It would be interesting to know if the writing team was actively trying to integrate more female characters or if it's just a matter of what services the story/MotW.
Agreed. My speculation is clear, but I have been wrong before :) But I believe that they're changing things intentionally. Dean saying fewer things that can be interpreted as misogynist, trying to add more characters of color, Sam saying a sentence and a half in Spanish, Charlie commenting several times on feminism and being called a woman of letters - I'm not saying these things are necessarily working, but there are enough of them turning up at once for me to believe they're intentional.
To me it's fascinating and disturbing that this coinsides with them getting money and a home. It's a resious shift from one form of slight male duchbagary ("bitch" and so forth associated with lower class) to another form of it (like the way Dean treated Portia), associated with middle class.
I've always felt that there were a decent number of female characters in SPN, even significant female characters, it's just that our impression is that it's a overwhelmingly male dominated show based on the fact that the recurring characters tend to be male and, thus, those are the characters who we become more familiar with and invested in.
I'd say they're also more characterized, way way more, and until Charlie, female characters on the show were generally stock characters with nothing really added. I love what fandom's done with many of them, but the way they are on the show makes me shudder.
According to RT's live tweets, JP and JA switched the lines in this scene. Dean was supposed to be the one keen on reading the books. It's nice to know that it wasn't RT's intention to make a light hearted jab at Dean's book smarts (we all know that Dean is plenty smart), but, in fact, he was doing the exact opposite.
I wonder whether Jared made that up. It sounds like something he could say. But if it was meant as a jab at Sam, it feels way less mean, to me. First of all, cause it would have been Dean deflecting, such a stupid insult probably being the first thing that came to mind to say in order to change the subject from him having read the books. And second, because towards Sam it's more clearly a ridiculous thing to Sam. For Dean, even if he doesn't have an issue with being smart, he does have an issue with class, and being illiterate is such a class stereotype... also, for some reason, had it been direct "unlike you, I do read" or just calling Dean an idiot, it wouldn't have felt as mean to me. Somehow drawing the picture of Dean not being able to read felt meaner, perhaps. IDK.
TBH, when I first saw that scene, I felt that it was more "Dean-like" to be all fannish about GoT rather than Sam.
I agree, but then it's more of a Sam thing to read...? But mostly, I was thrilled Sam actually got some sort of characterization, ever. Though I guess it worked a bit against the scene establishing that Sam doesn't allow himself much of that.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2013-11-06 10:03 pm (UTC)Agreed. My speculation is clear, but I have been wrong before :)
But I believe that they're changing things intentionally. Dean saying fewer things that can be interpreted as misogynist, trying to add more characters of color, Sam saying a sentence and a half in Spanish, Charlie commenting several times on feminism and being called a woman of letters - I'm not saying these things are necessarily working, but there are enough of them turning up at once for me to believe they're intentional.
To me it's fascinating and disturbing that this coinsides with them getting money and a home. It's a resious shift from one form of slight male duchbagary ("bitch" and so forth associated with lower class) to another form of it (like the way Dean treated Portia), associated with middle class.
I've always felt that there were a decent number of female characters in SPN, even significant female characters, it's just that our impression is that it's a overwhelmingly male dominated show based on the fact that the recurring characters tend to be male and, thus, those are the characters who we become more familiar with and invested in.
I'd say they're also more characterized, way way more, and until Charlie, female characters on the show were generally stock characters with nothing really added. I love what fandom's done with many of them, but the way they are on the show makes me shudder.
According to RT's live tweets, JP and JA switched the lines in this scene. Dean was supposed to be the one keen on reading the books. It's nice to know that it wasn't RT's intention to make a light hearted jab at Dean's book smarts (we all know that Dean is plenty smart), but, in fact, he was doing the exact opposite.
I wonder whether Jared made that up. It sounds like something he could say. But if it was meant as a jab at Sam, it feels way less mean, to me. First of all, cause it would have been Dean deflecting, such a stupid insult probably being the first thing that came to mind to say in order to change the subject from him having read the books. And second, because towards Sam it's more clearly a ridiculous thing to Sam. For Dean, even if he doesn't have an issue with being smart, he does have an issue with class, and being illiterate is such a class stereotype... also, for some reason, had it been direct "unlike you, I do read" or just calling Dean an idiot, it wouldn't have felt as mean to me. Somehow drawing the picture of Dean not being able to read felt meaner, perhaps. IDK.
TBH, when I first saw that scene, I felt that it was more "Dean-like" to be all fannish about GoT rather than Sam.
I agree, but then it's more of a Sam thing to read...?
But mostly, I was thrilled Sam actually got some sort of characterization, ever. Though I guess it worked a bit against the scene establishing that Sam doesn't allow himself much of that.