Meta: Supernatural 5×09, The Real Ghostbusters
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Last night I watched Supernatural 5×09, “The Real Ghostbusters.” You guys, I freaking love this episode. It’s the most accurate and flattering depiction of a fan convention that I’ve ever seen in the mainstream media.
I LOVE BECKY AS A CHARACTER. I realized, since she's been in two episodes, she counts as a recurring female character, which means I get to count her as a recurring female character who isn't evil or dead. Yay! And while she's a very sexual character, she's also not filmed in a male-gazey way (her appearance isn't exploited for the pleasure of male viewers) and she's not presented as grotesque for having sexual desire while not being hyper-attractive in a traditional mainstream way (unlike Ms. Case in the repugnant "Red Sky at Morning").
I don't like that her story arc is a heteronormative "and then she hooks up with Chuck" thing, but I love her. She's overflowing with personality, she's adorable, she's odd, and she's hilarious.
Is Becky the first depiction of a slash fan in a mainstream canon? I'm guessing probably not, but maybe she's the first depiction of a slash fan of a particular canon in that canon itself? Hmmm... anyone know?
Anyway, I give the show major props for presenting Becky, a female slash writer, as the #1 uber-fan of Supernatural.
I've read criticism of Becky's hyped-up desire for Sam, and I can sort of see why. A significant portion of slash fandom isn't convention-going fandom and isn't into real-life interaction with actors. But a lot of slash fandom is, and that's the portion of slash fandom the creators will have been likely to meet, so I'd say it's pretty fair to portray Becky as such.
As far as whether Becky is an unflattering portrayal of a female con-going fan, let me just say, I've been to a lot of celebrity cons in my day, and among the things I've seen:
* A female fan who wrapped herself around [Male Celebrity] and refused to let go until pried off by security.
* A female fan who was removed from a cocktail party at the request of [Male Celebrity] and responded by shallowly-but-dramatically cutting her wrist.
* A female fan who asked [Male Celebrity] to remove his shirt, and when he demurred and jokingly suggested that she do so instead, ran up on stage in front of ~2,000 people and took her off her shirt and her bra.
* Several female fans who put themselves thousands or tens-of-thousands of dollars in debt following [Male Celebrity] to conventions around the world, insisting that he really did have a meaningful connection with them because he looked deeply into their eyes when he took their money.
* Numerous female fans who've given [Male Celebrity] copies of their explicit fanfiction, sexually propositioned him, insulted his romantic partner, groped him in photo-shoots... okay, I'll stop, but you get the idea?
Basically, it could have been a lot worse. I'm sure these creators have seen the darker side of con-going fandom, but they still wrote Becky as an overly-enthusiastic, but basically positive and likable character.
Now, of course, the episode isn't perfect. The audience is way too male (particularly egregious because their inclusion of Becky as the primary fan shows that they know their fandom is mostly female), and there are also only a few people of color, none of whom have speaking parts.
The LARPers are also mostly male, but if you look, there are at least two women cosplaying in drag. I WISH THESE CHARACTERS HAD LINES. I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THEM. I love that they're there at all, but they should've been more prominent.
I doubt LARPing has a huge presence in SPN fandom. I suspect they chose it because it works visually and dramatically in a TV show where action has to happen, which, okay, that's fair enough.
I have slightly mixed feelings about Demian and Barnes--having male characters represent fandom is frustrating, but I get why they did it (and at least Becky's there to ameliorate it). They wanted Demian and Barnes as the actual gay couple version of Sam and Dean, which is so cool. And unlike in "Ghostfacers," where Corbett's sexuality is frequently played as a joke, Demian and Barnes aren't presented as laughable for being gay. Instead, they're matter-of-fact about it, are presented as more well-adjusted than Dean, and they get the last word, while it's Dean who gets his preconceptions challenged.
This episode is also so flattering in its portrayal of the positive power of fandom. It shows fandom inspiring people to be brave and to help others, and it shows fandom as a way for people to connect with each other in meaningful ways. The episode avoids a lot of cliches--the fans understand the difference between fantasy and reality*, fandom doesn't prevent them from living meaningful lives, and they aren't losers stuck in their parents' basements.
* Well, except in this world fantasy is reality, but they don't have any way of knowing that.
I was going to say it's frustrating the heroic arc goes to Demian and Bares instead of to female characters, but actually the woman cosplaying Leticia Gore gets a chance to be heroic, too. I'm not sure if she actually is supposed to be a fan or just a hired actress, though, but at least a female character gets to do something active (if, unfortunately, not as active as the male characters). Oh, and Becky gets a heroic moment too--it's because of her superfannishness that she remembers where the Colt is, which is actually the most important part of the episode in terms of mytharc.
I also liked that the episode seemed to be about another typical evil female ghost, but then subverted its own cliche by having Leticia Gore turn out to be the protector who was keeping the evil child ghosts at bay.
I loved the self-mockery in general. Yeah, they're (gently) laughing at their fans, but they're not sparing themselves either--see the coplayers' gravely voices when in character, the joke about SPN's cliched scary children, that comment that the show makes grave-digging look too easy, the fact that Chuck is a socially-awkward mess.
And just, y'know, as someone who has been to many conventions, I love how many details they got right. The cheesy hotel ballroom, the awkwardness of the Q&A session, the disdain/confusion of the hotel staff, the homemade costumes of random characters, the really odd pedantic German dude who keeps asking questions, the panel titles. I love the panel titles! "Frightened Little Boy: The Secret Life of Dean" and "The Homoerotic Subtext of Supernatural." These would be panels that I would go to! And I love that we get to see the look on the characters' faces when they hear about them. What other show gives you that?
(And of course the boys are weirded out. Mainstream people are almost always confused by their first exposure to fandom and especially to slash--there is no mainstream narrative to explain it. And there's an extra layer of weird here because we're seeing the reactions of the characters that the fandom is about. That doesn't mean the show is telling the fans they're bad or wrong--they're just showing how the characters actually would react, which is pretty mild, and portrayed with humor.)
Basically, though the episode is imperfect, I am just so glad it went beyond the "overgrown boys stuck in their parents' basement" stereotype and acknowledged female fandom, slash fandom, queer fandom, and that fandom is a positive force in so many peoples' lives.
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