In the eleventh episode of the eighth season of Supernatural, this is the only episode of the whole show that matters, and just be prepared for me to be ridiculous and hyperbolic about all of this, okay? If you’re intrigued, then it’s time for Mark to watch Supernatural.
Trigger Warning: For discussion of queerbaiting
This is what I want Supernatural to be.
The irony of what I wrote in my last review is glaring. I complained about the show hand-waving Dean’s jerkiness? Charlie calls him out on it, and Dean admits he was a d-bag. I complain that the show can’t seem to commit to any sort of queerness beyond a joke or a passing reference/character? This episode gives me Charlie again, who openly hits on multiple women and gets to make out with a faery, and it’s just… it’s too much. It’s too much because this is what I have always wanted from the show.
Let’s discuss.
Fandom
This show has a fascinating relationship not just with its own fandom, but with the concepts of fans in general. It can run the gamut from Charlie to Becky in terms of how that portrayal manifests. And I’ve been honest about the times when Supernatural felt cruel in it’s portrayal of fans, and Becky is a great example of that. But when I watched this episode, I understood the line between parody and respect. I understood that the show was absolutely trying to honor this massive, varied community. I understood that the jokes were not at the expense of LARPers, that even when multiple characters tried to denigrate them by saying they were losers or loners, the truth is that this community is a powerful, transcendent experience for many of the people who participate in it. And on top of it all, the show puts validation within the script by furthering the development of Dean’s geekiness. He doesn’t grow to think LARPing is cool. HE ALREADY KNEW IT WAS AMAZING AND HE JUST WANTED TIME OFF SO HE COULD PLAY.
Why is that important? Because, like I’ll talk about in a bit, it demonstrates that the writing staff want to do this shit justice. It demonstrates that they took this seriously, that they wanted to have fun with the absurdity of the concept while celebrating it existing in the first place. Historically, they haven’t always been good at that, but the meta episodes have been getting better in that regard. And when it comes to an alternative fandom or group like this, I didn’t get a sense of cruelty. While there are problems within fandom like this, Boltar/Gerry is solely responsible for what’s happened here. (Oh god, give me a few hours and I will talk about things like the whiteness of “traditional†fandom or fandom entitlement, both of which have subtle presences within this episode, but are not the focus of anything.) “LARP and the Real Girl†doesn’t exist to tell us that LARPers are horrible people.
If anything, that final scene, with Ponytail!Sam and Braveheart!Dean, is the most glorious validation I could imagine. I love it so much.
Charlie
I have no intention of taking back any of my criticism for how this show engages with queerness or gay characters. I’m sticking to it because it’s a problem, which is why this episode is both a breath of fresh air AND inspired a subtle frustration in me. After watching the show openly bait me with a Benny/Dean romance (CHRIST, YOU EVEN HAD CHARLIE POINT TO IT, WHICH IS ALL THE EVIDENCE YOU NEED THAT ACTUAL QUEER PEOPLE CAN SEE THESE FUCKING RELATIONSHIPS WITHOUT BATTING AN EYE. LIKE, HOLY SHIT, WHEN YOUR OWN CHARACTERS ARE NOTING QUEERNESS WITHIN YOUR WORK, MAYBE YOU SHOULD START ACKNOWLEDGING IT), I was thrilled by watching Charlie just be so open about who she is. There’s no toying with the audience; there’s no sleight of hand; there’s no bait and switch. She’s a lesbian, she hits on girls, she tries to hook up with a faery, for god’s sake! There’s no denying the truth, and I love that this is unapologetically canon.
And that’s where the frustration lies. Charlie is written (and portrayed, of course) with brilliance, force, and joy. She is so utterly unlike any character on this show, and it’s not just because of her sexuality being in the open. Charlie challenges the Winchesters AND WINS constantly. Her presence is never disposable. She is integral to the stories she is given, and you can’t have them if you take her out of the narrative. She has development all on her own that’s independent of the Winchesters. She has scenes without them in it, and they matter! My frustration comes from my desire for every character to have this sort of robustness. Why can’t the show do this all the time? How can the same show that teases us with Destiel or Denny commit so fully to queerness in this one regard? Why can’t most of these episodes feel as exciting and electric as both of Charlie’s episodes?
I know that there’s a lot of shit that this show covers, that it is juggling multiple storylines, and that I’m never going to like everything a show does. I’m not anticipating “perfection†from anything I’m watching, though, and I don’t consume things in this manner. But after the experience of watching this episode – which thrilled me, made me laugh, and nearly made me cry because there is such a dearth of characters like Charlie on television – I wanted Supernatural to do this more often. I want this show to be this good way more than it is. Granted, I don’t feel like many of the fans who believe this show stopped being good in season 5; I’ve found a great deal to enjoy since then. (And I don’t know that I could ever want a world without Charlie Bradbury in it.) So I just want to make it clear that I don’t think Supernatural is awful. But criticizing narratives and archetypes doesn’t imply hatred. It means I love this – a lot, I admit – and I want the best of it. I just think that, after watching “LARP and the Real Girl,†this show could do so much better. Clearly, it can, or we’d never have an episode like this.
I’m pretty sure this will be my favorite episode of this show, y’all. It’s got everything I could ever want within forty minutes, and that’s both a blessing and a curse.
The video for “LARP and the Real Girl†can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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