OKAY I am late to the party but still here! An episode reaction post, on a platform that actually supports long comments, in the year of our Lord 2020; I am LIVING.
i am highkey fascinated by the Politics behind television decisions and also, screaming that Representation Matters is literally what i do for a living. and it fascinates me that the powers that be behind Supernatural were trying to have their cake and eat it too by making the end of the series a Rorschach blob that seemingly satisfied no one.
a) YES me too. Basically, I NEED the behind-the-scenes history of Destiel now. I would read a book on it tbh. I want to know where the bodies are buried, and how we arrived at this Schrodinger's Destiel cultural moment. Did the network interfere in the final version? Did Misha film a scene that later got cut? What internal war went on behind the scenes to even half-canonize the ship? Please spill the tea, Misha, I'm begging you. b) Please elaborate on repping for a living because that sounds dope.
I think that Misha and Bobo Berens (who wrote that episode) and whoever else fought for Cas to be canonically queer did as much as they could for us/the story, given restraints from the network and likely the showrunner (I had very little respect for Andrew Dabb as a writer/showrunner even before the finale, and I have negative respect after it). I think there was definitely at least a faction of writers and cast/crew who shipped Destiel and wanted it to be canon, and that we were probably defeated by TPTB interference (which includes a *profound* lack of self-awareness about what stories the show was actually telling and why anyone still cared about it after 15 years which, judging from recent TV history, can only be brought to you by the letter F and the sheer number of mediocre white men with showrunner and executive titles).
it was a big damn love story even when it wasn’t canonically explicit and it would be a Big Damn Love Story if Dean and Castiel were in the bodies of two jellyfish, because anyone with a single brain cell knows that the transformative power of love is the stuff that enduring romantic arcs are built on.
100% correct. Was it cowardly not to canonize it and bi!Dean, plus a huge waste of one of the best ships of all time and of a more engaged and invested fandom than the show itself ever deserved? Yes! Was the finale bad in a LOT of ways that had nothing to do with Destiel and everything to do with character and storytelling? Also yes, and I will never forgive the show's cruelty to my son Dean! But I'm clinging to the idea that, while we still didn't get much on the ship front, it was more than I thought they'd ever do, so...winning? It's certainly been an interesting couple of weeks. And the show is over now, so I have been set free from the surly bonds of canon. I have ascended to the post-canon heavens. I am Obi-Wan in A New Hope, ostensibly defeated but really stronger than ever. These last two eps are 95% dead to me and I will be reading fix-it fic as quickly as the fandom can produce it.
And ooh, I was going to relate the market research rumor to you, but you already found the Snopes-ish version of that post, which is even better. Even if that specific example weren't plausible, I have zero trouble believing that Warner Bros has done market research on this at some point. tbh I think that's the only way they'd allow it to go even halfway canon, since the network only cares about money/viewership (even though the show could've gone down in TV history for something other than longevity and queerbaiting, which you'd think would be worth something, sigh).
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momijizukamori
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Date: 2020-11-22 06:54 am (UTC)i am highkey fascinated by the Politics behind television decisions and also, screaming that Representation Matters is literally what i do for a living. and it fascinates me that the powers that be behind Supernatural were trying to have their cake and eat it too by making the end of the series a Rorschach blob that seemingly satisfied no one.
a) YES me too. Basically, I NEED the behind-the-scenes history of Destiel now. I would read a book on it tbh. I want to know where the bodies are buried, and how we arrived at this Schrodinger's Destiel cultural moment. Did the network interfere in the final version? Did Misha film a scene that later got cut? What internal war went on behind the scenes to even half-canonize the ship? Please spill the tea, Misha, I'm begging you.
b) Please elaborate on repping for a living because that sounds dope.
I think that Misha and Bobo Berens (who wrote that episode) and whoever else fought for Cas to be canonically queer did as much as they could for us/the story, given restraints from the network and likely the showrunner (I had very little respect for Andrew Dabb as a writer/showrunner even before the finale, and I have negative respect after it). I think there was definitely at least a faction of writers and cast/crew who shipped Destiel and wanted it to be canon, and that we were probably defeated by TPTB interference (which includes a *profound* lack of self-awareness about what stories the show was actually telling and why anyone still cared about it after 15 years which, judging from recent TV history, can only be brought to you by the letter F and the sheer number of mediocre white men with showrunner and executive titles).
it was a big damn love story even when it wasn’t canonically explicit and it would be a Big Damn Love Story if Dean and Castiel were in the bodies of two jellyfish, because anyone with a single brain cell knows that the transformative power of love is the stuff that enduring romantic arcs are built on.
100% correct. Was it cowardly not to canonize it and bi!Dean, plus a huge waste of one of the best ships of all time and of a more engaged and invested fandom than the show itself ever deserved? Yes! Was the finale bad in a LOT of ways that had nothing to do with Destiel and everything to do with character and storytelling? Also yes, and I will never forgive the show's cruelty to my son Dean! But I'm clinging to the idea that, while we still didn't get much on the ship front, it was more than I thought they'd ever do, so...winning? It's certainly been an interesting couple of weeks. And the show is over now, so I have been set free from the surly bonds of canon. I have ascended to the post-canon heavens. I am Obi-Wan in A New Hope, ostensibly defeated but really stronger than ever. These last two eps are 95% dead to me and I will be reading fix-it fic as quickly as the fandom can produce it.
And ooh, I was going to relate the market research rumor to you, but you already found the Snopes-ish version of that post, which is even better. Even if that specific example weren't plausible, I have zero trouble believing that Warner Bros has done market research on this at some point. tbh I think that's the only way they'd allow it to go even halfway canon, since the network only cares about money/viewership (even though the show could've gone down in TV history for something other than longevity and queerbaiting, which you'd think would be worth something, sigh).