sparkindarkness | Supernatural, fandom and more grey hairs (Reply)

So, on Supernatural recently, there was a scene where Dean was being followed by another man. The man was stalking him for information, Dean approached him and demanded to know why the man, Aaron, was following him.

Aaron (lying) responds that he thought they had a moment (eyes crossed across a crowded room moment) and was hoping to, basically, hook up. Dean chokes, stutters, splutters, fumbles around and desperately extricates himself from the situation.

Yeah, I’ve seen that joke before. We’ve actually seen it on Supernatural before – Dean comes into contact with gay or bisexual men and is supremely uncomfortable and weirded out. It’s old, it’s depressing and it’s annoying on a show that in 8 seasons has only managed one decent portrayal of a Lesbian, Charlie for a massive 2 episodes (that’s 2 episodes out of 163, let’s be clear here), and repeatedly used gay men as a butt of jokes.

And the slashers?

“ZOMG DEAN IS CANONICALLY BISEXUAL!?”

What?

He was spluttering and virtually non-verbal and all but sprinted from the room but because he didn’t outright say “I’m straight, how very dare you?!” that makes him bi? The show is now magically inclusive?!

Really?

It's not like, in 163 episodes and counting, they didn't have ample time and repeated opportunity to establish Dean as bi, among all his hookups among all his heart to heart talks, among all the monster-of-the-week episodes - more than enough opportunities untaken. But why would the writers make one of the main characters GBLT on this show when they know fandom will give them inclusion kudos anyway?

And then people wonder why so much of slash annoys me and I think it has zero respect for actual gay and bisexual men.