In the Hunt: Unauthorized Essays on Supernatural

by Supernatural. tv,

  With Supernatural, the suspension of disbelief guideline leaves lots of room for fans to move. In a ’verse where supernatural occurrences are a given, fanfiction that explores narratives beyond the boundaries of our reality doesn’t seem too far-fetched. In Supernatural, the boundaries between “life” and “death” are transgressed by both ghosts and Lazarus-like revival (and let’s not forget the zombies); psychic characters can “see” through the boundaries of time into the future, or transgress another character’s mental boundaries to read or control their thoughts; and as mentioned above, even physical boundaries are transgressed-the boundaries of human bodies crossed or broken by the demons possessing them-and societal boundaries also in the Winchesters’ frequent subversions of the law. What we think of as “reality,” fantasy, and fiction are thrown together rather than delineated as separate.

  In Supernatural fanfiction, fan writers also construct narratives of transgression both societal and metaphysical. A considerable amount of Supernatural fanfiction is classified as “Wincest”-the vernacular term for slash between members of the Winchester family (Sam, Dean, and John). “Slash” is fanfiction (or other fanworks) that posits two characters of the same gender in a romantic or sexual relationship (the name “slash” is derived from the virgule that joins the names in the pairing). In the case of the Supernatural fandom, this is predominantly Sam/Dean fanfiction, and of a huge volume; according to the research conducted by one fan recording and analyzing the stories posted through the daily newsletter, the fanfiction in editions 1 through 600 was almost 40 percent Wincest; 37 percent was “gen” (general, non-sexual or romantic stories), approximately 15 percent was “het” (stories with male/female romantic or sexual relationships), and the rest of the pie went to miscellaneous other categories.43

  Obviously, the theme of transgression in Wincest is more explicitly related to the transgression of the boundaries of societal prohibition and taboo-namely, incest. Although the scenario of incest would never occur in the show itself due to its context as a mainstream media text (the same context that restricts it from making the two lead characters queer, related or not), Supernatural itself does not necessarily negate the possibility of a homoerotic interpretation. Homoerotic subtext between characters in mainstream texts has long been identified as an inspiration for writing slash about characters. Pairs-often professional partnersin buddy movies have always provided especially rich fodder (these days, some movies are even playing up this homoeroticism, sharing with the audience their awareness of it, such as in 2007 British action comedy Hot Fuzz), and Sam and Dean’s partnership in Supernatural is frequently reminiscent of such “buddy pairs.” In these traditional partnership models, slashers reread moments of intense emotional connection into somewhat fleeting instances of eye contact, loaded dialogue, or physical connection between male characters who are restricted by social mores from expressing their affection more openly.

  In Supernatural, however, the two male protagonists-Sam and Dean-are already coded within the text as being in a loving (if fraternal) relationship. The fact that they are brothers allows a freedom to engage in and display both emotional and physical intimacy with each other that is prohibited in non-related pairs. Their mutual devotion is constantly reiterated via both their dialogue and their emotional behavior (embracing in times of stress as in “Mystery Spot,” fighting and reconciling with strong emotional language, discussing their emotional need for each other-albeit in often stunted ways, as in “Shadow” [1-16]). It’s hardly a stretch to read the characters of Sam and Dean in Supernatural as lovers instead of brothers-something that occurs even within the text (they are mistaken for a gay couple in both “Playthings” [2-11] and “Something Wicked” [1-18]) suggesting that their fraternal connection displaces the homoeroticism of Sam and Dean’s relationship onto a more platonic level where the “romance” is merely symbolic, excusing any infringement on the boundaries of hetero-centric mainstream media heroes.

  In Sam/Dean slash fanfiction, however, it’s rare that the author will subvert the transgression of incest by creating an alternate universe for their story wherein Sam and Dean are not related. On the contrary: Wincest seems to revel in the transgression of that particular taboo. Often, the problematizing of Sam and Dean’s relationship through incest is re-appropriated by slashers as a site of pleasure. The illicitness of an incestuous relationship between Sam and Dean may be lingered on by the style of the story, where the language lovingly emphasizes the familial bond in moments of romantic intimacy, indicating the pleasure taken in it for the author and/or reader, or indeed may be elaborated on within the story by the characters themselves. Wincest stories often take their transgressive cues from the text itself; often when Sam and Dean are seducing each other in Wincest stories, the more reluctant of the two is convinced to engage in the relationship when the other reiterates that they are already outsiders in society, already isolated from the “normality” of their world-why should the prohibition of incest stand in their way when they have already broken so many other laws?

  Whereas the incest element of Wincest is by default challenging societal boundaries, a different form-often more symbolic-of exploring transgression can be found in fanfiction narratives belonging to a genre called “crackfic.” Crackfic is classified by its premise, which generally breaks from the accepted reality of the original text, often in an absurd or supernatural44 sense. (The word “crack” here has dual meaning: you’d have to be high-on crack-to write it; and reading it is, like crack, addictive.) Some crackfic scenarios include characters transforming into animals, swapping bodies, swapping gender, swapping consciousnesses with inanimate objects, becoming inanimate objects, de-aging rapidly (from twenty-six to six in the space of seconds), and traveling through time (to name just a small handful). Crackfic often literalizes themes of transgression-bodies transforming, the metaphysical borders of “reality” being crossed-themes which, we know well, are not so ridiculous within the Supernatural ’verse. The reality of Supernatural’s world permits these crackfic scenarios to occur without diverging much from what could conceivably occur within the original. The result is a proliferation of fanworks that explore narratives of transgression as fans play with the permissibility of Supernatural’s supernatural world.

  As with Wincest, the outcomes of these transgressive narratives-the stories themselves, the issues they raise and explore-are varied; just as the fan has freedom to transgress the boundaries of reality with the premise of the story, so too are they free to either transgress or adhere to the societal and often ideological boundaries placed on the original text. In terms of Wincest, fans are transgressing boundaries that relate to the portrayal (or lack thereof) of queerness in mainstream media, and societal boundaries that posit incest as taboo. In the type of crackfic known as “genderswap,” fans explore the boundaries of “gender”-what it means; what maleness, femaleness, masculinity, and femininity are, and just how rigid those classifications are when it comes to portrayal of gender in mainstream television. No doubt elsewhere in this book authors are unpacking the problematic representations of gender and other topics in Supernatural through close textual analysis. Through constructing transgressive narratives, fans often engage in close textual analyses of their own, taking advantage of the permissiveness of the transgressive themes of the show to further traverse and explore gender boundaries. Sometimes fans use these opportunities to challenge the problematic representations, sometimes there is no challenge at all, and sometimes the representations are problematized in an entirely different way.

  Genderswap is a term that describes the premise of its genre-in genderswap stories, the gender (or, more accurately, physical sex) of a character is spontaneously “swapped.” Writing in the Supernatural world means that generally, all manner of premise that would usually be considered “crackfic” in other fandoms is par for the course. Within the first season of Supernatural alone, the text explores scenarios wherein characters have psychic abilities (“Home” [1-
9], “Nightmare” [1-14]), divine beings animate corporeal bodies (“Scarecrow” [1-11]), villains physically mimic characters’ bodies á la Invasion of the Body Snatchers (“Skin” [1-6],), characters (and inanimate objects) are possessed and animated by malevolent spirits (“Home,” “Asylum” [1-10], “Devil’s Trap” [1-22]), and all manner of urban legend, folklore, and supernatural creature are (if not encountered) discussed as being assumed to exist. Any of these could provide a valid explanation for a character to appear female despite being male, or vice versa. Twice, in fact, they have. Sam was once temporarily possessed by the female demon Meg (“Born Under a Bad Sign” [2-14]), and shapeshifters have taken on the form of both men and women (“Skin,” “Nightshifter” [2-12]). That said, Supernatural continues to conform to the societal prescribed by its context. In other words, whereas it’s more likely that Dean could end up in a situation where his anatomy spontaneously turns female on our screens some Thursday night than the same could happen on, say Grey’s Anatomy, the context of Supernatural as a show that airs on a mainstream network in mainstream culture means that this kind of challenge to gendered norms via the bodies of its heroes is unlikely.

  But just because a text’s premise is based on a transgression does not necessarily mean that its theme of transgression extends to all its aspects. Genderswap fantexts have the potential to address issues of gender in mainstream culture head on by portraying gender in a way that challenges mainstream representation, but this is not a given. Genderswap fantexts have the option of not stepping very far (or at all) outside of the “boundaries” that construct gender in mainstream media and therefore the original text around which the fandom is based (Supernatural, in this case). It is impossible to make blanket generalizations as to whether fanworks challenge or adhere to prescribed mainstream ideologies, just as we cannot make blanket generalizations about, for example, the portrayal of gender in the medium of television, but rather must analyze Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Heroes as separate texts. The exploration of the themes of transgression in fanworks lies in a close reading of each individual fantext.

  Supernatural fandom’s genderswap fanfiction includes a diverse range of gender representation. Though it could be argued that the premise of genderswap alone undermines norms of gender and masculinity established by mainstream culture by at a base level constructing it as changeable, often genderswap fanfiction doesn’t explore the transgressiveness of the situation beyond a change of anatomy. In a story wherein Sam suddenly switches biological sex, for example, he may subsequently undergo a change in mannerisms, interests, and sexuality. His emotional state becomes more fragile, he suddenly wants to go shopping for makeup and frilly underwear, and he is abruptly attracted to men (whereas, in a male body, he was attracted to women). This scenario, while playing with the permissibility of transgress-able physical boundaries of reality, simply adheres to the mainstream ideal that sex and gender (and sexuality) are synonymous-that having a vagina and breasts is what makes you like the color pink, shopping, and boys. While this can make entertaining reading due to the comedy that results, the transgressive nature of the story does not stray into that of the social construct of sexuality and gender.

  Other genderswap stories similarly transgress on biology, but not on mainstream physical representations of gender. For example, instead of a mere change of anatomy, sometimes when changing sex Sam and Dean also become shorter (as if there are not women in the world as tall as Jensen Ackles or even Jared Padalecki), their hair spontaneously lengthens, and their body mass becomes more “petite.” Such representations don’t stray very far from the very narrow representation of body types in mainstream culture when it comes to women-representations that bear very little resemblance to the diversity of bodies in reality, which include those that are tall, fat, butch, and so on. Again, however, although these examples are not uncommon in Supernatural genderswap fanfiction, each text must be examined individually. For example, some stories may portray the above scenarios guilelessly, whereas others may deliberately construct such a situation not necessarily to adhere to but rather to draw attention to these prescribed representations of gender, engaging with Supernatural in a more ironic (but no less affectionate) way.

  More sober challenges to the representation of gender in mainstream media (and of course, Supernatural specifically) occur in genderswap stories where the sudden change of anatomy is one that throws the character’s world into chaos. A change of sex leaves the character experiencing a crisis of self, suddenly faced with the anxiety of possessing a body physically alien to him, not to mention one with existing (problematic) societal ideals inscribed upon it. In stories such as this, the author is able to address the very real boundaries of gender experienced by real people: how female bodies (and those women inhabiting them) are treated by the society they exist within, and how the representation of gender in mainstream cultural texts-that we see on our televisions every day-differs from the way gender exists in reality. These kinds of fantexts don’t necessarily engage with the humor of such an absurd situation (as is largely typical of the crackfic genre in other fandoms); rather, in the Supernatural fandom, crackfic takes advantage of the show’s permissibility to undertake extreme plot devices in a way that challenges the problematic ideas perpetuated by show as a mainstream text.

  Some genderswap fanfiction in Supernatural fandom addresses similar issues without taking such a dystopian slant on the society it is critiquing. For example, the anatomical change from male to female may occur, but without any accompanying changes in personality or appearance. Dean may now have female sex organs, but he is still about six foot tall, bow-legged, short-haired, and attracted to women. These kinds of scenarios, rather than drawing attention to the fundamentally problematic nature of gender representation (as with the scenarios above), instead serve as kind of a celebration of transgression, a demonstration of how transgressing boundaries of gender (and indeed sexuality) is not as taboo or impossible as mainstream media seems to make it out to be.

  To return again to discussing Supernatural’s themes of transgression at a meta-textual level (through its intertextuality and appropriation of other mainstream media texts), arguably fans who write both genderswap and Wincest (and other fanfiction that doesn’t fit in these categories) are transgressing boundaries at a meta-textual level also, beyond a simple re-appropriation of the original text of Supernatural. In participating in these fan communities that create and consume fanworks, fans transgress boundaries at the level of construction and consumption-they both write and read Supernatural fanworks, occupying the triple role of consumer of Supernatural, creator of Supernatural fanworks, and consumer of Supernatural fanworks. Often this complex relationship between fan and text extends even to fans being creators of fanworks for Supernatural fanworks. The fanworks themselves have traversable boundaries; in responding to these stories fans may choose to write more fanfiction set in its ’verse, proliferating the transgression of these textual boundaries. Gender, too, comes into play in the creation and consumption of fanworks; in writing Supernatural fanfiction, women (and some men) animate male bodies, transform male bodies (in the case of genderswap), and in the case of slash, explore sexuality through male bodies.

  Although it is important to not fall into the trap of analyzing fans rather than the work they produce-just as it is appropriate to analyze Supernatural but not Eric Kripke through it-it is perhaps accurate to say that the characteristics that draw fans to Supernatural are the same as those that make the Supernatural fandom such a fertile space for the kind of fanfiction discussed here. Fans that are drawn to themes of transgression have been drawn to Supernatural, and inspired enough by it to further explore transgression through their own Supernatural fanworks. Furthermore, given the amateur nature of the production of fanworks (that is to say, they receive neither the financial reward or mainstream respect that professionally produced work does), it’s reasonable to infer that the currency of fandom is one of enjoyment-and in the case of S
upernatural, a clear pleasure taken in transgression. Just as Kripke’s enjoyment of the horror genre and filmmaking is obvious in his reveling in intertextuality, so too is fans’ enjoyment of Supernatural and their creative engagement with it demonstrated in the sheer volume and quality of work produced by the Supernatural fandom.

  Having studied media theory and toyed with the idea of being an aca-fan for five years, EMILY TURNER now works out her fan activism urges with the Organization for Transformative Works. Her remaining spare time is spent watching TV, thinking about TV, running Web sites about TV and writing fiction about TV. Sometimes on the weekends you may find her in her leather jacket, cruising the country back roads outside Melbourne in her (sadly compact) car.

  Hunting on a budget. This is pretty much the story of the Winchesters’-and Supernatural’s-life. How do the boys manage to fight the forces of Evil with no job, no home, and no money, and only a gas-guzzling classic car to their name?