Hell Hath No Fury like a Woman Born
Okay. I am not an expert in feminist criticism, Western history, or anything else for that matter. But I need to say it: What the fuck was up with last night's episode of Supernatural?
It was gripping, and I thought Jensen did fabulously well.
However.
Witches who kill for lust and greed? Who are all women? Who are eager to give themselves over, body and soul, to demonic forces for personal gain?
Women serve the devil. All generic Eves. Women are more likely to be witches, and evil, because of their natural weak moral character, which is caused by their essential carnality.
Misogynist ideas that are very old, very pervasive, very well known. And can all be found in one book, The Witches' Hammer. That's what Malleus Maleficarum is. It's a late medieval treatise on the history of witchcraft whose aims are to prove that witchcraft is real, to instruct how to deal with witches, and to explain why the majority of witches are women. It was the major text used by the Inquisition in its hunt, which is commonly, overwhelmingly, accepted as a genocide that was gender based. Commonly accepted figures for the death toll of the Inquisition between 1450 and 1700, in Europe, are between 40,000 and 100,000 victims, the vast majority of which were women.
And Dean. Our Dean. We know he loves pussy, but that shouldn't preclude loving women. I guess my interpretation of Dean was one in which both were true - I never felt that he looked down upon, reviled, or scapegoated upon women. But now? Now he wants to burn the witches. And plunge a twisted blade into a possessed woman's back, over and over again with shocking vehemence. Plunge his sword into the depths of her insides. Bad porn turned literal. And Ruby, who threatens with her spiritual power and knowledge, is a skank. And a bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch - how many times did he say it?
I know within the context of the show, it made sense, but that's just it: The writers set up the episode to create a context in which persecuting, reviling, exterminating women in the oldest, most basic manner, the way that is most well known in Western culture, was sensical.
We know that they're able to put some thought into political issues. Sam brings the post-modern critique of culture to the lore that they encounter in the show regularly. In the very last episode, he tells Dean about the pagan roots of Christmas, for example.
So what happened with last night's episode? Did they shit their brains out their asses? You don't need a PhD in feminist theory to have an inkling about the insidiousness of the history of witch hunts. How many people in the audience have never heard of the Spanish Inquisition, or the witch trials in Salem? There exists in contemporary popular culture an awareness of those histories' gender based violence, and an impression about the fascistic aspect of it, as well. Regardless of the words we use to describe it critically, ask: Who were witches? - Women. What happened to them? - They were murdered. By whom? - By the people in charge. And who were those people? - Priests, judges - Men.
Then they shift our beloved heroes from being outlaws, who hunt to save innocent people, to being the repressive force that seeks to exterminate a group of people - people who are women.
I don't care if 'that's not what we meant' because it's what they said, whether they knew it or not. And using a title like Malleus Maleficarum is inviting an erudite scrutiny; you can't take from history without assuming its burden. Google fucking exists; use it. If you're going to step in the shit, you'd better be wearing boots.
Dear Show,
You cannot make of Sam and Dean Inquisitors and still have us love them. Your audience is primarily female. You don't value us as viewers, we know, you want male viewers, whose eyes are apparently more valuable than ours, we know. So you insert sexually appealing women, present them as such. But now? Now you fucking defile them yourselves? The Witches' Hammer specifically states that women are susceptible to temptation by the devil precisely because of their carnality. So this woman you've put into the show to be sexually arousing, what have you done with her?
At the end of the day, Ruby is nothing more than a common whore for the devil. But watch how she seduces her demonic master, sly but beseeching, passive. What, ho? Even that's a lie, because she was 'always a lying whore'. And then she fights, so sexy, a spectacle for the (hopefully male - don't uncross your fingers, boys!) audience as well as the heroes. But she can't win the fight; her shame has been exposed, and she must wallow in it. Lucky for her, the hero, so 'tough' - not sadistic, not brutal -, can defeat the devil. Of course, only a righteous man can save a woman from her own moral decrepitude. The only boy who could ever reach her was the son of a hunter man.
You have jumped head first into the trap of inscribing upon a woman a sexuality that is then used against her as the cause of her own damnation. Making of her a sexual object and then blaming her for being one. Pinning women's evil on the sexuality you insist upon. So, Show, we don't have to hate Ruby! You do it for us!
Sincerely,
DBN
It was gripping, and I thought Jensen did fabulously well.
However.
Witches who kill for lust and greed? Who are all women? Who are eager to give themselves over, body and soul, to demonic forces for personal gain?
Women serve the devil. All generic Eves. Women are more likely to be witches, and evil, because of their natural weak moral character, which is caused by their essential carnality.
Misogynist ideas that are very old, very pervasive, very well known. And can all be found in one book, The Witches' Hammer. That's what Malleus Maleficarum is. It's a late medieval treatise on the history of witchcraft whose aims are to prove that witchcraft is real, to instruct how to deal with witches, and to explain why the majority of witches are women. It was the major text used by the Inquisition in its hunt, which is commonly, overwhelmingly, accepted as a genocide that was gender based. Commonly accepted figures for the death toll of the Inquisition between 1450 and 1700, in Europe, are between 40,000 and 100,000 victims, the vast majority of which were women.
And Dean. Our Dean. We know he loves pussy, but that shouldn't preclude loving women. I guess my interpretation of Dean was one in which both were true - I never felt that he looked down upon, reviled, or scapegoated upon women. But now? Now he wants to burn the witches. And plunge a twisted blade into a possessed woman's back, over and over again with shocking vehemence. Plunge his sword into the depths of her insides. Bad porn turned literal. And Ruby, who threatens with her spiritual power and knowledge, is a skank. And a bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch - how many times did he say it?
I know within the context of the show, it made sense, but that's just it: The writers set up the episode to create a context in which persecuting, reviling, exterminating women in the oldest, most basic manner, the way that is most well known in Western culture, was sensical.
We know that they're able to put some thought into political issues. Sam brings the post-modern critique of culture to the lore that they encounter in the show regularly. In the very last episode, he tells Dean about the pagan roots of Christmas, for example.
So what happened with last night's episode? Did they shit their brains out their asses? You don't need a PhD in feminist theory to have an inkling about the insidiousness of the history of witch hunts. How many people in the audience have never heard of the Spanish Inquisition, or the witch trials in Salem? There exists in contemporary popular culture an awareness of those histories' gender based violence, and an impression about the fascistic aspect of it, as well. Regardless of the words we use to describe it critically, ask: Who were witches? - Women. What happened to them? - They were murdered. By whom? - By the people in charge. And who were those people? - Priests, judges - Men.
Then they shift our beloved heroes from being outlaws, who hunt to save innocent people, to being the repressive force that seeks to exterminate a group of people - people who are women.
I don't care if 'that's not what we meant' because it's what they said, whether they knew it or not. And using a title like Malleus Maleficarum is inviting an erudite scrutiny; you can't take from history without assuming its burden. Google fucking exists; use it. If you're going to step in the shit, you'd better be wearing boots.
Dear Show,
You cannot make of Sam and Dean Inquisitors and still have us love them. Your audience is primarily female. You don't value us as viewers, we know, you want male viewers, whose eyes are apparently more valuable than ours, we know. So you insert sexually appealing women, present them as such. But now? Now you fucking defile them yourselves? The Witches' Hammer specifically states that women are susceptible to temptation by the devil precisely because of their carnality. So this woman you've put into the show to be sexually arousing, what have you done with her?
At the end of the day, Ruby is nothing more than a common whore for the devil. But watch how she seduces her demonic master, sly but beseeching, passive. What, ho? Even that's a lie, because she was 'always a lying whore'. And then she fights, so sexy, a spectacle for the (hopefully male - don't uncross your fingers, boys!) audience as well as the heroes. But she can't win the fight; her shame has been exposed, and she must wallow in it. Lucky for her, the hero, so 'tough' - not sadistic, not brutal -, can defeat the devil. Of course, only a righteous man can save a woman from her own moral decrepitude. The only boy who could ever reach her was the son of a hunter man.
You have jumped head first into the trap of inscribing upon a woman a sexuality that is then used against her as the cause of her own damnation. Making of her a sexual object and then blaming her for being one. Pinning women's evil on the sexuality you insist upon. So, Show, we don't have to hate Ruby! You do it for us!
Sincerely,
DBN