comments on SPN S3

[vaznetti]

Look at the tags. Consider what you know about me. Move on if all you want is squee and flail.

Comments

[loligo]

In most of S1 and S2 I felt I could say with some confidence that Dean likes and respects women.

Yeah. The only reason I'm not where you are now with regard to the show is that I can hold onto initial characterizations pretty tenaciously when I don't see the changes as being organic to the story. I've managed a whole season of "BZZT! Wrong! Dean wouldn't really say that!" and I can probably squeeze out another half a season before it really starts to wear me down and I start feeling compelled to integrate the crap into my view of his character.

The sexist antagonism directed toward Ruby and Bela, that I can kind of buy. Dean grew up with (as far as we know) no female influences in his life beyond his perfect dead mother, and as a very hot guy it's unfortunately true that a lot of the women he encounters are going to choose to sexualize their interactions with him even if Dean doesn't go there first. So I can see where he would both idealize women in that sort of courtly, old-fashioned sexist way, and be over-focused on their sexual availability. Neither of these are necessarily going to cause big problems when he's dealing with women he likes and respects, but they'll turn toxic with women who are Bad and Evil (in part because being "bad" is a betrayal of idealized womanhood).

So I can kind of live with that aspect of Season 3. What's really pissing me off are the casual slams against women that the writers have been adding in all sorts of unnecessary places. Like, would Dean go to Tijuana and try to pick up hot Mexican women using cheesy pick-up lines in bad high school Spanish? Totally. Would Dean go to Tijuana and get turned on by economically exploited Mexican women forced into bestiality in tourist-trade sex shows? NO. I don't even think he'd crack jokes about it. That is some bad, bad writing.

[musesfool]

I can hold onto initial characterizations pretty tenaciously when I don't see the changes as being organic to the story. I've managed a whole season of "BZZT! Wrong! Dean wouldn't really say that!"

Yes. This. It bothers me, but I just excise it when I write him, so I can kind of keep the Dean in my head and the Dean of season 3 separate. Of course, I also don't believe he doesn't know a lot of the shit they have him not knowing, so it's helpful in other ways, too.

[vaznetti]

I agree that the changes don't seem organic to me, but I guess I ran into my "Dean would never say that!" limit at some point this season. Maybe it's just as well that it was only 16 episodes!

Neither of these are necessarily going to cause big problems when he's dealing with women he likes and respects, but they'll turn toxic with women who are Bad and Evil (in part because being "bad" is a betrayal of idealized womanhood).

I see what you mean by this, and I think that if we'd had more balance in the kinds of women seen on the show I would be more tolerant of Dean's attitude toward Bela and Ruby (although I still find the sexualization of his attacks on Ruby weird) if I had anything else in the text to remind me that Dean doesn't think that all women are evil skanks who are only getting what's coming to them. I mean, seriously, a guest appearance by Ellen would probably have done a lot to reconcile to me to what we got.

I think that I'm a little surprised that the writing is so bad that it's made me stop caring about a character I really liked. I mean, that's unusual.