotiation here, and you want to talk dangly bits?”
* Episode 9.17 Crowley says to Dean “You’re lying to Sam like he’s your wife, which kinda makes me your mistress.”
* More than once in the text Dean is referenced as a queen, 5.15 when a random says to him “Who died and made you queen?” and when Charlie puts her queen’s crown on his head in 8.11.
*There’s also just Dean’s canonical fascination with various iconic figures of masculinity including James Dean (5.05), Patrick Swayze (7.06), early Clint Eastwood (6.17), Elliot Ness(7.12), William Wallace(8.11). His fanboy infatuation with them has a very campy queer male vibe.
There are even more examples, but I think all of that makes the point sufficiently. I would also stress these types of dialogue, scenes, story-lines, etc are almost NEVER given to Sam (there are maybe a small handful throughout the series, but they don’t even hold a candle to the amount Dean gets). Also, when Sam IS queerbaited, it is often directly in conjunction with Dean:
* Episode 4.01 when ‘Kristy’/Ruby asks if they are “together”
*Episode 6.18 when Dean says to one of the townspeople “we’re looking for a man” and he replies “yeah, I’ll bet you are,”
*Episode 7.23 when Crowley says “The boys need Cas to get Dick.”
*Episode 2.11 when the owner of an Inn checks out a room to them and assumes they want just one bed. The show even gets kind of meta about Dean’s queerness at that point. When he asks why everyone assumes they are a gay couple, Sam actually says, “Well you are kinda butch. They probably think you are overcompensating.”
Not to mention the meta about it in 5.09 when at a Con for the Supernatural books, they are having a panel on the “homoerotic subtext of Supernatural”. The show is VERY self-aware about its queerbaiting and its queer-coding of Dean. Like, they’ve put it in the actual scripts.
And none of this even really gets into his direct interactions with Castiel, because that is a whole essay unto itself. Although there are a few choice scenes and lines that are worth reiterating:
*Episode 5.18 the infamous “blow me Cas” and “Cas not for nothing but last person looked at me like that, i got laid” lines.
*Episode 6.19 the infamous “It’s not like Cas lives in my ass” [Castiel appears behind Dean] “Cas would you get out of my ass?!” “I was never in your…” [Long awkward stare]
(IMO, once you start making explicit references to anal sex between men, you are not only in queerbaiting territory, but you’ve dialed it up to 11)
Suffice it to say, the people who are reading Dean as bisexual/queer are not imagining things, they are not just projecting and their interpretations aren’t being pulled from thin air. Queer-Dean IS a part of the text of Supernatural. Granted it is always done in a polysemic way, so as to prevent definitive confirmation. But that’s EXACTLY the point. It gets to be there while at the same time not being definitive, so the show runners can have it both ways and not lose any of their audience. Fans are not out of line for wanting it addressed, or asking that it not just get used as this long-running, exploitative joke.
One final thought, in 5.03 Dean says to Cas that there are two things he knows for certain, one of them being “Bert and Ernie are gay.” If Dean is allowed to read a character’s queerness through subtext alone, then so are we! Mwahahaha! 😛
Everything you listed barely registers as proof of queerness. Big a huge fan of westerns? (Well I guess that makes me incredibly gay), sarcastic assholes (Meg, Balthazar) making sarcastic asshole comments? A siren pretending to be his brother? (I guess that means the Wincesters are right too and Dean wants to have sex with Sam). The scene with Aaron was played as a joke and nothing more, that’s straight from Ackles regarding how he played the scene. In 7.21 on what planet does what the angel says equate to “you’re a queer.” Crowely saying the boys need Cas to get Dick, how is that proof of Dean being bi?
“We’ll show you ours if you show us yours” Clearly talking about the tablets they were there to trade, and it’s Crowley who turns it sexual. How does that make Dean queer? Notice Dean said “We’ll” not “I’ll.” How is Crowley saying he’s Dean’s mistress make Dean queer? Crowley is the one remarking about himself in a sexual manner.
Ness calling Dean “nancy” comes from the context of Dean being “woe is me” and Ness like most men post-WWII see complaining/emotion as womanly. It’s not like it’s the first thing he says to Dean when they meet, no what he calls them when they meet is a bindlestiff.
“James Dean (5.05), Patrick Swayze (7.06), early Clint Eastwood (6.17), Elliot Ness(7.12), William Wallace” Looking at those episodes, there is nothing campy or gay about how Dean talks about any of those people. The William Wallace speech was just him having fun, I don’t how anyone can see that as sign posts that he’s queer.
This “proof” is literally taking small moments and and projecting their views making mountains out of molehills. People get it into their heads these mean something when they don’t. I mean Dean telling Cas to blow him is not said in a romantic way, he’s pissed. And sometimes when men are pissed they throw out the old “blow me” line. The “Cas get out of my ass” is really the only legit reference made about it, and know what it’s a funny joke and visual gag.
Kripke has acknowledge that people see homoerotic subtext in his shows, and he doesn’t get it, none of it is intentional. The fact that the show mentioned it in “The Real Ghostbusters” was just them taking the piss out of themselves, nothing more.
Clearly you have completely missed the point of his post.
Dude, did you not see my whole introductory argument about POLYSEMY and the fact that these moments aren’t definitive ON PURPOSE? The whole freaking idea is to make them ambiguous enough so people like you can maintain your heteronormative reading of the text, and people like me can extrapolate a queer reading from it. IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE AMBIGUOUS. That is the point. That is literally exactly the goal. The fact that none of this ‘proves’ Dean is queer is exactly what *I* said. My whole point was that the text *hints* at it over and over and over and over again, without ever making it definitive so as to maintain both sets of audiences simultaneously. YOU ARE MAKING MY POINT FOR ME.
It doesn’t hint at anything though. NO one in their right mind jumps to the conclusion Dean loves westerns so obvious he’s deep in the closet, except you.
There’s no ambiguity, you are literally just pulling shit out of your ass and calling ambiguity. Like how is “The boys need Cas to get Dick.” equate to Dean’s sexuality?
A) I love how you are ignoring several of the other examples I gave because they are harder to discount (like the Dr. Sexy thing in 5.08 or Sam telling Dean in 2.11 that it seems like he’s overcompensating)
B) Just because you say there’s no hinting doesn’t mean there isn’t. I gave NUMEROUS examples of moments when Dean’s queerness is hinted at. The fact that you choose to discount all of those moments as platonic or as ‘just jokes’ is your particular interpretative choice. But there are other perfectly valid ways to interpret those moments as well. That’s what polysemy does. It creates multiple possible interpretations and allows audience members to individually *choose* which interpretation is most desirable to them.
C) Sam says to Dean in the episode (6.18) that Dean has a “fetish” for “all this wild west stuff.” He explictly uses that term: fetish. Although the term *can* indicate a non-sexual fixation, MOST TYPICALLY “fetish” refers to a sexual fixation. *Also* as I stated previously, Dean says to the trickster in 5.08 that “part of what makes Dr. Sexy sexy is the fact that he wears cowboy boots.” (This is how he figures out Dr. Sexy is the trickster, and not the real TV character. The trickster doesn’t wear the character’s signature cowboy boots and Dean notices) Put these two moments together and they imply that Dean’s fixation with Westerns and the whole wild west motif is arguably sexual. Also, cowboy regalia is a common motif which is invoked in mainstream queer male art, porn, club culture, etc. The cowboy is a highly fetishized figured within modern queer male culture, which is what I meant when I said Dean’s infatuation with it read as kind of campy.
D) As per your last statement (“how is ‘The boys need Cas to get Dick.’ equate to Dean’s sexuality?) here is my interpretation of that question: I’m-so-anxiety-ridden-over-the-idea-Dean-might-be-queer-I’m-gonna-pretend-I-don’t-know-what-a-freaking-double-entendre-is. Here is the Wikipedia definition, for extra help: ” double entendre is a figure of speech or a particular way of wording that is devised to be understood in either of two ways, having a double meaning. Typically one of the interpretations is rather obvious whereas the other is more subtle. The more subtle of the interpretations may convey a message that would be socially awkward, SEXUALLY SUGGESTIVE or offensive to state directly” (capitalization mine) Also, in case no one ever told you, the word ‘dick’ is sometimes used as a euphemism for penis. Hopefully that clarifies why I am putting it under the umbrella of queerbaiting. But if you really need further explanation, I’m happy to continue indulging this exercise in willful obliviousness and naivete you have embarked upon in your effort to maintain a totally straight reading of Dean. (For the record, you’re not making a particularly good showing)
He’s a fan of Dr. Sexy, that’s the point of the joke, Dean gets flustered meeting the character of a primetime soap, because it’s a guilty pleasure of his. People get flustered meeting celebrities all the time, it doesn’t mean anything, other than they are starstruck. Here’s the thing about those early season jokes where someone would think the brothers are gay, those characters also Sam is gay too.
The whole western argument is ridiculous, Sam also says
SAM You can recite every Clint Eastwood movie ever made, line for line.
BOBBY Even the monkey movies?
SAM Yeah. Especially the monkey movies.
So by the logic of Dean’s obsession with Westerns, this line indicates he was obviously be into bestiality, since he is an especially big fan of Every Which Way But Loose. You see how ridiculous this argument can get? Just because a segment of gay culture loves Westerns doesn’t automatically make loving Westerns gay and campy.
Yes, Crowley makes double entendre’s all the time, especially towards Sam. Does that mean Sam is queer? And add on that Crowley says “And the boys need Cas to get Dick. Don’t they, Cas?” He doesn’t say Dean needs Cas, he says boys. Clearly he must be inferring that Sam is also queer, right? Shouldn’t the fact that Crowley is the one who turns things sexual say more about his sexuality, and not the person he is directing it to? And yeah, season 7 was filled with Dick jokes, that’s the reason Sera Gamble and Ben Edlund came up with the name Dick Roman, because they wanted to make a bunch dick jokes for a year. Doesn’t mean they were hinting at anything other then they find dick jokes funny.
There’s no “willful obliviousness” on my part. I’m not the person that takes every little thing, and bends over backwards to connect the dots that a character is queer. Rational people don’t take two characters looking at each other or someone loving Westerns equating that they are obviously queer. If there is “willful obliviousness” going on, it’s not from me.
There are a couple of things I need to restate because apparently you have very selective reading skills.
FIRST, in my original argument I *said* that that particular moment where Crowley says “The boys need Cas to get Dick” was a moment when Dean and Sam are being queerbaited *together*. I made a list of moments when that happens, and said that was one of those moments. And my larger point was that a) Dean is queerbaited much more often than Sam is in general and b) when Sam IS queerbaited it is often directly in conjunction with Dean. The primary point being that rarely is Sam intimated to be queer on his own and when they are queerbaited together, it often produces a kind of contrast that makes Dean read as much more queer than Sam. Sam tends to shrug it off and be utterly nonchalant about it, whereas Dean has a tendency to get defensive and anxious about it and make a big deal over it. This response reads as a kind of ‘repression’ or Freudian denial, especially viewed in light of Sam’s responses which tend to be very dispassionate or uncaring. The point is not that the show is implying they are inscestuous. The point is that the show puts their reactions side-by-side and the contrast often produces an outcome where Dean looks defensive and like he’s in denial, and Sam just seems like he doesn’t care. It is precisely the contrast between the two brothers that makes Dean read as queer in relation to Sam (when they are queerbaited together).
SECOND, you are missing the wood for the trees when it comes to debating the *actual* or *intended* meaning of these various textual moments. Getting back to my primary thesis about polysemy, the point is not that the Dr. Sexy encounter or the line about Dean having a fetish for all that wild west stuff DEFINITELY should be read as queer. The point is only that they CAN be read that way. That the text leaves open the *possibility* of that reading. You read the Dr. Sexy encounter as just someone being star-struck. That is ONE VALID interpretation. But the interpretation that Dean might actually find Dr. Sexy sexy is ALSO a potentially valid reading of that moment. Both are possible interpretations that one could take away from that moment. And it is up to the viewer to decide how they want to see it. My point is exactly that the text does this over and over again: creates moments that COULD have a queer implication regarding Dean. Moments that COULD be read that way, if one were so inclined. And that the show writers and producers have taken to doing this partially on purpose so they can maintain audience loyalty both from those groups who enjoy the idea of queer Dean and those groups of people who want to resist that interpretation (like you).
The fact that you can ‘discount’ these moments through a kind of logical extrapolation which maintains Dean’s heterosexuality doesn’t disprove my larger point. It actually confirms it. Polysemic queerness is exactly the kind of queerness that audience members CAN discount if they want to. That is exactly the point.
Media impacts how people see the world. Visibility and representation matter. Many of us do want to see our sexuality represented on-screen. I, for one, want to see more bi characters.
I’m appalled at the claim that people of color “cry ‘racism’ in order to manipulate a person or situation in their own favor.” No, no, no. Just. No. There is no such thing as “playing the race card” or any other variant. There are power dynamics at play in society. Racism is a system of power and oppression. Due to white privilege, people of color can’t manipulate situations in their favor. It doesn’t work that way.
Except there hasn’t been any “teasing of queerness” for Dean, okay there has been the odd joke from a sarcastic asshole character (Meg, Balthazar) but over the six years since Castiel was brought on the show, said jokes haven’t even broken double digits.
And out of context gifs of two characters looking at each other is hardly proof of teasing. Because you can find the gifs of Sam and Dean looking at each other in the same way as the above you posted. No one would say that’s proof of an incestual relationship in the show, not even the Wincesters are that delusional.
Before we begin, let’s make one thing clear: the show is not about Men, it’s about cis, straight, white men only. Not queer men. Not men of color. Not trans men. I always see the “SPN is about men!” defense, and just…no. It’s about Straight, Cis, White Men.
(Although I agree that Dean is obviously coded bisexual, it’s not acknowledged with explicit canon confirmation. Even if a character is coded queer, that’s not actual queer representation for any show/film in the modern age. So again, SPN is only about cis-het white men.)
Ellen, Jo, Ruby, Bela, and Abaddon are all dead after just a handful of episodes (Ellen and Jo were fridged; Bela was punished for something the narrative praised Bobby for, escaping and killing their abusive parent; Abaddon was mostly ignored in S9, until she came on to have one of the most anti-climatic villain deaths to date). Lisa was non-consensually mind-wiped to forget Dean for reasons that have no logical in-story explanation (she was important to Dean, so that made her a target for demons, so they took away her memories….but she’s still important to Dean and now does not remember how to protect herself from the demons she can’t remember exist), she is functionally dead. Charlie was put on a bus to Oz.
The most recurring female character was Ruby, at 18 episodes (and she died six seasons ago). The most recurring male? Cas at 69. Then Bobby at 47, Crowley at 38, John Winchester at 19. The most recurring female character doesn’t even have as many episodes as the fourth most recurring male. It’s insulting not only to women, but also to men, to act as though having a female character with Cas, Bobby or even Crowley levels of importance to the narrative (and therefor the Winchesters) is ridiculous because this is a story about the Winchester MEN and their manly man concerns. So what, men can’t have important women in their lives? A woman can’t help avert the apocalypse? Only canonically-straight white men can save the world? OK.
(And yeah, SPN’s issues with racism are as bad as it’s issues with misogyny. In nine season they’ve only had 13 recurring PoC characters, all but two of which are dead. They had 69 recurring white characters in the same time frame. The most recurring PoC, Kevin, was arbitrarily fridged so a white boy could be slightly sadder and angrier than normal. The show isn’t about men, it’s about cis straight white men.)
There’s no reason there could not have been a recurring female or MoC character whose been in 40-50 episodes like Bobby or Cas or Crowley. Other than the obvious (the Up To 11 sexism/misogyny/racism in the writers room).
And I could spend all day here listing other examples of the shows misogyny and sexism, a thousand micro-aggressions, how their issues with rape culture BS tie into their misogyny, about how Misha Collins actually got in trouble for discussing the shows issues with sexism (he was asked about it by a fan at a con), but the writers who wrote the sexist content he was discussing did not and in fact increased their misogynistic content in the following year (during which Misha was, ah, not treated well, to put it mildly). And despite the fact that fans have made it abundantly clear that YES, we’ve noticed their misogyny, one of the writers (Adam Glass) STILL felt the need to publicly mock the complaints of misogyny at LeakyCon.
Feminism is not something that belongs ONLY in stories about women, men benefit from feminism as well. You don’t think that Dean, whose been severely damaged by (among other things) the patriarchal notion of what it is to be a man and rigid gender norms, couldn’t benefit from a little feminism and burning down of the patriarchy? Part of Dean’s character is the deconstruction of stereotypical masculinity. Not only does that need feminism, but that needs female characters to contrast with.
And no, I’m not suggesting that Dean or Sam start parroting back Feminist Theory 101 Cliff Notes or anything. But there’s a difference been feminist characters and a feminist narrative. Just as there’s a difference between sexist characters and a sexist narrative. You can have sexist characters in a feminist narrative.
Yes, Jensen says he plays Dean as hetero. But if you were to listen to the screenwriter/director commentary track for ‘Everybody Hates
Hitler’, you’ll find that the writer and director have a rather
different take on the Aaron flirtation scene than Jensen does. So whose word do you put more weight on?
(Though, one snarky aside, if Jensen really thinks he’s playing Dean as totally straight, then he’s doing a very poor job of it. If you want to play a character as straight, then what you don’t do is use the same facial expressions/body language/general flirtiness you use for female characters, and direct it towards male ones, you don’t watch a male character undress with the same bedroom eyes you use when watching a woman do the same.)
Shipping Destiel does not undermine anyone’s opinion about the show’s queerbaiting or misogyny, and it’s a strawman argument to suggest it is. When TV Guide starts shipping it, I’m pretty sure it’s moved beyond being just the dream of a small set of fans. Not to mention that the writers (including showrunner Jeremy Carver) have admitted to including Destiel subtext, and including queer subtext with no intention of making it canon is textbook queerbaiting. As Raincorn/Max said in his reply to you, what SPN doing with Dean is classic Hayes Code tactic (which was once subversive and a little daring…fifty years ago; now it’s cowardly and cynical and so very boring).
I appreciate your right to every one of those opinions even if I don’t agree with them. However, the anger evident in your comment makes it clear your opinions on the subject are absolute and it would be a waste of my time and yours for me to attempt to change them.
http://groupthink.jezebel.com/on-tone-policing-why-its-bullshit-and-why-you-need-to-1148310719 Conclusion: Don’t derail from the points that are actually discussed by pointing out someone’s “anger”. That feeling is valid.
It’s completely valid. I don’t recall saying it isn’t.
And I don’t recall accussing you of saying it isn’t. The point is the unwillingness to follow up on that discussion simply because the comment above shows a specific tone. No debate can successfully work out if people use the tone argument, especially for people who are part of a marginalised group and who are directly affected by the show in a negative way. The underlying assumption is that it prevents the poster from being rational when in fact it all comes down to the issues occurring on SPN which can deeply hurt someone. There’s no reason to dismiss the points on the basis of someone’s emotions, but if you don’t want to discuss it…
Btw: I agree @exitpursuedbyasloth:disqus
I completely agree with that assessment. Arguments where either party is upset are pointless back-and-forth that accomplish nothing. Emotion does cloud reason. And, people don’t change their minds about strongly held beliefs based on something a stranger said on the internet. I wouldn’t either. It’s better to realize that we have very different views of the same issue and walk away, instead of wasting our time rebutting each other.
Of course you don’t want to offer up a counter argument when I offer solid numbers that support my argument. Can’t really argue against facts, can you? When faced with the objective facts about the shows misogyny and racism (it’s hard to argue against numbers like only 13 PoC on the show in NINE seasons, and so forth), there really isn’t a valid counter-argument, at least not one that makes it looks as though you’re defending racism/misogyny. So you just pull the ‘You’re Too Emotional’ tone-policing card and walk away, like it’s MY fault you are unable to have a discussion with me.
When you say you won’t discuss things with people who are angry about them, what you’re saying is “I’m not going to discuss things with people actually affected by them”. Because of course people who are most affected by something are going to have strong emotions about it. That does not invalidate their argument. PoC are going to be angry and emotional about racial issues, moreso than white people not affected by them. That does not invalidate what PoC have to say, nor does it mean white people should never bother discussing racial issues with PoC, cause the PoC are ‘too upset’.
All I see is you not wanting to actually discuss my points, because they’re heavily based in hard numbers, which can’t really be argued against. So you throw the ‘Too Emotional’ card to put the blame for a lack of counter-argument on me. When in reality, I just don’t think you have one.
I did argue your points. I argued them in two full, long comments up there ^ where I explicitly stated exactly how I feel about this issue. I have neither the time nor the inclination to repeat myself. If you are interested in my opinion, it’s up there for your perusal in those two comments. If you’re interested in arguing for the sake of arguing, you’ll need to find someone else to do it with. I truly hope this show gets more characters who are whatever ethnicity, gender, or sexuality you feel is lacking from it so your hurt can be resolved.
Sorry, but you really did not argue her points. You made an initial argument, she made a MUCH BETTER, more factually sourced counter-argument, and then you refused to continue discussing the issue. And btw, I thought this was supposed to be about logic, not “feelings.” Since you are the one who wants to leave emotion out of this, why are you talking about how you “feel about this issue”? And dude, seriously, this isn’t about resolving one person’s individual feelings of pain. It’s about discussing an on-going *systematic* inclination to side-line and mistreat POC, women and queer folks. That’s something that deserves criticism because of the way it perpetuates a culture of racism, sexism and homophobia, not because one person’s individual’s feelings are ostensibly hurt by it. Also, calling it “arguing for the sake of arguing” when the other person just happens to have a better
argument than you is SUCH WEAK SAUCE. You lost the argument, and now you are acting like its just a difference of opinion, like preferring coke to pepsi. But its not. There are *objective facts* to work with here, and they support her contention far better than they support yours. You can’t agree to disagree about FACTS. Everyone’s opinion isn’t equally valid when some people’s opinions are better sourced and more factually sound than others.
I decided to withdraw from this discussion because a) I am not interested in arguing on the internet with anyone for whom the argument is an emotional, personal issue because regardless of whether there is truth to their arguments, I don’t have to right to tell them they shouldn’t feel the way they feel just because I personally disagree, and b) because exitpursuedbyasloth made the choice to turn the discussion to the perceived issues of race, when race was not what either the article or my comments on the article were about. That tells me that the issue of race is a personal issue for him or her, and I’m not going to argue about racism with someone who feels racially discriminated against. It is not my place to do so. The second I start commenting on racial issues, real or perceived, I would be spammed by comments telling me I have no right to have opinions on that subject because I am not a visible minority. I have seen it happen and have no desire to invite it to happen to me.
I read the rebuttals to my initial comments, and I did think he or she made some excellent points. In a face-to-face situation I would enjoy talking this out. However, after giving it thought, I decided that this is not an argument worth having for any party involved because of the setting. Minds will not be changed here on either side, so it is a waste of time for everyone. I will not be responding further to any comments made by anyone on this page. I have made my stance clear and see no need to continue this discussion.
In this day and age, people on the internet seem to have a real grade school understanding of what constitutes misogyny. It’s gone from meaning, simply hatred of women to that show doesn’t have enough women/that show killed a female character, they are clearly sexist. This just go for SPN, but Bryan Fuller got called a misogynist for killing a female character off on Hannibal, it got so bad that even the actress had to write a letter telling people that, no her character dying on the show wasn’t sexist.
Discussions about Dean’s queerness existed long before Castiel, but nice try “blaming it on the slash shippers”. The notion that the wish for representation cannot co-exist with a wish for two characters to be together is ridiculous. God forbid I’d want representation by two characters that actually have chemistry together, and not a token gay relationship just for the sake of it.
Congratulations on the most typical comment anyone could make in response to this type of article. 1) Look, we had so many strong female characters, they punched and killed things and everything…. Uh, strong female characters don’t equal characters that can hold their own in a fight while throwing a few quips here and there. Strong female characters are characters who have been fleshed out by writers, characters whose gender is incidental to who they are, characters that don’t cleanly fit into one dimensional female stereotypes such as the love interest, the innocent, mama bear or the duplicitous bitchy antagonist. To have characters like these, a TV show has to actually spend time on them and give them depth in their own right, something which Supernatural fails spectacularly to do for the majority of their women who continue to be written as only minor plot points, existing solely for the male leads to kill/love/save/mourn/have sex with.
2) You’re all delusional, Dean is not bi!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have a few points to counter in regards to your argument here:
– Please do not presume to know what people want. I have seen many many people say that they want bi Dean much much more than they want Dean/Cas.
“Dean Winchester is not, and has never been, bisexual. The man who plays him has stated that categorically on several occasions””
– Dean is a fictional character, we could find out in a month that he is and has always been attracted to jelly beans and Jensen would have no idea. Also, it seems to be less of a case of Jensen knowing that Dean isn’t bisexual and more of a case of him wanting Dean not to be. He obviously recognises the queer subtext but seems to be more comfortable brushing off those moments as a joke (the gag reels clearly indicate this) or changing the lines/calling up the writers. Like the baiting has gotten to the point where it’s so overt that Jensen literally has to tell the writers when they’re going too far, and yet people still try to deny it.
“That is the sexuality they identify with and it is every bit as valid as if they identified as anything else on the vast spectrum of human sexuality. For the writers to change that basic fact in order to appease fans of slash-shipping would be both bad writing and irresponsible.”
– Yes, Dean and Sam have said that they’re straight. For Dean, many many many times in very defensive ways, which again, should say something. I’m sure many lgbtq people, especially those who’ve grown up in environments like Dean, could identify with denying their sexualities for the sake of conforming. In fact, denial of everything about himself that could be construed as effeminate is extremely in character for Dean. Sam on the other hand seems way more comfortable with himself and his sexuality.
– Absolutely no one is campaigning to change Dean’s sexuality, people are just expressing their desire for a character they already identify as bisexual (for a number of reasons, some because they recognise themselves in him, others because they can see the romantic potential between him and Cas) to come out. For the writers, to make a character as important and as complex as Dean come out as bisexual would be so ridiculously far from irresponsible, it would be amazing and ground breaking.
Sorry, but the idea that destiel is ‘off the charts’ is simply your opinion. Many, many fans see nothing of the sort. The show is not queerbaiting anyone; it’s been said over and over that destiel is not and is not intended to be canon, meaning there is no will they or won’t they–an essential element of queerbaiting.
I’d love to see more queer representation on the show. But ignoring Dean’s choice of sexual identity–he’s repeatedly identified as straight, in a variety of situations–is not the way to go about it. Until Dean says otherwise, he’s straight, and that should be respected. Accusing the people who make this show of queerbaiting and homophobia (not you here, but many who share your opinions) is not respecting that choice, and is not an acceptable reaction.
A far better choice would be to support gay and bi characters already in the show, and to encourage the creation of more.
Dean is a fictional character.
Also, you’re a wincest shipper. What happened to “respecting his sexuality”? Stop it, you’re fooling no one.
Here is what I’ll say:
Supernatural has a FRIDGING problem which is not sexist. If you tally up the deaths, just as many male characters have died. This show is riddled with death and has been since the very beginning. But it isn’t a show about happy endings.
This isn’t to say that I wouldn’t like them to continue the path of recurring strong female characters. And in the past few years, there’s been considerably less “damsels in distress” than there were in seasons 1 and 2. And we’re getting some recurring female characters in S10. And yes, at least one of them will probably die.
Has there been some stupid fridging? Yes. Absolutely. But not all deaths are pointless. Ellen and Jo’s death was INCREDIBLY beautiful. And it made clear that self-sacrifice wasn’t something that was just in the Male Hero wheelhouse. Ruby’s was AWESOME and she had one of the best speeches on the entire show. Bela’s was an amazing conclusion ALSO driven by her own choices, her own agency. Meg’s exit wasn’t nearly as strong, but she still went out on her own terms.
The fact is the show isn’t a large ensemble cast, which means it is automatically at a disadvantage when trying to showcase diversity (which yes, they need to do better with). And the show is about two brothers – so right off the bat you have most of the story going to two males. I don’t see a problem with that because that is what the story is supposed to be about. And I think it is equally ridiculous that men are complaining about unfair representation on Orange Is The New Black.
Because not every story has to be a story for EVERYONE. And sometimes we just relate to the human experience, not a gender-defined one.
Regarding Destiel and representation, there are two sides to this coin.
1. I do believe the writers bear some of the blame, because many times they’ve been asked about if Destiel will happen and the response was “wait and see.” They should have had the balls to own up to the fact that they were winking to it just like they were winking to Wincest and other ships. And then they should STOP winking to it altogether, because clearly at this point the winking is unappreciated. They thought it was funny, which is a problem in and of itself, that they don’t realize what they perceive as fanservice is being taken seriously and is hurting people. (And why wouldn’t it — as a male loving another male is CLEARLY a valid choice).
I also believe Misha bears some of the blame as he has been flat out told about the perception of queerbaiting, but continues to encourage the shippers at every single convention. There is nothing wrong with shipping itself. But when you know that your encouragement that it MIGHT happen on screen ends up with people feeling severely upset, hurt, and feeling led on — then you bear some of the fault.
I am willing to buy that Castiel loves Dean romantically, which has nothing to do with orientation when he’s a genderless angel. That love for Dean wouldn’t have changed when he was in Jimmy Novak’s pre-teen daughter. And maybe that unrequited love is the story they are attempting to tell. And that’s a very compelling story. The story of an angel who would do anything for this one man who just doesn’t see him like that? That’s good drama. That’s not “no homo,” that’s a love story just like any other.
2. Destiel shippers continue to say “If they’d just tell us it isn’t going to happen, we’d be okay with that.”
Chad (crew) gets a twitter. Gets asked about Destiel. Says it isn’t going to happen. Immediately gets so much hate that he decides to leave twitter.
Jensen says he doesn’t play Dean that way, that Dean is straight, and he gets called a homophobe.
So on the other hand, I can appreciate where it is hard for them to back off of it. (But that doesn’t excuse still trying to include blatant fanservice when you know it will upset people. Grow some balls, Glass.)
3. What I see often in these battles for representation (and I’m not saying we should have more, because we should).
Corbett is pointed out. He died. That’s not good enough.
Charlie is pointed out. We’re told she’s not good enough because she hasn’t been in ENOUGH episodes.
Crowley is pointed out (confirmed bisexual). We’re told that he isn’t GOOD representation, because despite him being an amazing character who is the smartest one on the entire show, he is a villain. (I don’t get that, because as a bisexual, I am THRILLED to be represented by Crowley.)
So at the end of the day, what it seems like needs to happen for satisfaction for representation is a recurring character who is in at least as many episodes a season as Castiel or Crowley, who is not/never a bad guy and never dies without immediately coming back..
This presents a large problem when you’re not dealing with an ensemble cast. I’d be all for bringing Kevin back with a ghost boyfriend he met in the veil, though. I’m willing to hope for that.
But… should we really be dictating the story like this? The creative process doesn’t work by checking off boxes of what other people THINK need to be in your story. Sometimes you’re just inspired for write for certain characters, certain subjects.
If someone complained about this article and said, “why didn’t you include the lack of racial representation,” “why didn’t you include the lack of Deaf people on the show and how it is perpetrating an able-ist agenda”… Would you concede that you were wrong not to talk about those things? That because your audience feels they need to be represented through your specific work, they have to right to be? Or would say, “the topic of my article is misogyny and queerbaiting, I’m not a racist or an able-ist. I’m not ignoring those two things. I’m just speaking about two things I feel passionately about.”
Sometimes you write what the muse compels. That lack of something doesn’t inherently prove an agenda or an -ism 100% of the time. Sometimes it just shows uninspired writers.
I love this show, but in S9… they were barely able to write their white, cis-gendered, straight leads consistently (see: the up and down rollercoaster of Sam’s IQ, and many other things). Nevermind anyone else.
I’d honestly be a little afraid if they decided to include diversity for diversity’s sake and not because a character speaks to them and has a story that needs telling within the context of the show.
Very well said. Creativity does not always go hand-in-hand with political agendas, or any agendas, as you said. Does the fact that JK Rowling wrote most of the main characters in Harry Potter as while people mean she’s racist? Not necessarily. It probably just means that’s how she saw the characters. People in the world are not always as intentionally underhanded as some would have us believe. Malicious thought doesn’t go into everything. Yes, the character of Castiel could have been some kind of visible minority. But, for all we know, they didn’t write Cas as specifically white or black or Asian or anything. They wrote him as an adult male angel, had many different people audition for his role, and happened to like Misha the best. Sometimes things just are what they are.
And diversity for diversity’s sake is not necessarily a good thing either. The world, for the most part, is still run by rich, powerful, white men. That is changing, slowly, but for now it’s still the paradigm. So when diverse characters are inserted simply for the purpose of diversification, it’s because a suit in Hollywood thought “Oh, we better but a Hispanic character in that show so Hispanic people have someone to identify with”. I wouldn’t want to be pat on the head like that. I am able to love myself as a 20-something, white, female, bisexual, Canadian person without having someone exactly like me in every TV show. And, more importantly, I am able to identify with characters who share none of those characteristics. Sam and Dean and Cas are about as different from me physically as they could possibly be, and yet I identify with their emotions constantly, as humans. Regardless of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, political affiliation, or whatever other boxes people choose to put themselves in, we are all the same species and we should be able to see ourselves in others even when they look nothing like us. That’s called altruism and it is one of the main reasons this species has been able to survive. If there are people out there who can’t say the same, then that’s due to a problem within themselves, not with Supernatural.
This is all so basic. For one thing, people don’t get to use “creativity” as an excuse to maintain gratuitous imbalances in cultural representation. Also, creation of culture is always ALREADY a political act. It doesn’t become political when people start critiquing it. It is political from the moment the author creates it, because they are choosing who to represent and how to represent them and those choices have broad societal consequence. Holding authors accountable for those consequences is a political response to the ALREADY political act of cultural creation.
Also I love how people assume the inclusion of POC or women or queer folks constitutes an “agenda” but only focusing on straight white men somehow ISN’T an agenda. That’s inherently a double standard of evaluation. It treats straight white (cis) men as the inherent default, which they fundamentally do not deserve to be treated as. They are not the neutral, the standard, or the default human being, and they should not be treated as such. Our culture has been treating them as if they are for FAR too long and it has given them an overdeveloped sense of their own importance in relation to everyone else. When straight white men are constantly constructed as the default human, it gives those men the notion that they are MORE human than everyone else, and they tend to treat everyone else that way as a result.
Also, it shouldn’t *always* be the responsibility of women, POC or queer folks to do the cross-identifying work when encountering culture. Yes, sometimes we all have to do it because not all characters in culture can be exactly like us. But when the protagonist of a narrative is the SAME slate of identity traits (straight white cis man) over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, it puts an extra systematic cultural burden on POC, women, LGBT people that is fundamentally both unfair and dangerous. Unfair because it means we almost always have to do ‘extra’ work to find affinity with a text, and dangerous because it makes straight white men immune to identifying with people who are different from them, a problem that helps maintain systematic racism, sexism, homophobia.
They shouldn’t get to use creativity as an excuse for not trying to be better writers in general (or even the CASTING department, which is often neglected as being at fault in these discussions).
Personally, I think we maybe have two good writers on staff right now. MAYBE. Do they need to hire some people who can think beyond “white cis-gendered, straight males”? Yes. They also need to hire people who can actually write the lead characters consistently from episode to episode.
But… just because they shouldn’t necessarily be able to use creativity completely as an excuse for not trying to be better or to hire more diverse writers, NEITHER should the audience get to dictate changes to what the writers are inspired to write.
TV is entertainment but it is also storytelling, which is an art form. You don’t get to yell at a playwright and say, “Change the ending!” You get to say, “I don’t like that play. Here’s what was wrong with it. I’m going to tell my friends not to go see it.”
People are, of course, allowed to feel strongly about what they feel is lacking.
I start to wonder how many of these people who feel strongly, however, have actually taken the time to write a civil letter to the network (I have). NOT as part of a campaign to have a character change their orientation or to promote a ship. But just a personal letter explaining what it would mean to you. To write the president of the CW. To write to the Casting department (which can take the time to rehire actors from season 5 to be in season 10 for a different role, but not give someone else a chance). To the writers.
To say, “I heard folks like Levar Burton talking about what it meant to see a black person on the bridge on the original Star Trek and it saddens me that since the deaths of Rufus and Kevin we’ve had no positive recurring characters of a different color. Please bring Tamara from S3 back, because she was a strong, female POC hunter.” Or whatever your representational issues are.
“Since Pamela died we’ve had no blind people, as a disabled person I’d like to be represented.” How many millions of people are blind or Deaf or have cerebral palsy or autism or spina bifida or severe rheumatoid arthritis or lupus any number of disabling illnesses?
“Since Frank died, nobody has been around to represent living with bipolar disorder.” Mental illness hits a huge segment of the population across all ethnicities, orientation, and genders.
(If you want to check all the boxes, let’s check all the boxes. Because you can’t say, “I want my needs represented on this TV show, but other’s representational needs aren’t important enough.”)
And I wonder, while writing these letters, if people have actually tried to leave the anger aside, have tried to leave the accusations of misogyny, homophobia, and racism aside so that the reader isn’t immediately put into a defensive stance. Not because you should have to beg or these people deserve coddling, but because it is more likely to get you heard.
Are you writing POSITIVE letters when you ARE represented? How many people wrote in about Kevin and his importance as a POC when he arrived? Or even to get him back?
You have to decide what you want more. To vent or be heard?
—–
The people who complain about it being problematic that the show is about white, cis-gendered, straight men… Are you saying that you believe Jensen Ackles didn’t earn the part of Dean Winchester? That he shouldn’t be playing him? Are you saying that in order to remedy the situation, Sam and Dean should die and the show continue on with more diverse hunters? Because like I said. It isn’t a large ensemble cast. The show is always going to be about Sam and Dean Winchester first, and secondary characters second. Therefore the show is always going to be MAINLY represented by white, cis-gendered, straight males. We can’t go back in time to change the casting now. So the option is to either body swap them into different, more diverse actors or kill them and continue on without them.
And there’s another question here for the people who feel so strongly about this:
Which is more important to you?
1. Changing Supernatural to make it better according to what you feel makes it better? (I’m not being sarcastic here, different people have different opinions about what will make it better, so it truly is an individual viewpoint, even though many individuals might believe the same thing.)
2. Or improving the television landscape in general so that more women, POCs, LGTBQ, disabled, & mentally ill people are represented?
Are you spending an EQUAL amount of time praising TV shows that are doing it right? Writing to their writers and their networks so that it sticks in their minds that what they are doing is what people want to see?
Are you equally targeting other shows that are doing it wrong for critique? Are you writing letters to the network or completely walking away from TV shows that are doing it wrong so that they aren’t getting your ratings? Because networks are businesses and if they see that what the people want is stories about women, POC, LGTBQ, disabled, and mentally ill people… they’ll bankroll those pilots.
If you want to change the television landscape to address problems with representation, if THAT is what is most important to you, then act on it. Beyond a cutting remark on twitter or a comment on an article or writing a scathing review on tumblr. Go to the source.
I don’t envy you! I was “emotionally addicted” to the show for years only for it to let me down hard when it was clear that it was queerbaiting. I tolerated its many other shameful aspects in the hope that we were about to witness something important in the textual outing of Dean as bisexual. But now I’ve put the whole thing in my rear view and am only commenting here to show my support because the show needs to be called out on its problems. I hope you will also find some other shows to support that better live up to Buffy’s legacy. (I’ve got lots of recs for genre shows with representation if you want them!)
I don’t know what show you’ve been watching, but none of the female angels have been seductive temptresses. Like literally none of them tried to seduce any of the characters, okay Anna and Dean had sex, but that was when she was a human, and once she became an angel, they didn’t have sex again. But really there have only been two angels that came off as hedonistic, and those two were Gabriel and Balthazar.
Also Supernatural pretty much kills everyone, I mean on average more men are killed on the show than women, season 9 alone had over 100 male characters die, and little over 40 females die. Now would you call the show misandrist for all male deaths? Of course not (because misandry is a dumb term anyway). But reverse the numbers and people would scream misogyny. It’s the writer’s prerogative whether they want to have longer lasting female characters on the show. If they don’t feel like bringing back a female character it’s their right as writers. And that’s not going to change no matter how much people complain because writing is not a democracy. All you can do is stop watching if you don’t like the show anymore.
Finally, that gif is hardly proof of queerbaiting since the actual context of that scene is about the characters talking hunger and Famine. Dean’s smile is just a punctuation to his little speech about being well fed. And there is absolutely nothing romantic about that moment, even on a subtexual level. These types of gifs are the problem, they are all out of context moments. That if actually seen in context are not hinting at anything. It’s all literally people on Tumblr going “OMG they looked at each other they are in love, see these gifs?”
http://rs1img.memecdn.com/tumbr-in-a-nutshell_o_3685071.jpg
That is the greatest thing I have seen.
I totally agree with you, but I want to share something else. Since you’ve written this article, a bunch of things have happened. (Spoilers) Hannah changed genders and they respected his decision, even if he didn’t stay long… :(, and even as a female character, he was stronger and more sure of what he was doing than past female characters. Two more females have been introduced, but they aren’t sexual objects for the main characters and are not just there to move the men’s stories forward (Mary and Rowena), as well as Amara, who was a temptress at one point, but she turned out to be more than that. Also, Claire, Jody, Donna, and Alex have made a big impact on the show as season regulars. I believe that the show has come so far from where it was, along with the reveal that Chuck is bisexual (even if there is no pay off), as well as more one episode LGBT characters, and for a while, they had a powerful POC female character, who was a compelling and interesting character. Please don’t forget Meg and Charlie, either. Meg would’ve been a main character on the show during season 8, but due to illness, the actress had to leave and they lost their main/recurring female. She also changed genders to mess with the Winchesters, like you mentioned above, in season 3. I hope that someday, even if Jensen says that Dean does not love Cas, they might get into a bit more of Dean being Bi, or even Crowley being pansexual.