#just like how all the characters in the show are incredibly repressed and use slur-jokes to deflect | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

the-ice-sculpture · 3 years

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I have thoughts no one asked for that I expect no one to read (and honestly, it’s probably better if not many people do read it because I’m kind of exhausted) that have been circulating around my head so this is me kind of venting but without the anger aspect (this is about the reaction to Supernatural by the way)

Okay, first off I’m no Supernatural fan. Stopped watching it years ago sometime around season 8 or 9. And I get why it’s become a meme, what with the sheer surrealness of what used to be a very popular tumblr ship suddenly becoming canon in the middle of an election during a year that has been... something.

But the posts with tens of, if not hundreds of thousands, of notes claiming that Dean was visibly holding back a homophobic slur... Dean, who is well-established as massively emotionally repressed and who has responded positively (more so in an ally fashion, even if he can be a little confused at first) to the LGBT+ characters when they’ve popped up in the show? Dean, who you can see visibly holding back tears? Dean who you can see swallowing hard and being understandably confused as his best friend of more than a decade suddenly starts confessing his love for him while also dying? Is he not allowed to be confused and upset about his friend’s imminent death? Did we watch the same scene? That was pretty blatantly shock (with a dose of what does this mean? oh no please don’t die), not homophobia on the character’s part. And for the people accusing the actor of being homophobic based on that one scene where he was clearly acting as a character who was deep in shock and upset (which, sure, couldn’t be due to the surprise element and the whole his best friend being about to die thing), can they not see how that could be really damaging to Jensen Ackles’s career and himself as a person? Like, a bunch of people taking a scene completely out of context, then misinterpreting both the character’s response and the actor’s own response, accusing him of being massively homophobic, and a ton of posts making the same kind of statements getting tens if not hundreds of thousands of notes? Do they not get how large the probability is of this actor getting harassed online now for acting in a way that was true to his character (and not in a homophobic way)? And that’s not to mention the more minor issue of accusing his acting of being terrible when he seemed to be doing his job of playing a Dean who was dealing first with the shock, then the realisation that his friend was about to die, and playing with the subtleties in his expression? Can they not see why it would be a fairly big deal for a show that’s been going on for so long to make a ship like that canon (and, no, I’m not saying it was executed perfectly, or that it was explicitly definitely canon as there’s wiggle room between an ‘I love you’ and ‘I’m in love with you’), and how a large group of people immediately turning both the actors and the show into a massive ongoing joke isn’t going to make other shows that might have considered making an LGBT+ ship between two main characters canon be encouraged? And, no, before anyone takes this statement out of context and comes at me, I’m not saying people should take it and be happy they got that much. I’m saying people should be aware of the consequences of their actions, even if it just seems like a harmless joke. And wasn’t the guy who wrote that episode a gay man himself? Not that it makes the writing beyond criticism, but it does add another layer of double standards when it comes to queer writers/show makers and queer characters. There is something about seeing a website that’s supposed to be inclusive making a complete mockery of something that attempted to be inclusive, something written by a gay man, that I just... don’t like witnessing. No matter how well or badly they think it was executed (and, yeah, I know, the general consensus seems to be that it was executed very poorly).

I never shipped anything on Supernatural or cared enough to read fic about it. I’m not coming at this from the perspective of an invested fan. I, like most of the people making jokes about it, watched the confession scene entirely out of context. But context can be super important and taking something entirely out of context and removing any nuance about the whole thing is a thing the internet as a whole does really well and, I don’t know, it just bugs me. Supernatural is not a show that takes itself seriously. And yeah, it was an odd scene to watch. One actor (in my opinion, let’s make that clear, this isn’t an objective fact) seemed to be kind of acting over the top, while the other was doing all his acting with the subtleties in his expression, and that’s a part of what made the scene feel kind of weird. But I’ll be fair: I did watch it completely out of context. I have no idea what kind of build-up there was to it. I have no idea what other plot things were going on at the time (probably yet another apocalypse, let’s face it), or what was happening with their character arcs. Don’t the characters die and come back and go (literally) to hell and back all the time on that show? And, sure, sending a character to hell straight after they’ve (not explicitly) come out is an incredibly badly thought out move in terms of sensitivity. That aspect is definitely not great. But wouldn’t it be more fair to wait and see if that’s permanent before getting mad about it? If Cas’s death and residence in hell or wherever he’s sent to actually sticks? I mean, plenty of characters die/go to hell in that show and return. The problem is in the timing, but from the writer’s perspective (who again, according to the internet so I’m still not entirely sure on this one, is gay) it seemed like their intent (which, yes, is very open to interpretation) was to make this a bittersweet moment in which Cas sort of achieved his version of self-actualisation. Some people will find power and beauty in that. And as a disclaimer, I’m not saying they should or shouldn’t. I get why many people would be mad if they wanted the ship to become canon and then one of the main characters immediately dies after coming out. I get why many people would be frustrated after years of waiting and yearning for it to become canon if all they get is a three minute scene in which one of the characters lays his heart on the line and the other is too in shock to get the chance to react (but I guess they’d have to wait for the next few episodes before determining whether or not that chance will happen). But I don’t think anyone has the right to determine what people should or shouldn’t find power in. But for that group of fans (who are more likely to be LGBT+) who have something they find meaning and validation in and have it being turned into the butt of a joke (mostly by a larger group of other LGBT+ people), that... mustn’t be a great feeling.

There’s probably a whole conversation to be had about how the use of individual tropes (hello, bury your gays) isn’t necessarily inherently homophobic or sexist or insert whatever here, it’s the general trend and prevalence that made them become tropes that is the problem. I don’t have the energy to fully articulate my thoughts on that right now. It’s a minefield. And there’s probably a whole other conversation to be had about managing expectations (especially with the Supernatural fandom and accusations of gaslighting. I only know bits about that so I’m not gonna get into it, only to say that as an outsider, that accusation doesn’t seem to have much of a solid basis) and how if something isn’t perfect then it shouldn’t be immediately be completely dismissed because baby steps and a general shift towards a better direction is surely better than expecting something to be executed perfectly and then immediately disowning/publicly mocking anything that tried but didn’t do it to your personal satisfaction. (Who gets to determine what’s executed perfectly, anyway? This just feels like more segregation and arguments between LGBT+ people because they’re the ones that care the most.) Honestly, it just feels like backwards progress in that it hands over more excuses to show creators and writers not to include/make their charters LGBT+ because then they have to deal with the fallout and the mocking memes and the discourse. And that’s a big problem. The more representation, the better the chances are of it being handled well are. If people are jumping down the throat of anything in the mainstream media that doesn’t get it right (though, again, what even is right?), even when they do attempt to be inclusive, the less likely shows are to bother to include those characters. Therefore the more likely it is to be handled badly. I get where both sides are coming from, I really do. But there are a ton of shades of grey here and something about this whole thing just makes my hackles rise and even after this very long post I still haven’t managed to convey everything I wanted to say, but it’s been at least a little cathartic.

Edit: it wasn’t even hell that Cas got sent to. Apparently, it was a place called The Empty

#my posts #I wrote this first thing in the morning so don’t expect it to be that coherent

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