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»queer references in season 8 + the Dean/Aaron scene
Lately there has been much discussion about whether the show might be building up to a reveal about Dean’s sexuality. In times of great despair - since the wank is strong with this one, and a lot of people in the pro-queer!Dean part of the fandom alone seem to be very worried about what could happen next week - I’m gonna do the only thing I think can help, and bring you some good meta. Hopefully.
I had the lovely justacasgirl create this gifset for me where we put together all the allusions and references to queer content so far in season 8, plus the relevant scenes from last episode. It seems that the writers have been careful to include these references repeatedly and continuously throughout the season, escalating from more hidden or subtextual ones, to more explict, specific and easy-to-catch ones.
So we start with 8x01 and we have a little gay joke there, because “too much teeth” refers to a blowjob. The “it gets better” scene is also from 8x01, but I’ll get to it later. The first reference is not a particularly strong one, being little more than a pun and throwaway line.
The next allusion comes in 8x06: when Garth asks if by “purgatory” Dean means the actual hell-purgatory-and-heaven one, Dean snarkily replies that no, he’s talking about the one in Miami. As many of you pointed out, “Purgatory” in Miami is a quite popular gay bar. This reference, however, is still rather obscure. Most people, even within the interested fandom, didn’t know about this. Since, as we know, fandom is curious, we googled it up and found the trick, but an occasional viewer wouldn’t do that.
The one in 8x08 (“Vermont…”) is similar, Vermont being the first state to legalize gay marriage, but a bit more effective as more people might be able to recognize it, whether consciously or even just inconsciously.
Remember that the point of foreshadowing is showing you important elements that help build up to something, without you being aware of it. A lot of it is supposed to be brushed off by the viewer as irrelevant and only be caught later, in retrospective, but what it does straight away is giving you a sensation or feeling that often you can’t describe exactly, but that will make things look like they don’t come out of nowhere when they are finally revealed/done explicitly.
In 8x11, this feeling intensifies. You’ll notice key words and symbolism are being used since 8x01 that directly refer to commonly recognizable queer contexts. In 8x01, Sam tells Kevin that “it gets better”, a catchphrase associated with queer struggles even by the mainstream public. So much that Kevin, like the viewer, is immediately reminded of such context, thus his reply that “I’m not gay, you know”. This happens again in 8x11: I’ve already meta’d about the implications behind Charlie’s gesture of crowning a very comfortable Dean, and later telling him that “it’s good to be queen” after he’s just witnessed her being appreciated by basically everyone for who she is, and how this episode and interactions strongly allude in metaphor to a subtextual coming out experience. Even if you’re an occasional viewer and not used to dig
into subtext, the metaphor is carried out throughout the whole story, which makes this shadow theme much stronger then in any previous moments of season 8.
Symbolism and key words are used again right after, in 8x12, with all the “falling out of the closet” innuendo. Let’s pretend for a moment that 8x13 doesn’t exist. It’s interesting to see how even just from 8x01 to 8x12, the slow transition from subtext to text - which in 8x12 hasn’t yet begun to happen - is carried out not (only) by including more and more evident references, but rather by making those references progressively more specific and centered around Dean.
And then, of course, we get to last episode. I remember my sister and I analysing 8x11 together, and agreeing that it was the subtextual point of no return for the exploration of Dean’s sexuality. That made me truly happy, but I admit I was also worried, because the episodes kept coming, half a season had almost passed, and yet, as evident for a fandom person all those references might be getting, it was still all implied. I started fearing that as ridiculously blatant some fans (me included) might find the subtext, the writers would never muster up the courage to walk right into text territory - an absolutely necessary step if you intend to establish Dean’s non-hetero sexuality canonically, which is what I hoped they were going to do. I kept thinking: “Ok, you don’t get more blatant than 8x11 without it being flat-out text”, which actually they sorta-managed to do, at least with words, in 8x12 (though I’d argue that’s just because they’re so incredibly creative when it comes to implying something in all the ways possible without addressing it out loud just yet), but then I’d also go “so what if they are being so obvious about it BECAUSE they are never going to jump into text anyway?”
But then, much to my incredulity, 8x13 happened and my doubts were once again dissolved. I keep wondering if the writers know what they’re doing with this, and after every week of concern a new episode airs and the answer goes back to being “yes, they do”. One reference is possibly just wanting to see it, two references is a coincidence, eight-ish is a pattern and, as expected in such a situation, something (8x13, in our case) came to make it an overt one. What’s so important about 8x13 is not that they established Dean’s orientation, but that they begun to explicitly explore his sexuality. They started the real transition from subtext to text, and already suggested what the textwill likelymight end up establishing when Dean, instead of pulling his usual “sorry, don’t swing your way” card, chose to stay at that table, with a cute guy flirting with him, and actually considered the possibility of being interested in what the guy was proposing.8x13 was the explicit version of that point of no return. What’s been shown has been shown, for the first time in eight seasons there’s no going back.What happened with Aaron was never made fun of. It wasn’t a one-off gag with a “no homo” resolve. What’s specific about that is precisely that it never degenerated into a “lol jk” pun. It was serious and respectful and it’s a major step the writers have taken, the kind you only take if you’re ready to handle a delicate situation with your public and intend to take the discourse further. If they didn’t intend to do that, they could’ve kept doing what they’ve already done in that past seven years.
That’s also why I say I believe Dean will be outed as queer eventually, because for all this time the writing team of Supernatural has refused to go beyond the realm of the implicit with Dean’s sexuality and the majority of viewers has been so certain he’s hetero; it would make zero sense to drag something that most people have never noticed anyway out of subtext just to establish Dean is straight, because to the mainstream viewers that was never a question in the first place. You’d have 90% of the public be like: “yeah, I know he’s only into women. DUH. Why must Dean suddenly randomly go through a sexuality crisis just to make him realize he’s straight? He’s always been that!”. The only reasonable conclusion if they choose to make all viewers see that Dean is doubting his heterosexuality (or overcoming repression, for those of us who think he’s always been a closeted queer) is that Dean will indeed accept and reveal himself as non-hetero. Especially with this season’s theme of finding your identity, coming into your element, accepting yourself for who you are, and morale that the kind of happiness you get from being yourself is precious and worth fighting for.*
This has been going on since episode one. The writers are all informed. Just look at the gifs up here, or even at their twitter accounts. Dean hasn’t shown particular interest in women for thirteen episodes, then
ALL OF A SUDDEN, STRAIGHT AFTER the very first time Dean admits to himself he might be interested in some form of sexual/romantic experience with another dude, right after that, in a way that doesn’t click with any theme or pattern established so far (and it’s actually contrary to it), for some reason a wild Dean x Woman kiss appears. That’s why I can’t be too concerned about it. That’s NOT a coincidence. 8x13 and 8x14 don’t just happen to be one after the other. The writers have demonstrated repeatedly there’s a logic with what they’re doing with Dean. They have been building up to 8x11, to 8x13, they’re still building up to something. A kiss with a woman is obviously part of a discourse on sexuality, so it’s not like they thought it had nothing to do with what’s happened in the past half of the season. They have been clever and careful. I truly don’t believe they would do anything dumb with that kiss.*hehehe, we’re supposed to be a show about demons!! and monsters!!! but then we’re actually all like family don’t end with blood! the Power of Love! morality ain’t black&white! FREE WILL!!! the people you care about give you purpose! accept who you are! and omg what are we even
