TV Review – Supernatural Season 3, Episodes 11-13 (2008)

Overall 4.0 / 5.0
No Gay Content

Monster: A horde of demons
Summary: Agent Henriksen (Charles Malik Whitfield) finally captures Sam and Dean. He jails them, but then demons besiege the small police station at which they’re located.

Better than I expected. A surprisingly taut and gripping showdown.

Henriksen redeems himself (and the show’s unfortunate portrayal of black men, at least a little) by the end as he aligns himself with the Winchester boys instead of opposing them. This also neatly resolves the on-going plot point that Sam and Dean are wanted by the law.

I thought the resolution to the episode was quite clever and unexpected.

As a side note, “jus in bello” means “justice in war.” It refers to rules that “serve as guidelines for fighting well once war has begun” (1).

Overall Quality 3.0 / 5.0 (stylistically interesting, strange story)
Gay Content 2.5 / 5.0 (important gay character)
Gay Positivity 2.0 / 5.0 (not total trash, but some serious negativity)

Monster: Ghost(s)
Summary: The geeky duo (Ed and Harry, played by A.J. Buckley and Travis Wester, respectively) that Sam and Dean encountered in “Hell House” (Season One, episode 17) are putting together a reality show called Ghostfacers. For the premiere episode, they plan to spend the night in a haunted house and film the results. They get more than they bargained for.

I have decidedly mixed feelings about this episode. Corbett (Dustin Milligan) is a gay member of the Ghostfacers team who has a crush on Ed. He’s the second gay character on the show (after Lily, played by Jessica Harmon, in “All Hell Breaks Loose, Part 1″ at the end of Season 2), but the only one with any real meat to the role.

On the one hand, I’m thrilled with the inclusion, and he’s a sympathetic character. Plus, the storyline yields some funny one-liners.

“You need to go be gay for that poor dead intern,” says Harry to Ed.

“All this time you were teaching us about heart, about dedication, and about how gay love can pierce through the veil of death and save the day,” says Harry in reference to Corbett.

Not to mention that frequent bleeping of Sam and Dean. Very funny.

On the other hand, the character of Corbett encapsulates a number of serious negative stereotypes that piss me off.

For one, he has an unrequited crush on the straight guy. This represents the intersection of two negative clichés: “Gay Without Agency” and “The Gay Eunuch.” It reflects the idea that gay people are palatable only when they are non-sexual (and therefore, nonthreatening).

I’ve written about this before in my review of “Sweet Home Alabama,” and I’m going to quote from myself here (adapting where appropriate):

“I maintain that straight men find gay men threatening because they worry, on some visceral level, that sexual gay men will do to them, what has been done to women: sexualize, objectify, and demean/disempower them. Consider the straight men who say they have no problem with gay men as long as the gay man doesn’t come on to them. If the gay men are gay eunuchs, it’s fine; they’re non-threatening. But as soon as the gay men evince a form of sexual power, they become a threat, and the straight man’s tolerance plummets. I’m glad that the Ghostfacers accept Corbett and defend him; that’s positive. But Corbett is like a genital-less Ken doll in the film, and I find their accolades disingenuous because I don’t think they’re admiring a real gay man, but instead a non-threatening facsimile.”

(Minor spoiler warning) That cliché is annoying, but by far the more serious negative stereotype is that he’s the one and only person in the show to die. “Saving the day” from the other side notwithstanding, portrayals of gay people tend to fall into one or both of two negative categories. If you’re gay, either bad things are going to happen to you, or you are bad.

Clearly, as gay characters become more common on TV and in movies, it’s no longer that black-and-white. The issue is a long-standing lack of balance. Yes, there are more positive portrayals than there used to be, but most portrayals still fall on the stereotypical and clichéd side of the scale.

I just can’t believe that a show as urbane as Supernatural, being made in 2008, has no gay content that isn’t overshadowed by serious negative stereotypes.

I am reminded of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That was a gay-friendly and gay-inclusive show, far more than Supernatural, and even they killed one of the gay characters, and turned the other one into a villain. Did it fit the internal logic of the show? Absolutely. Were they treating the gay relationship any different than the straight relationships? Not at all. But here’s the thing. TV in its entirety depicts a huge range of straight relationships, and they run the gamut from tragic to fantastic. That is not the case with gay relationships. Most gay relationships trend toward the tragic. There are some counter-examples, but not very many. The scales are not balanced.

Plus, at least Buffy had a gay-positive character and relationship for a period of time. Supernatural doesn’t even give us that much. The show has now had two minor gay characters, both of whom have died, one of whom killed her girlfriend (inadvertently, but still). Would it really be so hard to have a gay guest star, maybe a gay hunter, who is a good guy and actually survives the episode?

Do they think they would alienate their fan base? Have they read any of the Wincest stuff that comes from the female fans??

I think it’s great that Corbett was accepted and valued, and that they celebrate his contribution as a hero in the episode (and he was; he saves the day). At the same time, I am extremely disappointed that he had to die to do so.

At the end of the episode, Sam comments about the Ghostfacer’s demo tape, “It’s bizarre how y’all are able to honor Corbett’s memory while grossly exploiting the manner of his death.” I’d argue Supernatural has done a similar thing. It’s bizarre how the show is able to parade a veneer of gay-friendliness while exploiting and contributing to a long tradition of negative portrayals.

Frustrating.

As a side note, apparently Episode 13 was not finished by the time the writer’s strike began. So perhaps a rushed schedule contributed to the show falling back on tired stereotypes.

A YouTube ode to Corbett:

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(1) Sarah, “Exclusive: Supernatural Scribe Sera Gamble Speaks,” The CW Source, 9 November 2007, http://blogs.trb.com/network/cwsource/2007/11/exclusive_supernatural_scribe.html (retrieved 15 September 2008)