Mmm, Meta...

[blubird_pie]

Swapping Spit and Satin Panties: Sexual Objectification of the Male Characters in Supernatural

Summary: Despite plausible allegations of sexism, women still like Supernatural. Also, Dean gets kissed by demons a lot. Maybe these things are related? And no, I’m not saying we just watch for the h/c and the pretty.
Word count: 2,000 yes I know

Comments

[partaymon5]

Interesting meta. I'm not sure that this was case from the first though...I can't remember that far back. I'm suspicious that a lot of the 'sexual assaulting' of the two leads, came AFTER a few cons or Kripke reading forums and realizing just how much some of the female audience enjoyed that kind of thing. I think that the writers felt that the women might identify better with the male characters, if they suffered from some of the same things as female characters often do and of course some of the most horrific ideas to a woman - would be rape. The most emasculating thing to a man would also be rape I would guess.

About the only female character that I found interesting using an aggressive sexuality, as the original Meg and a lot of that was purely her acting and also her physical size compared to Sam. It just FIT her character so well.

Also, one thing that has been there from day 1 pretty much, is that Dean has always used 'female nicknames or slurs' to insult men, including Sam. The whole 'bitch' and 'jerk' bit was in the pilot and seemed to have resonated with the main fandom. I'm not sure if some of the other stuff was just an extrapolation of that or not.

Honestly, that isn't what I watch the show for... in fact, TV kisses are a turn off for me as are most of the sex scenes. I'm much more interested in the action, the relationship of the two brothers and actually LOOKING at the guys: they don't hire good looking leads for no reason after all. :)

[blubird_pie]

Yeah, I think Show changes a great deal from S1 to the present. I do think that some things changed when they realized just how much of the audience was women, and we know that Kripke pays at least a bit of attention to fandom, in which hurt!Dean is a pretty common trope. Still, Meg's sexual harassment was an issue as early as 1.16, and the vampire-baiting kiss is also from season 1. You're right though, that there started to be alot more of that kind of thing in later seasons.

You also bring up an interesting point with the gendered insults that Dean uses. The way Dean is gendered and the way he reacts to gender could be a whole other meta (my next project?!). He certainly seems more willing to buy into traditional gender stereotypes than Sam, but he also seems to relate more to women and to be assigned more "feminine" characteristics, in some ways- like putting his family most, liking children...Sort of a half-baked set of ideas on my part, but it's a nifty train of thought.

Thanks for the comment, especially since the subject matter was a turn off! ;) It was good to hear your point of view.