i just wanna be a woman
shaggydogstail articulates my problems with last night's episode in a pithier way than I managed.
sistermagpie also has a good post discussing the gender issues present in the episode.
The thing is, I have been enjoying the meta episodes. While my main instinct is to think the fourth wall should remain intact*, I also thought the inclusion of the SPN books in the SPN universe, and the invention of Chuck (who I really wish had been a woman), was actually one of the cleverer strokes of creativity the show's had. (Despite, yes, the self-aggrandizement inherent in making yourself a prophet in your own story. I have already seen people refer to Becky as a Mary Sue, but no, guys, the Mary Sues are all those dudes running around in Sam and Dean costumes. By the overbroad and almost meaningless definition of the term as it's used in fandom these days, Sam and Dean are the Mary Sues. I could write a huge long digression about that, but I won't.
So while I was cringing when I heard about this episode, I wasn't completely down on the idea, the way I know a lot of people were. Also, as I've said before, the non-fictional SPN fandom as it exists here on the internet is pretty batshit on occasion, and has been so in full view of the PTB, so it's not like there isn't a lot to mock, and they've been pretty gentle about it.
But here it wasn't that they were mocking fans (can we retire the "lives in parents' basement" jokes now? Please?), it was that they were saying, "here are fanboys! See, they get that what Sam and Dean do is noble and that ordinary people can and should step up under extraordinary circumstances to be heroes. They get to be heroes too! On the other hand, those crazy fangirls? All they think about is romance with men they see as heroes, and they are fickle in their affections, to boot!"
(btw, Chuck didn't actually save Becky. He did make a heroic move, finally (to the Bionic Man sound effect, which was a particularly hilarious touch), but the ghost was going up in flames because Demian and Barnes salted and burned him.)
Kripke clearly wishes his fans were fanboys, or at least 18-34 yo dudebros (see s3), but if you watch the show in real time, you know it's always been sold to advertisers who are mostly targeting women.
So in a very large nutshell, that is the stuff that made me so unhappy.
Just so it's not all whine whine moan moan, the thing I did really like was that Sam and Dean are inspirational, and that two ordinary joes do step up in spite of their terror to save the day. And while I don't think they have any right to tell Dean that his life doesn't suck, they don't know he's actually Dean. To them, Dean is a fictional character, and this guy is a cosplayer who takes it way too fucking seriously (also hilarious) (even after they've discovered ghosts are real, Sam and Dean are still fictional, right?). So their response that the Winchesters' lives have meaning and that they had to do something because Sam and Dean would - yeah, I think Dean needed to hear that, and he needed to hear it from people, not from angels or demons or gods or whatever. He needed to hear it from the people he generally saves, because he needs to know that people are worth saving, that he used to find joy and meaning in saving people from evil creatures, and from having Sam at his side, and he can do that again (if he and Sam can manage to stop the world from ending).
--
*Otoh, I was a huge fan of Moonlighting at an impressionable age, and they did talk directly to the audience and break the fourth wall a number of times, so... despite my dislike of the PTB taking potshots at their fans *cough*Sorkin*cough*, I was mostly giving Kripke et al. the benefit of the doubt, even on Becky. But I'm really tired of his gender issues rearing up and kicking me in the face.
***
I am trying to decide whether my desire for a specialty iced coffee beverage outweighs the fact that it is ridiculously windy and possibly raining outside. Hmm. Dilemma, dilemma...
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/94648.html.
people have commented there.
sistermagpie also has a good post discussing the gender issues present in the episode.
The thing is, I have been enjoying the meta episodes. While my main instinct is to think the fourth wall should remain intact*, I also thought the inclusion of the SPN books in the SPN universe, and the invention of Chuck (who I really wish had been a woman), was actually one of the cleverer strokes of creativity the show's had. (Despite, yes, the self-aggrandizement inherent in making yourself a prophet in your own story. I have already seen people refer to Becky as a Mary Sue, but no, guys, the Mary Sues are all those dudes running around in Sam and Dean costumes. By the overbroad and almost meaningless definition of the term as it's used in fandom these days, Sam and Dean are the Mary Sues. I could write a huge long digression about that, but I won't.
So while I was cringing when I heard about this episode, I wasn't completely down on the idea, the way I know a lot of people were. Also, as I've said before, the non-fictional SPN fandom as it exists here on the internet is pretty batshit on occasion, and has been so in full view of the PTB, so it's not like there isn't a lot to mock, and they've been pretty gentle about it.
But here it wasn't that they were mocking fans (can we retire the "lives in parents' basement" jokes now? Please?), it was that they were saying, "here are fanboys! See, they get that what Sam and Dean do is noble and that ordinary people can and should step up under extraordinary circumstances to be heroes. They get to be heroes too! On the other hand, those crazy fangirls? All they think about is romance with men they see as heroes, and they are fickle in their affections, to boot!"
(btw, Chuck didn't actually save Becky. He did make a heroic move, finally (to the Bionic Man sound effect, which was a particularly hilarious touch), but the ghost was going up in flames because Demian and Barnes salted and burned him.)
Kripke clearly wishes his fans were fanboys, or at least 18-34 yo dudebros (see s3), but if you watch the show in real time, you know it's always been sold to advertisers who are mostly targeting women.
So in a very large nutshell, that is the stuff that made me so unhappy.
Just so it's not all whine whine moan moan, the thing I did really like was that Sam and Dean are inspirational, and that two ordinary joes do step up in spite of their terror to save the day. And while I don't think they have any right to tell Dean that his life doesn't suck, they don't know he's actually Dean. To them, Dean is a fictional character, and this guy is a cosplayer who takes it way too fucking seriously (also hilarious) (even after they've discovered ghosts are real, Sam and Dean are still fictional, right?). So their response that the Winchesters' lives have meaning and that they had to do something because Sam and Dean would - yeah, I think Dean needed to hear that, and he needed to hear it from people, not from angels or demons or gods or whatever. He needed to hear it from the people he generally saves, because he needs to know that people are worth saving, that he used to find joy and meaning in saving people from evil creatures, and from having Sam at his side, and he can do that again (if he and Sam can manage to stop the world from ending).
--
*Otoh, I was a huge fan of Moonlighting at an impressionable age, and they did talk directly to the audience and break the fourth wall a number of times, so... despite my dislike of the PTB taking potshots at their fans *cough*Sorkin*cough*, I was mostly giving Kripke et al. the benefit of the doubt, even on Becky. But I'm really tired of his gender issues rearing up and kicking me in the face.
***
I am trying to decide whether my desire for a specialty iced coffee beverage outweighs the fact that it is ridiculously windy and possibly raining outside. Hmm. Dilemma, dilemma...
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/94648.html.
people have commented there.