the very touch of you corrupts
Nov. 20th, 2020 11:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ever_neutral i can't believe i am back engaging with fandom in the year of Satan 2020 because of Supernatural.
so full disclaimer that I haven't actually watched the episode in question, or any episode of the show for many years lmao but 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.
the facts are these:
1) after 12 years of baiting, they actually go all the way with having Castiel come out and declare that he's been in love with Dean all along (then immediately kill him off)
2) even though Dean appreciates that Castiel's sacrifice has allowed him (Dean) to keep on living and embrace life, the show very shortly afterwards kills Dean himself off. they don't give him the spouse and kid/s and picket fence they give Sam's character - which they very well could have done, and still have had the brothers in Heaven ending. rather than confirming any endgame love interest instead they leave Dean blatantly single before he kicks it and ends up in Heaven, and then...
3) they make the (bare minimum) effort to establish that Castiel has been lifted out of hell (or whatever) and is back in Heaven as well
4) but they DON'T finish what they started with the coming-out, they do not show Dean and Cas meeting again onscreen. which, after previously confirming that this relationship was canonically built on romantic tension all along, would have been the #1 buzz no matter how ambiguous the interaction.
5) by leaving out this onscreen reunion AND not showing an endgame romantic partner for Dean, they manage to avoid saying the final word on Dean's sexuality, full stop. therefore avoiding heat from conservative homophobic general audience members and network censorship equally.
the upshot is that this is apparently the closest thing to a Destiel endgame the show could have done, and i wonder if that was a real factor in the above writing choices. you might want to think that i'm reaching, but you also have to think that they DID NOT HAVE TO canonise Destiel at all. they could have written Cas out in a generic heroic sacrifice, like they apparently did many times before, rather than CONFIRMING that Dean was the love of his life and that the entire story up to that point was textually a love story! they DID NOT HAVE TO open that can of worms AT ALL!
but they did open it. they made that choice (and the episode in which they did it was penned by an openly gay writer).
so instead they play it mind-numbingly safe and never answer the question they set up, which is Dean’s Shrodinger’s bisexuality. my hot take here which I’ve taken a very long time to sum up – i think SPN actually wanted to do Destiel (and they may have for longer than we think), and they went as far as they felt they could.
(of course, it’s not nearly good enough in the year 2020, and it would not have been good enough in 2004. i am not praising SPN for doing the bare minimum in queer representation. i’m saying we have to consider the constraints for a show that crossed all demographics, as gryfndor-goddess has also put it.)
anyway Misha is apparently doing a q&a thing this weekend, and i would not be surprised if what comes out of it are implications of cut scenes under network pressure.
* the thing about Destiel that people who never went here don’t get is that it wasn’t just your standard wink wink nudge nudge BROMANCE; it was always constructed within a classic storytelling framework as a Romance. the sheer concept of a divine Angel of the Lord saving a mortal from Hell, growing Human feelings and Free Will, then betraying God himself and falling from Heaven out of loyalty to a single human – that is a Big Damn Love Story**. 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.
**not to say it was a healthy love story lmao, the Cas/Dean dynamic in the show is mostly insanely codependent and thrives on misunderstanding and mutual suffering. but frankly what epic love in literature doesn’t.
to conclude: can you believe that Supernatural created literally the biggest ship of the 21st century (this is not an exaggeration - any writer would KILL to create a story that inspires the tumblr/ao3 stats that Destiel has!)… but in the end wouldn’t go all the way with it out of fear of its power. mess!
no subject
Date: 2020-11-23 10:39 pm (UTC)What internal war went on behind the scenes to even half-canonize the ship? Please spill the tea, Misha, I'm begging you.
EXACTLY! Drop your tell-all novel @ mishacollins !
b) I work in a Union!
I didn't keep up with the last few seasons, so am curious as to why you dislike Andrew Dabb? Tell me more.
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
MTE. TPTB be pressed that they targeted the show to Middle America and got instead a predominantly LGBT+ fandom that dared to read the text as queer. But ironically, in sabotaging the gay, they actually ensured that Castiel/Destiel will be the most remembered thing about the series, lmao. (Imagine having Misha Collins' power... even when he loses he wins. Legend.)
What they did to Dean actually disturbs me the most, even as someone who isn't really a Dean Girl. They couldn't Go There with the explicit bisexuality, so instead they kill him off by way of pointedly angled six-inch phallic metaphor from behind??? Dude was fucked over -- and NOT in the way we wanted to see!
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
What boggles the mind though, is that considering how much they could have milked a Destiel endgame for money, homophobia STILL won out over greed. Mess!
no subject
Date: 2020-11-26 05:06 am (UTC)He's been showrunner since S12 started, and I have never gotten the impression (from either his scripts or his interviews) that he much cares about treating his characters or his actors with respect, or about actual good storytelling. He feels like a wannabe Mofftiss or D&D kind of showrunner to me. He 'joked' last year that if people thought the GoT ending was bad, "just wait" for the SPN finale, and that only 30% of SPN fans would like it, which...we don't have time to unpack that self-own, but why would you brag about being worse than an already infamously bad ending?? He's also made (imo) nastily passive-aggressive 'jokes' to and about Jensen and Misha, with and without them there, including onstage at SDCC and Paley Fest. When Jensen and Jared went to LA to discuss the finale ending with Dabb/the writers' room, Jensen said it was presented to them as "take it or leave it." So basically, 4 years of things like that, plus I get a general 'contempt for the fans who don't appreciate his genius creative vision' vibe from him, and that sh*t always pisses me off. I can dig up receipts for the specific instances if you'd like; I just don't feel up to googling the links right now lol.
(Side note: Dabb replaced Jeremy Carver, who is probably my favorite of the 4 SPN showrunners, and who is now showrunning Doom Patrol, which is legit good and well-written. I keep waiting for fandom to discover it, bc it's a superhero show where the superpowers are just metaphors for the characters' trauma, and then we spend at least a season--I haven't seen S2 yet--on their attempts at trauma recovery, which is absolutely my and fandom's jam. It's also canonically and unapologetically queer, God bless.)
But ironically, in sabotaging the gay, they actually ensured that Castiel/Destiel will be the most remembered thing about the series, lmao.
Karma!! I'm still waiting for someone to write the exhaustive 10k meta on how Cas and Destiel couldn't be stopped, not inside the narrative OR outside of it in real life.
They couldn't Go There with the explicit bisexuality, so instead they kill him off by way of pointedly angled six-inch phallic metaphor from behind???
It WAS disturbingly phallic, and Dean's ending was terrible and a betrayal of his character on the part of the writers. I'm having a hard time reading all of this in a way besides SPN burying both its gays in the end (queer and bi, but still).
What boggles the mind though, is that considering how much they could have milked a Destiel endgame for money, homophobia STILL won out over greed.
I know!! It's not 'just' bigoted, it's also aggressively stupid! Unfortunately I still find it believable bc I've seen these kinds of self-sabotaging corporate decisions play out in other areas too (do executive-level jobs come with a lobotomy?), but honestly, they killed the golden goose. Regardless of how big and how homophobic the 'general audience' actually is, casual viewers are not what kept the show on the air this long, and they're not a cash cow for the network like fandom has been. Fandom not only throws money at things like DVD sets and merchandise and conventions, it *actively brings in new viewers* by making fan art and gifsets and other transformative works. That engagement, which the network did nothing to earn and which the show has historically mostly done its best to destroy, is what made them most of their money over the years. And they would've gotten more if they'd fully canonized Destiel, or at bare minimum made the ending less sh*tty! Instead they blew up fandom on their way out, in the bad way, and they were never going to get much money from the GA after the show ended anyway, so...good luck to them I guess? Even if they were being extra careful with the bronlies bc they wanted them to follow Jared to Walker, they still shot themselves in the foot, bc a large chunk of fandom probably would have watched that show out of loyalty if they weren't so pissed at how SPN ended. (I mean, I wouldn't have bc I don't care about Sam/Jared, but fandom in general, lol.)
And I'm sure you've seen how fandom has worked itself up to, like, proto-QAnon levels since the finale, so that's an ongoing trainwreck, AND Misha just tweeted a video saying there was no alternate version of Despair, sooo things are going great!! O_O
no subject
Date: 2020-11-26 08:29 pm (UTC)a;lskdjfldsjflsdjfds I did see this on Tumblr. I wonder if Dabb as a person has a really wry tone of humour that comes off badly? Can't comment on his skills as a writer/showrunner as obviously I haven't seen a single episode within his tenure.
Interesting that Carver is your favourite, as I was just chatting to another friend who hates him and prefers Dabb. Her reason for disliking Carver is because Dean was written in a more unlikeable way (which I do remember, but I actually appreciated that from a storytelling perspective wrt the Mark of Cain).
Considering that Carver's new show is apparently CANONICALLY QUEER, would Destiel have happened all the way if Carver had stuck around???!!!
I'm still waiting for someone to write the exhaustive 10k meta on how Cas and Destiel couldn't be stopped, not inside the narrative OR outside of it in real life.
IS THERE NOT SUCH A THESIS ALREADY?
I'm having a hard time reading all of this in a way besides SPN burying both its gays in the end
MTE. They KNEW that Dean couldn't have a "normal" life but also didn't have the guts to reveal his truth so the only thing left was to impale him on a queer metaphor. /o\ /o\ /o\
I have literally never even heard of this Walker show before this last week... Hope it tanks!
AND Misha just tweeted a video saying there was no alternate version of Despair, sooo things are going great!! O_O
A;SLJFDL;DSKJFKDSJFSDS MESS. However, that contradicts Jensen's own statement that there WAS more to Dean's reaction that was cut. That is corroborated by the Spanish dub. If we're going with the premise that we need to take actors' words with a grain of salt and look for supporting evidence -- the supporting evidence favours Jensen's statement strongly, not Misha's. In any case, this conspiracy theory is the #1 entertainment of my life currently, so I eagerly await more batshit info to drop.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-27 04:11 am (UTC)idk, I try to give the benefit of the doubt in such cases, but every time I've seen him on video his jokes all feel razored to me. I know the main cast roasts each other all the time, but that has a foundation of affection that is imo missing here. You know how sometimes you'll be around a couple and one member will make 'jokes' at the other's expense that are clearly part of an ongoing argument, and you just think 'yikes' and back away slowly? It felt kind of like that. :-/
would Destiel have happened all the way if Carver had stuck around???!!!
I have wondered this often!! I mean, still probably not, but I would love to know if perhaps Carver wanted to make things gayer. He was notoriously the one who told Misha to play those human!Cas gas station scenes in S9 like Dean and Cas were 'jilted lovers.' But I have also tortured myself often with the idea of how much better the last few seasons would likely have been if almost anyone other than Dabb (except Buckleming) had been promoted to showrunner. Robbie Thompson was my fave writer, but Berens was on staff then too, and they both loved Cas (and probably shipped it tbh). Anyway, Kripke's tenure was also good since that was OG SPN. imo S4-5 and 8-9 are the best stretches the show has. S7 is still the worst, though the series finale alone is probably enough to make S15 the runner-up.
IS THERE NOT SUCH A THESIS ALREADY?
I feel like there must be, but have not yet managed to lay eyeballs on it; perhaps it just finds you when it's most needed.
I have literally never even heard of this Walker show before this last week... Hope it tanks!
lol well he's rebooting Walker, Texas Ranger on the CW, so it probably will.
However, that contradicts Jensen's own statement that there WAS more to Dean's reaction that was cut.
I should've been more precise; Misha said that there was no earlier version of the script where Dean had said 'me too,' not that there wasn't a longer cut of the scene somewhere. (Like on Jensen's phone, which I hope he has backed up in multiple places.) So fandom is still upset over the finale, Misha tried to fix it and is now sad as well, and unsurprisingly, no one who was actually at fault for any of this seems to give a f*ck. Happy holidays to everyone who actually cared about the show, on both sides of the camera, basically.
Happy (belated) Thanksgiving if you celebrate! Only 5 more weeks of 2020 to go, haha sob.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-27 10:55 pm (UTC)He was notoriously the one who told Misha to play those human!Cas gas station scenes in S9 like Dean and Cas were 'jilted lovers.'
a;sldkjf;dlsjflsddslk;jfdsl I literally don't remember what was going on in S9 (or whether I actually watched it????), nor can I identify any of the writers' work outside of fandom talk, but keyboard mash anyway.
perhaps it just finds you when it's most needed.
***manifests into existence***
Misha said that there was no earlier version of the script where Dean had said 'me too,' not that there wasn't a longer cut of the scene somewhere. (Like on Jensen's phone, which I hope he has backed up in multiple places.)
There are still some missing puzzle pieces here then. If the "me too" wasn't in the original longer cut on Jensen's phone, then what was? And an even bigger question, if the "me too" was never there, then where the fuck did it come from? The ROGUE TRANSLATOR making up dialogue theory isn't plausible to me, unless we are to believe that could have made it through multiple rounds of approval in a professional industry. The piece of dialogue came from somewhere. THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE, SCULLY.
I don't celebrate Thanksgiving, but sure, we should all be thankful for Destielgate, the drama that keeps on giving, amen.