Super-unnatural

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So this post is about Supernatural, which I recently watched all 10-and-a-half seasons of. (I say recently because I watched those 228 episodes within the last two months.) I think you can probably tell that I love this show; I feel I need to state it explicitly because of what is about to come next. Now here it is: I am so fed up. The further I get from last night’s half-season premiere, the angrier I get. I want to take back #girlpower and shout from the rooftops where my women at?

SPOILERS BELOW

They murdered another female character. This is not really even spoiler-level because they do this all the time. This is how I imagine their writing sessions: 

Writer one: Do you think we should kill-off a recurring character to try to bring back the illusion of high stakes?

Writer two: Yeah okay but I really like >insert character< and >insert character< . . .

Writer one: Oh don’t worry. We can just kill the girl again.

I’m sure this isn’t how it happens, especially because I can’t imagine anyone that is not hopelessly devoted to Charlie and the writers gave her the axe too… but… then why does it happen so often? I mean, could it be *gasp* sexism? 

(Just so you know, I do try to write about things other than sexism in TV, but it’s just so rampant! It’s everywhere!)

I kinda think it’s that sexism thing. Now before you say it, I know that people die in almost literally every episode, and that many of those dead people are male. I’m not ignoring that I’m just not talking about it. It’s irrelevant. I’m saying that the show systematically erases women and focuses on men. The world has not built a place for women and keeps trying to kick us out because it doesn’t know how to deal with us. Or worse, it just doesn’t care if we’re there or not. 

Fundamentally, this is a misogynistic show (now bear with me here, I know it hurts). To be clear, because we live in a patriarchal and misogynistic society, anything that accepts rather than fights that system is misogynistic on a basic level (even if accidentally). (Sadly, accidental misogyny occurs alarmingly often.) This show, in its lack of important female characters, reflects a mistrust of women. In its sexist comments and sexual objectification, it exhibits the mistreatment of women. It’s full of characters that are so casually and non-threateningly misogynistic that we think this is normal. And that is not okay with me.

Yes it is about two brothers so of course it can be a bit of a boys club. And that’s not an accident. That was a choice that Kripke made, and that was exactly the feel he wanted with his classic rock, muscle cars, and down-home Midwestern mother-loving boys in flannel. That’s fine I guess. I can live with it for reasons of nostalgia, although I recognize that I don’t really belong there no matter how much I want to be a part of their world. But so many of the decisions that the writers have made leave me feeling just a little let-down.

The most problematic thing for me is that “boys club” mentality. It’s exclusionary and tends to make value judgments in a sort of “us and them” way. 

Something that comes to mind here is the devaluing of women through language. Some of Dean’s most iconic lines are subtly but powerfully degrading to women. I include in this: “No chick-flick moments,” and the word “bitch.” The boys are afraid of “acting like a girl” because obviously, that’s so embarrassing. Who would want to be a girl? Certainly not me. . .

The show as a whole represents women as expendable, as the angel Ambrielle described herself right before she died in last night’s episode. Women aren’t important because they don’t save the day (not factoring in Charlie, who is a beautiful anomaly). Women die often and with very little fanfare, and then are usually replaced by someone very similar. And no one really cares. Part of this comes from the simple fact that the women just don’t last very long before they die.

Let’s get down to the numbers

The Winchesters are obvi in all the episodes. According to imdb, next is Cas, with 87 (8 seasons). Bobby was in 58 (9 seasons) and Crowley in 55 (7 seasons). John is in 20 (including both actors, 10 seasons) while Mary is in only half that, 11 total (8 seasons). Ruby is the highest female with 18 (5 seasons), which includes all three of her actresses (so the most common female character is the 7^th most commonly occurring character over-all). People often compare Kevin with Charlie, as they lived and died in close proximity, but Kevin was in 15 episodes (3 seasons), more than twice Charlie’s 7 (4 seasons). Kevin’s mom can barely even be considered a recurring character, appearing in only 3 episodes. The number of male characters who appeared in more than three episodes (37) was nearly twice the corresponding number for females (20). (I used 3 for this because that’s when I stopped being able to recognize every name). I’d say that right now Jody is the female character closest to being in the main cast, and she’s only been in 10 episodes.

But anyway, as this blog says:

The point isn’t the actual numbers, it’s what they represent.

What this means is that there is no consistent female voice on Supernatural. There is no female presence really at all.

Now I’m not trying to tackle all the things in this post, I only wanted to talk about the deaths really. So I’ll get to that.

I will never forgive the show for what they did to Charlie. But with Rowena, I was starting to have some hope again. She was climbing in the numbers, appearing in 15 episodes. That’s the most of any female character besides Ruby. And then just as I was starting to like her, she was gone. Just like that, Lucifer snapped her neck. And now Amara is the only big female character that’s part of this season’s story arc. And she’s the story arc’s main villain (well co-villain now) so she must surely die when this season is over (unless the writers are going to be cool this year and let a female main villain live for more than a season, like they have done with nearly every male main villain). So basically my representation hopes have been dashed again. Why do they kill all the women?

Historically, this trend started in the very first episode. All of the female characters pre-season 5 are basically dead and buried. All of the female characters that even have the potential to still be in the picture are more recent. Claire, Donna, and Alex are from season 9 and Kate and Krissy are from season 7. Jody is the female recurring character that’s been around the longest, and her first episode was in season 5. (Claire is technically from season 5 I guess but they didn’t start using her as a recurring character until season 9.) Everyone before her is dead or gone. The show has been doing a great job lately of introducing new female characters, and even letting them have relationships with each other, (which has been missing since Jo and Ellen in season 3) but it hasn’t been taking the opportunity to develop those characters and bring them into the family. 

I know it’s not just female characters who die, but it is female characters who are missing from the main cast. And even though male and female deaths on the show occur in similar numbers, a higher ratio of female characters are dying because there are more male characters than female. Also, as I said earlier, it is not super relevant because my issue is with the fact that there is a dearth of female recurring characters compared to male. All four of the series regulars are men and they have been for the duration of the show; the recurring female characters like Jody only show up about once a season. That’s not equal representation; it’s not even close.

Also, many of the men who die get to come back while the women don’t. Sam, Dean, and Cas have all come back from the dead multiple times. Crowley came back after they burned his “bones.” These were all permanent returns, but there are plenty of less permanent returns as well. Bobby came back as a ghost and then was seen in hell, and then again in heaven and then again in Sam’s coma dreams. Kevin came back as a ghost, we saw Ash in heaven, we saw Benny in purgatory after his death, John came back briefly when the gates of hell were opened. Grandpa Samuel came back for a pretty extended period of time. Adam came back. Lucifer keeps coming back. Curiously, the women don’t really tend to come back once they’re dead. (Jo is the only one who came back in a later episode; Charlie was resurrected moments after her first death. That ratio is about 1 for every 6.)

I just want to know why! Some have said that it’s because the fans don’t like the female characters as much. This may be true, although maybe that would change if they started developing and showcasing their female characters more. I loved Rowena, who I thought was really interesting and three-dimensional. I don’t know what the deal is, but I think that there is obviously something wrong if the fans and creators don’t care about or respect the women of this world to the point where they don’t want them in the world at all. I just hope that Supernatural gets to keep going long enough to get it right.

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See here for an update on The Death and Life of Rowena MacLeod post 11.18 "Hell's Angel."

Also, look at this picture* because truth.

WARNING ******************* ADULT LANGUAGE 

*picture is from this article at cracked.com