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Entry tags:
Supernatural Season 9 - Home Base
- gif credit
- spoilers contained below
- criticism of show/characters welcome, but please don't be an asshat (ie. no character/actor bashing, no ship wars)
- general thread
- 9.01 I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here
- 9.02 Devil May Care
- 9.03 I'm No Angel
- 9.04 Slumber Party
- 9.05 Dog Dean Afternoon
- 9.06 Heaven Can't Wait
- 9.07 Bad Boys
- 9.08 Rock and a Hard Place
- 9.09 Holy Terror
- 9.10 Road Trip
- 9.11 First Born
- 9.12 Sharp Teeth
- 9.13 The Purge
Coming up:
- Feb. 25 - Captives
Enjoy the show!!! ♥
Re: 9x13 - The Purge
AMEN. I wanted to hope they were going to address it, but I try not to get my hopes up too high - that way lies lots of heartache.
Dean is highly feminized in this episode, again.
Yup. *nods along* I don't mind, I find. I find it interesting, particularly because he's the one who's always playing so macho. It amuses me to see him feminized. Why is it we get naked Jared every year (or at least shirtless) and he's objectified, but Dean (played by the generally accepted more handsome Jensen) is never objectified in that way? Do we ever get shirtless Jensen? We haven't in years. Nor even pajamas - I guess there was the Men of Letters robe that one time, but it covers pretty much his whole body. It's an interesting dynamic.
Also, yeah, Jared did a really good job in the last scene. He outshone Jensen, even, which is an interesting switch.
He did, though I'm willing to put this on direction, a bit. Or show running. I think because Dean is still lying to himself, Dean couldn't actually react to things Sam was saying with honesty, with regret and sorrow and all those beautiful things that we will eventually see. When he's having to play denial and disbelief, there's a lot less for Jensen to work with. It was meant to be Sam's moment, anyway, really - he's SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO angry, and he's taking it out on Dean, and we're meant to feel that something fierce. We have to feel it because we're NOT lying to ourselves, we KNOW Dean fucked up, and is still fucking up, and we feel for him, because we know it's going to be a while before he hits rock bottom yet.
And while the thing about grayish shades between monsters and humans has also been done in past seasons (and obviously they are gearing up to let Crowley live. This lady and Garth as a werewolf. Where else can it be going?)
True - and they love Mark Sheppard, so I imagine he'll be hanging around as long as possible. But I wish they'd more fully addressed this earlier - they seem to have absolutely no qualms about killing demons anymore, without exorcising or even trying to save the humans. It's a little frustrating. I'm with them trying to make more of an effort to not kill things that aren't evil, though. Dean only gets "kill all the things" when he's in a downward spiral.
Re: 9x13 - The Purge
I think, among the reasons that are internal to the narrative, most have been well explored already--his role as parentified child, self sacrificing, understanding of self on in relation to how functional/useful he is--these are all aspects that are typically associated with women, moreso than with men.
But its where these attributes mesh with the external factors, that's what fascinates me. My emphasis for my BA degree was language and gender, so I'm really (overly?) attuned to gendered speech patterns, and Dean frequently uses syntactic structures and speech patterns commonly associated with women. And the reason for this is, imo, because he's largely been written by women. (and not just women, but middle aged women. I can hear that, too). This gives me great joy, since we are already empathizing with Dean, since we are already using him as the proxy or gateway into the narrative, this unconscious recognition on the audience's part helps explain his appeal as the 'little black dress' - the want to be/want to fuck phenomenon.
And then there's the thing about Jensen clearly overcompensating irl, and feeling uncomfortable with being objectified--be it because he knows he can't compete with Jared in a shirtless competition, or his sense that being a former model, his masculinity has already "compromised" and therefore any more intentional objectification would make him as a person "vulnerable" somehow--that just ends up hanging a lantern on it. I feel like this is why so many villains verbalize their admiration of/ridicule of his physical beauty. It's like they are trying to take away some of his agency, as if competence were in inverse proportion to the symmetry of one's features--and I often wonder if that's not the writers having a subtle dig at Jensen.
Any way you slice it, having him be the hero and the emotional core of the show, in a way allows women to have their cake and eat it too. They can have Dean as their proxy--read as a woman, he's badass, competent and tough; a role model to young women watching the show, perhaps--and as a sexual object to be consumed.
Re: 9x13 - The Purge
This is awesome. I totally agree and I don't really have much of anything to add.
I'm not surprised by Jensen's thing, it's obvious in a lot of things he does, but I have no idea what it is either.
Oh, and it annoys me that the way to take away someone's agency is to notice how good looking they are. Huh? But it is; you can tell that's what they're doing, and Dean's reactions often mean he knows it, too. I dun know.
But I love Dean being our window into the series, and that window being feminine. :D