Supernatural and the Underclass pt 4
Supernatural and Underclass 4- War
Part 1- Intro
Part 2- Dangers of Underclass
Part 3- Music
Supernatural, the Underclass, and War
Before I begin, I'm going to say something. As of now, most of the readers of this meta know about my own socio-economic background. I'll divulge a little something else now: I'm also one of the underclass heading into the ranks of the military. After I finish up my stint here in my temp job, I'm going to seek a commission into the Army. I can say with utter certainty that my experiences living so long in the underclass was the key motivation for my decision to join. Because of them, I know what I am capable of, and what I am willing to sacrifice. I know what I can survive, and I know what I am willing to die for.
Several commentors pointed out that personal experiences are key in this piece of meta, and I'd agree. See, this is less a meta and more of a telling of the story of a section of America that in most cases, has been lost. This story here, the one we are telling, is a way of finding them again.
With that said, let's get to it.
Supernatural reflects a variety of wars, in a myriad of ways.
If nothing else, it is about fighting. Fighting yourself, fighting your past, fighting your family, fighting your destiny. Fighting for your country, fighting for your God. Fighting for your family. Fighting for your friends. Fighting evil. Fighting death.
There's something you'll notice among all this fighting: all of the soldiers are the guys that everyone else brushes off.
The family of drifters. The junkyard man. The bartender and her daughter. A college washout. People in tattered jeans and flannel, layers of baggy, worn clothes, with tired eyed and veined hands.
People you don't make eye contact with in the grocery store. People you try to forget you saw.
The problem with that is, and it's a very real problem IRL, too, is that the world is trying to forget its fighters. Its soldiers. We are venerated as heroes for protecting our country (even though now there is an uneasy undercurrent of thought asking: protecting what? 99cent burgers and cable TV, mostly asked by people who don't know what it is that we see we want to protect), and then disregarded when we finish our duty.
A blog I read online, done by a woman in her fifties who comes from West Virginia, was dealing with American healthcare and a recent speech done in rural Appalachian America. One commentor derided the amount of fat white old people at the speech riding around in scooters, hooked up to oxygen tanks. Their reasoning? They were fat and immobile because they simply stopped exercising. They were hooked up to oxygen because they get winded too easily from doing stuff because they're fat. This comment appalled the blog writer, who pointed out a few things that obviously never occurred to the commentor. One, that the people attending the rally were definitely former workers in coal mines and factories, whose hard work there took a toll on their bodies and ruined their lungs. She finally said that people refuse to understand them when their bodies break down while fighting to keep the country together and running.
I've brought up a few times, mostly in comments, that to live in the underclass is to pretty much live in spite of the shit that happens. You fight past it and keep living, because you have to. Life isn't going to get easier, nothing's going to help you, so you just deal with it. You fight through it and move on. In my second year of college, I got a concussion from a cow bringing its head down on top of mine. I didn't go see a doctor, I finished up chores. I ignored the lethargy, the aphasia, the memory confusion because it is just something I had to do.
Now repeat this kind of process for something like 60 million other people.
It's really no wonder, that with all of this fighting in their normal lives, most of the ranks of our military are from these people in this underclass, who have done little else but fight anyway.
Of course everybody has struggles in life. Everybody has issues to deal with, problems to fight past. But how many middle class people do you know who have to fight to get regular access to food? (Why do you think Dean inhales everything in sight? Because it's pretty goddamn nice to have access to food, and knowing their money situation, it's not always a given when they're going to eat next.) How many have to fight to get regular access to clean running water to bathe yourself and wash your clothes? (Sniff test anyone? Not just because they're lazy or "guys" although that might be part of it. When they have access to running water, they use it mercilessly. You can see countless instances of the guys bathing and showering, like this is actually something of note.You can see countless instances of the guys bathing and showering, like this is actually something of note, and they’re gleeful about taking advantage of.)
This is the kind of fight I mean.
And honestly, going to the military and being asked to live pretty much like you did at home isn't all that big of a deal. Being constantly filthy, no guarantee of bathing, no regular access to food, the list goes on. (Of course this is training and deployments I'm talking about here. Living on bases isn't that bad.) To them, it's not as big of a step as it would be to other people. To be asked to kill, when aggression and fighting is something they are very familiar with, is something close to them. This is important here, because I pointed out before that something like 90% of American criminals will be men, and the majority those in the underclass. Certain things, like never letting someone question your competence or masculinity, are things that need to be met with by force. Allowing people to question that is to make you lower than them; so you respond with physical violence. Also, dealing with those people who will try to victimize other people in the underclass engenders a certain amount of willingness to throw down. You don't let people fuck with you, because there is no guarantee the authorities will listen or be on your side.
So when they get into the military, and are asked to fight, and hurt, and kill, for many of these people, this isn't much of a change from their normal lives. Now they're given a uniform and weapons, and it's now their job to do something they've been doing to survive.
One of the best examples I can give, aside for general commentary, is Alvin York during WWI. This site talks about his experience under #2. Essentially, York was a Tennessee redneck who got drafted, and found that shooting Germans isn't a whole lot different than shooting in the woods of Tennessee.
Partly the culture of the suck it up, don't cry attutide of the military as well is very similar to that of the more traditional boy-raising. Or even just underclass raising. Even though I'm a girl, I've always been discouraged from crying even in situations where it's totally natural and understandable. Like getting hurt or nearly killed, witnessing others getting hurt or almost killed, witnessing death, etc. You simply don't have the luxury of crying, because you are not the only person in this situation, and you cannot slow down to grieve because there is always more to be done. Also, bringing others down is not cool; if you're working with a group, bawling and making others feel bad, it only slows everybody down. You simply can't do that.
Although it's commonly seen as a boy thing, it's also very common in the underclass for both genders to be told to suck it up because there's work to be done. Underclass women, even historically, did not have the luxury of not working; you had to work to help feed your family. Crying or moping was not acceptable. You had to help with whatever work their was to be done, and raise children if you had them.
And here you can see where the instinctive urge to fight, and not stop just because it's hard or painful, has been fostered. It's through necessity, but you can understand how, given the way this is how the majority of the underclass has been raised, becoming a fighter, a soldier, is something we have to be. To finally transfer into that technical label is very natural.
Let's look at Bobby and John. Given their respective ages, and their probable positions in society at the time of their youth (not college kids, not farmers, other jobs necessary to the war effort), they were probably sent to Vietnam. This is important, because there were certain rules during the draft that did exclude some members of male society, like college kids and farmers, because in all instances, these were the future of America that would probably be fucked over if sent there. So instead they drafted everybody else. People with jobs non-essential to society, like mechanics, were drafted. Of course, by the time of Vietnam, a lot of our society was more service based than industrial or agricultural, so chances are Bobby served alongside John. (Unless he was married at that age, but who the hell knows. Let's just go on the assumption he was single.)
My point being is that a lot of poor, working class boys who could not afford college nor were working jobs "essential to the war effort" were drafted into the war. That's a hell of a lot of people, and it shaped a huge generation of Americans. A lot of men served during Vietnam, and as a consequence, an entire portion of the underclass whose rearing was reinforced by their military service, came back and had families. These families were shaped by their fathers' experience as a person in the underclass and his time in the military. Sometimes their experiences broke them, and in effect broke their families. Some of them, like John, took both experiences and steeled their children to be more fighters, educating them in ways the world can be bad, and how to fight it. How to support your society in spite of how fucked up it may be, because it still needs people who are capable of defending it to defend it.
And here's where we go to the hunters. These guys don't do it for glory or pay. They do it because it needs to be done, and there is no one else who is capable or willing to do the job. You see many middle class hunters tooling around? Not me. All the middle class people I see are spazzing out over Chuck's books and using their luxury time to attend conventions, simply surviving their contact with the supernatural, or dealing with it. None of them become hunters through their experience, and those that try their hand at it find it to be disgusting, thankless work that they are glad to be rid of when possible. (Think of Barnes and Demian: two solidly white collar workers who want to pretend to be Sam and Dean without actually experiencing their underclass existence and the actual fighting they need to do just to survive.)
And who did the angels reveal themselves to in order to prevent the apocalypse? Not some guy at his office desk sipping his morning coffe and scrolling through his emails (although they did use one as a vessel, haha. Poor Jimmy). A thirty year old drifter who's only life has been a soldier in the fight against the onslaught of things coming in from the dark. A community of people dredging around in the muck of society: these are the people that can help stop the end of the world. These are the people who can take the neccesarry actions, the people who have the proper knowledge and proper agency, through merit of their culture, and the way they've been fighting everything their entire lives.. Not lawyers on Wall Street. Not politicians. Not soccer moms and their 9-5 husbands. Not "normal" people.
Single mother bartenders. Single father drifters. College washouts. Junkyard men. Kids who never rose above their rearing,who couldn't escape.
These are the soldiers of war.
Part 1- Intro
Part 2- Dangers of Underclass
Part 3- Music
Supernatural, the Underclass, and War
Before I begin, I'm going to say something. As of now, most of the readers of this meta know about my own socio-economic background. I'll divulge a little something else now: I'm also one of the underclass heading into the ranks of the military. After I finish up my stint here in my temp job, I'm going to seek a commission into the Army. I can say with utter certainty that my experiences living so long in the underclass was the key motivation for my decision to join. Because of them, I know what I am capable of, and what I am willing to sacrifice. I know what I can survive, and I know what I am willing to die for.
Several commentors pointed out that personal experiences are key in this piece of meta, and I'd agree. See, this is less a meta and more of a telling of the story of a section of America that in most cases, has been lost. This story here, the one we are telling, is a way of finding them again.
With that said, let's get to it.
Supernatural reflects a variety of wars, in a myriad of ways.
If nothing else, it is about fighting. Fighting yourself, fighting your past, fighting your family, fighting your destiny. Fighting for your country, fighting for your God. Fighting for your family. Fighting for your friends. Fighting evil. Fighting death.
There's something you'll notice among all this fighting: all of the soldiers are the guys that everyone else brushes off.
The family of drifters. The junkyard man. The bartender and her daughter. A college washout. People in tattered jeans and flannel, layers of baggy, worn clothes, with tired eyed and veined hands.
People you don't make eye contact with in the grocery store. People you try to forget you saw.
The problem with that is, and it's a very real problem IRL, too, is that the world is trying to forget its fighters. Its soldiers. We are venerated as heroes for protecting our country (even though now there is an uneasy undercurrent of thought asking: protecting what? 99cent burgers and cable TV, mostly asked by people who don't know what it is that we see we want to protect), and then disregarded when we finish our duty.
A blog I read online, done by a woman in her fifties who comes from West Virginia, was dealing with American healthcare and a recent speech done in rural Appalachian America. One commentor derided the amount of fat white old people at the speech riding around in scooters, hooked up to oxygen tanks. Their reasoning? They were fat and immobile because they simply stopped exercising. They were hooked up to oxygen because they get winded too easily from doing stuff because they're fat. This comment appalled the blog writer, who pointed out a few things that obviously never occurred to the commentor. One, that the people attending the rally were definitely former workers in coal mines and factories, whose hard work there took a toll on their bodies and ruined their lungs. She finally said that people refuse to understand them when their bodies break down while fighting to keep the country together and running.
I've brought up a few times, mostly in comments, that to live in the underclass is to pretty much live in spite of the shit that happens. You fight past it and keep living, because you have to. Life isn't going to get easier, nothing's going to help you, so you just deal with it. You fight through it and move on. In my second year of college, I got a concussion from a cow bringing its head down on top of mine. I didn't go see a doctor, I finished up chores. I ignored the lethargy, the aphasia, the memory confusion because it is just something I had to do.
Now repeat this kind of process for something like 60 million other people.
It's really no wonder, that with all of this fighting in their normal lives, most of the ranks of our military are from these people in this underclass, who have done little else but fight anyway.
Of course everybody has struggles in life. Everybody has issues to deal with, problems to fight past. But how many middle class people do you know who have to fight to get regular access to food? (Why do you think Dean inhales everything in sight? Because it's pretty goddamn nice to have access to food, and knowing their money situation, it's not always a given when they're going to eat next.) How many have to fight to get regular access to clean running water to bathe yourself and wash your clothes? (Sniff test anyone? Not just because they're lazy or "guys" although that might be part of it. When they have access to running water, they use it mercilessly. You can see countless instances of the guys bathing and showering, like this is actually something of note.You can see countless instances of the guys bathing and showering, like this is actually something of note, and they’re gleeful about taking advantage of.)
This is the kind of fight I mean.
And honestly, going to the military and being asked to live pretty much like you did at home isn't all that big of a deal. Being constantly filthy, no guarantee of bathing, no regular access to food, the list goes on. (Of course this is training and deployments I'm talking about here. Living on bases isn't that bad.) To them, it's not as big of a step as it would be to other people. To be asked to kill, when aggression and fighting is something they are very familiar with, is something close to them. This is important here, because I pointed out before that something like 90% of American criminals will be men, and the majority those in the underclass. Certain things, like never letting someone question your competence or masculinity, are things that need to be met with by force. Allowing people to question that is to make you lower than them; so you respond with physical violence. Also, dealing with those people who will try to victimize other people in the underclass engenders a certain amount of willingness to throw down. You don't let people fuck with you, because there is no guarantee the authorities will listen or be on your side.
So when they get into the military, and are asked to fight, and hurt, and kill, for many of these people, this isn't much of a change from their normal lives. Now they're given a uniform and weapons, and it's now their job to do something they've been doing to survive.
One of the best examples I can give, aside for general commentary, is Alvin York during WWI. This site talks about his experience under #2. Essentially, York was a Tennessee redneck who got drafted, and found that shooting Germans isn't a whole lot different than shooting in the woods of Tennessee.
Partly the culture of the suck it up, don't cry attutide of the military as well is very similar to that of the more traditional boy-raising. Or even just underclass raising. Even though I'm a girl, I've always been discouraged from crying even in situations where it's totally natural and understandable. Like getting hurt or nearly killed, witnessing others getting hurt or almost killed, witnessing death, etc. You simply don't have the luxury of crying, because you are not the only person in this situation, and you cannot slow down to grieve because there is always more to be done. Also, bringing others down is not cool; if you're working with a group, bawling and making others feel bad, it only slows everybody down. You simply can't do that.
Although it's commonly seen as a boy thing, it's also very common in the underclass for both genders to be told to suck it up because there's work to be done. Underclass women, even historically, did not have the luxury of not working; you had to work to help feed your family. Crying or moping was not acceptable. You had to help with whatever work their was to be done, and raise children if you had them.
And here you can see where the instinctive urge to fight, and not stop just because it's hard or painful, has been fostered. It's through necessity, but you can understand how, given the way this is how the majority of the underclass has been raised, becoming a fighter, a soldier, is something we have to be. To finally transfer into that technical label is very natural.
Let's look at Bobby and John. Given their respective ages, and their probable positions in society at the time of their youth (not college kids, not farmers, other jobs necessary to the war effort), they were probably sent to Vietnam. This is important, because there were certain rules during the draft that did exclude some members of male society, like college kids and farmers, because in all instances, these were the future of America that would probably be fucked over if sent there. So instead they drafted everybody else. People with jobs non-essential to society, like mechanics, were drafted. Of course, by the time of Vietnam, a lot of our society was more service based than industrial or agricultural, so chances are Bobby served alongside John. (Unless he was married at that age, but who the hell knows. Let's just go on the assumption he was single.)
My point being is that a lot of poor, working class boys who could not afford college nor were working jobs "essential to the war effort" were drafted into the war. That's a hell of a lot of people, and it shaped a huge generation of Americans. A lot of men served during Vietnam, and as a consequence, an entire portion of the underclass whose rearing was reinforced by their military service, came back and had families. These families were shaped by their fathers' experience as a person in the underclass and his time in the military. Sometimes their experiences broke them, and in effect broke their families. Some of them, like John, took both experiences and steeled their children to be more fighters, educating them in ways the world can be bad, and how to fight it. How to support your society in spite of how fucked up it may be, because it still needs people who are capable of defending it to defend it.
And here's where we go to the hunters. These guys don't do it for glory or pay. They do it because it needs to be done, and there is no one else who is capable or willing to do the job. You see many middle class hunters tooling around? Not me. All the middle class people I see are spazzing out over Chuck's books and using their luxury time to attend conventions, simply surviving their contact with the supernatural, or dealing with it. None of them become hunters through their experience, and those that try their hand at it find it to be disgusting, thankless work that they are glad to be rid of when possible. (Think of Barnes and Demian: two solidly white collar workers who want to pretend to be Sam and Dean without actually experiencing their underclass existence and the actual fighting they need to do just to survive.)
And who did the angels reveal themselves to in order to prevent the apocalypse? Not some guy at his office desk sipping his morning coffe and scrolling through his emails (although they did use one as a vessel, haha. Poor Jimmy). A thirty year old drifter who's only life has been a soldier in the fight against the onslaught of things coming in from the dark. A community of people dredging around in the muck of society: these are the people that can help stop the end of the world. These are the people who can take the neccesarry actions, the people who have the proper knowledge and proper agency, through merit of their culture, and the way they've been fighting everything their entire lives.. Not lawyers on Wall Street. Not politicians. Not soccer moms and their 9-5 husbands. Not "normal" people.
Single mother bartenders. Single father drifters. College washouts. Junkyard men. Kids who never rose above their rearing,who couldn't escape.
These are the soldiers of war.