Things I Love About The Pilot - Postscript
Many thanks to those who commented on my Pilot re-watch review. I really appreciate your feedback. I enjoyed the discussion very much and your encouragement has persuaded me it’s worthwhile continuing with these posts, so I’ll be following up with my thoughts on “Wendigo” very soon.
First, though, I’d like to thank borgmama1of5 for identifying the article I mentioned in my last post regarding the eroticizing and feminizing of Dean in Supernatural, and for providing the following link: http://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=72302
I thoroughly recommend it. It’s a fascinating read and beautifully written. Not surprisingly since the author, Sheila O’Malley, is a professional film critic. After reading the article, I took the liberty of surfing the rest of the lady’s blog and was (initially) alarmed to discover that Ms. O’Malley has also been re-reviewing the early seasons of the show - since March! And she’s already covered the first three seasons, at least. I was very much afraid I’d find that her reviews would make mine redundant. What would be the point in my doing something that had already been done, and probably much better, by somebody else? But after reading her review of the Pilot, I was relieved to find there was surprisingly little crossover in our analyses. Her focus is quite different from mine. Besides, much of my motive for this exercise is to relive and share the excitement I felt when I first watched these episodes. I do thoroughly recommend Ms. O’Malley’s reviews. I especially think it’s worth quoting here her astute assessment of Dean’s first meeting with Jessica:
“ . . . when poor Jess appears in the door, in a Smurfs T-shirt, and she unfortunately looks super-sexy and Dean changes his entire vibe, going in for the kill, leering at her lecherously, even after Sam introduces her as “my girlfriend.” It’s gross. I don’t see it as a come-on, actually. I see it as a moment where Dean, instinctively, is putting her in her place, using sexual harassment. Who is this chick in his brother’s house? She’s irrelevant. Here’s what I think of YOU, little miss sexy britches. What I have to say here is IMPORTANT and you are not invited . . . There’s a lot going on in this moment: he’s asserting his dominance over Sam and over her (I trump you, bitch, I’m the big brother), he’s also emasculating Sam, swaggering his dick around showing that it’s bigger than his brother’s (what the hell is she doing with Sam when she could be with him?), and he’s also diminishing her, reducing her to a sex object in order to neutralize her. Dean has zero interest in getting to know Sam’s girlfriend. This will be a common problem between them as the series goes on, as the guys get involved with this or that woman. Both of them have a hard time dealing with it. It is also important to remember that while Sam was getting civilized in college, and courting a pretty girl and doing his homework, Dean was out in the wilderness with his Dad, hunting monsters. He’s barely house-trained at this point. But still: in this introductory moment we don’t know any of that. All we think is (or all I think is, upon my first time viewing it) is: What the hell happened to that little boy on the front lawn, holding his baby brother, and reassuring him it was okay? How did he turn into THIS?”
http://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=75663
I hadn’t given the scene much thought from this point of view, but I think she’s absolutely right, and I thought it was worth mentioning here as I do mean to talk about Dean’s issues with women further down the track.
I’ve only read her review of the pilot so far, but it’s a brilliant and detailed filmic analysis and I don’t doubt the others will be equally fascinating.
But, to return to my own much less professional ramblings, I’d just like to add a quick postscript to my thoughts on the pilot as I’ve realized there were a couple more frames and scenes worthy of closer examination that I missed mentioning in my previous post.
First, a quickie on the subject of the Dean=Heart/Sam=Soul dichotomy. Notice when Dean first pins Sam to the floor in their fight scene, his hand is at Sam’s throat in a gesture that threatens to cut off the windpipe. This is the first nod towards a recurring trope where Sam’s breath is cut off: for example, in “Home” when he is strangled by a lamp cable. This isn’t an accident; the breath has historically been associated with the soul. Also in season one, significantly, Dean sustains serious injuries to his heart.
Freaks, Clowns and Midgets.
The next point is one that I forgot to bring up when I was talking about the bridge scene, and I think it may be important. Recalling the brothers’ conversation:
DEAN
. . . You can pretend all you want, Sammy. But sooner or later
you're going to have to face up to who you really are.
DEAN turns around and keeps walking. SAM follows.
SAM
And who's that?
DEAN
You're one of us. (My emphasis).
I think that last line may be a pop culture allusion to one of Hollywood’s earliest horror movies, Freaks (1932), in particular a scene where a circus troupe holds a ritual to accept a newcomer trapeze artist as “one of us”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W99n083E0IA The woman’s horror at finding herself included among these “freaks” can be compared to Sam’s response to Dean: “No. I'm not like you! This is not going to be my life!”
It’s subtle, but SPN includes a number of pop culture allusions in the early episodes (the references to Two Lane Blacktop, The X Files and MacGyver are just three others in the pilot that spring readily to mind). Given the importance that the “freak” theme subsequently acquires in the show, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to assume this is an early nod to it. SPN often throws out subtle throwaways that can only be appreciated as foreshadowing on re-watching episodes, sometimes seasons later.
The plot of “Freaks” may also provide some insight into Sam’s fears regarding his family. In the 1932 movie, the trapeze artist is an opportunist who discovers a midget, Hans, is about to inherit a large fortune. She seduces and marries him and plans to murder him for his inheritance. But the other members of the troupe discover and foil her plot. The end of the movie reveals her punishment: she has been muted and brutally mutilated to become a sideshow exhibit in the circus.
What we may take from this is that Sam views his family as sideshow freaks and fears they may have the power to suck him in and turn him into something monstrous. Looking forward to the Season 2 episode “Everybody Loves a Clown” this may shed a new light on Sam’s fear of clowns and midgets.
Incidentally, psychologists have speculated that a reason many children are afraid of clowns is that they are instinctively aware there is a different face beneath the painted smile that the clown wears. It strikes me there is a strong parallel between a clown wearing a false face and a demon wearing the face of a person. As I mentioned before, the theme of mask and disguise is a recurring trope on the show, but it is expressed most malevolently in the Demon’s ability to possess and take on the appearance of others, wearing their face and form.
Consider this shot of the demon from the show’s opening.
I don’t think that’s any old silhouette. I’m confident that the Demon is actually played here by Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Those are definitely his eyelashes, right? :)
Bearing in mind what I’ve already said about the use of shadows in movies, this silhouette indicates that the Demon represents a dark side of John, but that’s a subject I’ll leave until we discuss his appearance in “Devil’s Trap.” For now, I just want to think about the fact that baby Sam witnessed a malevolent creature wearing the face of his father who stood over his crib and murdered his mother.
Later, in “Salvation”, in Sam’s vision, clown imagery is strongly linked to the appearance of the Demon. More than 20 seconds of screen time are devoted to the image of the clown, starting with it to the right of the screen, then moving to centre before we get this close up:
We then see the nursery clock stop, like the one in Sam's nursery, before the camera moves to focus on the clown's shadow on the door, just before the Demon appears beside Rosie's crib.
I’m suggesting that the show consciously foreshadowed the reasons for Sam’s phobia in the season preceding John Shiban’s episode; that they are deep, psychologically and symbolically complex, and rooted in his infancy, rather than in an adolescent trauma retconned by later writers.
There’s more I could say about the pilot, it’s such a densely layered episode, so rich in imagery and meaning, but I’ll leave it here for now. These themes recur again and again over the course of the following seasons, so doubtless I’ll be revisiting moments from the pilot again from time to time.
I hope you didn’t mind me adding these additional comments to what was already a very long post about the Pilot! There’s just such a lot that I love about it!
I’ll be working on my next post over the weekend so, hopefully, I’ll soon be sharing things I love about “Wendigo” with you.
Ttfn :).
First, though, I’d like to thank borgmama1of5 for identifying the article I mentioned in my last post regarding the eroticizing and feminizing of Dean in Supernatural, and for providing the following link: http://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=72302
I thoroughly recommend it. It’s a fascinating read and beautifully written. Not surprisingly since the author, Sheila O’Malley, is a professional film critic. After reading the article, I took the liberty of surfing the rest of the lady’s blog and was (initially) alarmed to discover that Ms. O’Malley has also been re-reviewing the early seasons of the show - since March! And she’s already covered the first three seasons, at least. I was very much afraid I’d find that her reviews would make mine redundant. What would be the point in my doing something that had already been done, and probably much better, by somebody else? But after reading her review of the Pilot, I was relieved to find there was surprisingly little crossover in our analyses. Her focus is quite different from mine. Besides, much of my motive for this exercise is to relive and share the excitement I felt when I first watched these episodes. I do thoroughly recommend Ms. O’Malley’s reviews. I especially think it’s worth quoting here her astute assessment of Dean’s first meeting with Jessica:
“ . . . when poor Jess appears in the door, in a Smurfs T-shirt, and she unfortunately looks super-sexy and Dean changes his entire vibe, going in for the kill, leering at her lecherously, even after Sam introduces her as “my girlfriend.” It’s gross. I don’t see it as a come-on, actually. I see it as a moment where Dean, instinctively, is putting her in her place, using sexual harassment. Who is this chick in his brother’s house? She’s irrelevant. Here’s what I think of YOU, little miss sexy britches. What I have to say here is IMPORTANT and you are not invited . . . There’s a lot going on in this moment: he’s asserting his dominance over Sam and over her (I trump you, bitch, I’m the big brother), he’s also emasculating Sam, swaggering his dick around showing that it’s bigger than his brother’s (what the hell is she doing with Sam when she could be with him?), and he’s also diminishing her, reducing her to a sex object in order to neutralize her. Dean has zero interest in getting to know Sam’s girlfriend. This will be a common problem between them as the series goes on, as the guys get involved with this or that woman. Both of them have a hard time dealing with it. It is also important to remember that while Sam was getting civilized in college, and courting a pretty girl and doing his homework, Dean was out in the wilderness with his Dad, hunting monsters. He’s barely house-trained at this point. But still: in this introductory moment we don’t know any of that. All we think is (or all I think is, upon my first time viewing it) is: What the hell happened to that little boy on the front lawn, holding his baby brother, and reassuring him it was okay? How did he turn into THIS?”
http://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=75663
I hadn’t given the scene much thought from this point of view, but I think she’s absolutely right, and I thought it was worth mentioning here as I do mean to talk about Dean’s issues with women further down the track.
I’ve only read her review of the pilot so far, but it’s a brilliant and detailed filmic analysis and I don’t doubt the others will be equally fascinating.
But, to return to my own much less professional ramblings, I’d just like to add a quick postscript to my thoughts on the pilot as I’ve realized there were a couple more frames and scenes worthy of closer examination that I missed mentioning in my previous post.
First, a quickie on the subject of the Dean=Heart/Sam=Soul dichotomy. Notice when Dean first pins Sam to the floor in their fight scene, his hand is at Sam’s throat in a gesture that threatens to cut off the windpipe. This is the first nod towards a recurring trope where Sam’s breath is cut off: for example, in “Home” when he is strangled by a lamp cable. This isn’t an accident; the breath has historically been associated with the soul. Also in season one, significantly, Dean sustains serious injuries to his heart.
Freaks, Clowns and Midgets.
The next point is one that I forgot to bring up when I was talking about the bridge scene, and I think it may be important. Recalling the brothers’ conversation:
DEAN
. . . You can pretend all you want, Sammy. But sooner or later
you're going to have to face up to who you really are.
DEAN turns around and keeps walking. SAM follows.
SAM
And who's that?
DEAN
You're one of us. (My emphasis).
I think that last line may be a pop culture allusion to one of Hollywood’s earliest horror movies, Freaks (1932), in particular a scene where a circus troupe holds a ritual to accept a newcomer trapeze artist as “one of us”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W99n083E0IA The woman’s horror at finding herself included among these “freaks” can be compared to Sam’s response to Dean: “No. I'm not like you! This is not going to be my life!”
It’s subtle, but SPN includes a number of pop culture allusions in the early episodes (the references to Two Lane Blacktop, The X Files and MacGyver are just three others in the pilot that spring readily to mind). Given the importance that the “freak” theme subsequently acquires in the show, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to assume this is an early nod to it. SPN often throws out subtle throwaways that can only be appreciated as foreshadowing on re-watching episodes, sometimes seasons later.
The plot of “Freaks” may also provide some insight into Sam’s fears regarding his family. In the 1932 movie, the trapeze artist is an opportunist who discovers a midget, Hans, is about to inherit a large fortune. She seduces and marries him and plans to murder him for his inheritance. But the other members of the troupe discover and foil her plot. The end of the movie reveals her punishment: she has been muted and brutally mutilated to become a sideshow exhibit in the circus.
What we may take from this is that Sam views his family as sideshow freaks and fears they may have the power to suck him in and turn him into something monstrous. Looking forward to the Season 2 episode “Everybody Loves a Clown” this may shed a new light on Sam’s fear of clowns and midgets.
Incidentally, psychologists have speculated that a reason many children are afraid of clowns is that they are instinctively aware there is a different face beneath the painted smile that the clown wears. It strikes me there is a strong parallel between a clown wearing a false face and a demon wearing the face of a person. As I mentioned before, the theme of mask and disguise is a recurring trope on the show, but it is expressed most malevolently in the Demon’s ability to possess and take on the appearance of others, wearing their face and form.
Consider this shot of the demon from the show’s opening.
I don’t think that’s any old silhouette. I’m confident that the Demon is actually played here by Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Those are definitely his eyelashes, right? :)
Bearing in mind what I’ve already said about the use of shadows in movies, this silhouette indicates that the Demon represents a dark side of John, but that’s a subject I’ll leave until we discuss his appearance in “Devil’s Trap.” For now, I just want to think about the fact that baby Sam witnessed a malevolent creature wearing the face of his father who stood over his crib and murdered his mother.
Later, in “Salvation”, in Sam’s vision, clown imagery is strongly linked to the appearance of the Demon. More than 20 seconds of screen time are devoted to the image of the clown, starting with it to the right of the screen, then moving to centre before we get this close up:
We then see the nursery clock stop, like the one in Sam's nursery, before the camera moves to focus on the clown's shadow on the door, just before the Demon appears beside Rosie's crib.
I’m suggesting that the show consciously foreshadowed the reasons for Sam’s phobia in the season preceding John Shiban’s episode; that they are deep, psychologically and symbolically complex, and rooted in his infancy, rather than in an adolescent trauma retconned by later writers.
There’s more I could say about the pilot, it’s such a densely layered episode, so rich in imagery and meaning, but I’ll leave it here for now. These themes recur again and again over the course of the following seasons, so doubtless I’ll be revisiting moments from the pilot again from time to time.
I hope you didn’t mind me adding these additional comments to what was already a very long post about the Pilot! There’s just such a lot that I love about it!
I’ll be working on my next post over the weekend so, hopefully, I’ll soon be sharing things I love about “Wendigo” with you.
Ttfn :).