ibelieveinthelittletreetopper:
If I see another “all women die on SPN” post I’m gonna scream.
How many recurring MALE characters are alive outside of TFW? Cole, Garth, Crowley, Metatron.
How many female characters: Jody, Donna, Alex, Claire, Rowena, Krissy, Linda, Kate
More women are alive than men. And the list of living male characters includes one we know is going to die soon, and one that will likely never come back.
Saying all the women die is erasure. Just stop it. Everyone dies.
Or, alternatively, we could consider the following points:
- Charlie was Supernatural’s only recurring queer character, and eliding the significance of this fact is harmful. The problem isn’t just that she’s another dead lady, although that certainly stings; it’s that a show with a very poor track record for depictions of race, gender and sexuality has now allowed the same pair of writers to kill not only Kevin Tran, who was one of a very few recurring POC characters and just about the only positive depiction of a non-white man they’ve ever had, but Charlie, who was their only recurring queer character. Ignoring that bit of context? That’s erasure.
- Supernatural is absolutely a show where everyone dies, but focussing on the specific treatment of women doesn’t constitute an erasure of men. The fact is, it’s materially relevant to the issue that the three lead characters - Sam, Dean and Cas - are all male, because it means the gender balance of the show is already skewed from the outset. As such, while secondary men and women die in roughly equal numbers, the loss of a female character has an implicitly heavier impact on female representation, because women are only ever depicted in secondary, rather than lead, roles.
- As of Season 10, yes: there are currently more living female secondary characters than we’ve had for a very long time; possibly ever. But you’ve definitely lowballed the number of men: in addition to Cole, Garth, Crowley and Metatron, there’s also Ed Zeddmore and Harry Spangler, who are the longest-surviving characters in the entire show bar the Winchesters; Ben Braeden, Chuck Shurley, Death, and Professor Morrison. That’s ten living men in addition to Team Free Will, and even though you’ve also missed out a few ladies - I’m going to remove Alex from the list, because we’ve only actually seen her once, but there’s also Hannah, Amelia Richardson, Becky Rosen and Lisa Braeden - the final tally is pretty even: eleven secondary women, ten secondary men, plus three male leads to tip the balance.
- But let’s talk about the surviving, recurring women. What’s happening with them? Amelia, Becky and Lisa have all effectively been written out for good, because they’re no longer viable romantic prospects for the Winchesters, and I’d be deeply surprised if any of them came back in any capacity. Of the ladies still currently active in the story, then, only Jody Mills and Claire Novak were introduced prior to Season 7, and while Claire originally showed up in Season 4, given that we didn’t see her again until Season 10, it’s not as if her presence has been constant. Why does this matter? Because having multiple female survivors is a very new thing for Supernatural, and given how hard Season 10 has worked otherwise to include more women in the show, it’s bitterly disappointing to see Charlie die the way she did.
- Because, here’s the thing: historically, there’s a notable difference in how Supernatural treats its male and female characters. There’s a reason we joke about Sam Winchester having a lethal penis: pretty much every woman he sleeps with or forms an emotional attachment to ends up dead, the better to further his Man Angst. This is why we have the term women in refrigerators: it’s a phrase coined specifically to describe what happens when female characters are disrespectfully killed to further male emotional arcs, and while some Supernatural men also die to fulfil a similar purpose, they do so far less often than women, and typically get to come back again afterwards, like Kevin and Bobby. But when you think of how many female characters have died or been erased solely so the Winchesters and other important men can feel guilty about their deaths or absences, you’re looking at basically the entire Supernatural female lineup. Mary Winchester, Jessica Moore, Karen Singer, Channing Ngo, Amelia Novak, Amelia Richardson, Lisa Braeden, Ruby, Meg Masters, Ellen Harvelle, Jo Harvelle, Bela Talbott, Ava Wilson and now Charlie Bradbury have all died or left the show specifically to cause the boys pain, and that - that is something we’d all hoped not to have to see again.
- Also, as a final point: consider the difference in how female characters are treated post-mortem or post-departure compared to the men. John Winchester, Rufus and Kevin Tran all get on-screen funerals, while Bobby is visibly mourned; by contrast, when Jody was nearly killed, we did’t even know she was alive until her next episode, and once Lisa and Amelia left, their names were never really mentioned again. Jessica, Mary and Jo have all appeared as ghosts or apparitions in dream sequences, but always in contexts that are ultimately about the Winchesters and their feelings, rather than in a way that commemorates their loss, while the others were all pretty much left where they fell. Despite the connection between Meg and Castiel, the latter is still yet to be informed of the former’s death, and while we saw Amelia Novak reunited with Jimmy in Heaven, that scene, again, was more about his feelings than hers, the final shot lingering on his tears, even though she’d been the ostensible focus of the episode.
In conclusion: the fact that Supernatural kills men as well as women doesn’t mean there aren’t also important, gendered distinctions about how such deaths are treated within the narrative, and especially when it comes to killing the only recurring queer character on a show that otherwise has longstanding problems with LGBTQA portrayals, we’re not wrong to feel that it matters.
(Source: persephoneshadow, via winjennster)
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