@frozen-delight I saw you were interested in the whole Dean as Other & Dean as Feminine parts of my thesis? :)
I’m making this as a separate post because I wasn’t sure if hijacking someone’s (excellent) meta wouldn’t be rude.
I can’t exactly copy paste from the thesis because unfortunately it was written in my native language. Also, the hypothetical reader of the thesis was supposed to be a person who is not familiar with the show so I had to bring up a lot of stuff that is very well known to us, fans, so that would be too much talking about the obvious, I guess.
Dean as the Other (and the outcast)
The starting point to writing about Dean in terms of being the Other, was a comparison of similarities with Dean from Kerouac’s „On the Road”. It kinda went from there.
I focused on the society-related aspect of it within the diegesis, and because of that, I brought the most attention to the early seasons. I felt like later on the Dean – society dichotomy kind of went away within the narrative as progressively the Winchesters were mostly interacting with other people and beings that were related to the supernatural world.
Dean was both marked as the Other by society and by himself – from the outsider’s point of view, he stands against everything that constitutes the ideal american life style. He detests the middle class and the „values” it represents, which osciliate between consumptionism and superficial morality. The main and first reason why he’s marked as such, is of course, being a hunter of the supernatural, which, in his case, is related to socio-economical degradation: there was a peaceful, middle class-ish life in Kansas (a conservative state which only stronger resonates with the traditional american ideal) and suddenly there was no home, financial issues, constant danger and a dysfunctional family with the extra bonus of alcohol problems and violence. And it’s important to note that while Sam doesn’t remember the past and the change, Dean does. It only adds to his trauma and vision of self that completely differs from what is considered „normal.” Dean learns everything from John and excels at it – a history of violence, lack of a stable job and firm emotional connections, living on the Road, acquiring money through gambling, using fake credit cards and presumably even prostitution (not confirmed canon, just Jensen’s words) – all of that places Dean even below the „blue collar”. To add to that, most of the time he can’t even explain his action to people because that would mean having to explain the supernatural. All of it makes the society percieve him as unpredictable and dangerous, as something that disrupts he suburban life harmony, as a threat. Makes him feel like he doesn’t fit (as shown in “Bugs” and “What is and what should never be”, “Exile on main street”). People distance themselves from him (even Sam, who craved normalcy and upward mobility, and in no way wanted to become like his brother), Dean distances himself from them. In a way, he isn’t even a part of the family unit – Sam always was the son, Dean was the „tool.” In practice, until Sam left for Stanford, it wasn’t „John, Sam and Dean.” It was „John, Sam and that.” Inside the hunting community, he didn’t exactly fit either – didn’t fit the hunter ideal – too sensitive, too pretty, too different.
I also find it interesting how it’s only Dean who gets repeatedly pictured as an animal. Dog!Dean is the most blatant example but not the most interesting in the context of his otherness and attempts to evoke some kind of beast-related asociations in the audience. It’s one thing that Sonny’s called him Dee-dawg and that dog imagery is strongly related to Dean.What really gets to me is that in „Dream a Little Dream of Me” Dean circles dream!Dean (or should I say, the other Dean) like an animal that prepares for an attack (also, the exchange between the two suggests Dean doesn’t exactly see himself as human). And of course, there’s „On the Head of a Pin”, where Dean is not only referred to as „Grasshopper”, but is told that he’s been carved into a whole new animal. Also, I would argue that the fact only Dean was made to become a torturer on the show, amplifies his otherness, in a way. No other character can relate to this sort of damaging experience. That particular burden makes him different than any other human on SPN.
The narrative also presents him as the Other through making other characters the subjects that don’t get their basic agency get meddled with on every available occasion, while Dean has it denied all the time. His choices, emotions and reactions aren’t supposed to be independent, but always are meant to be relative to the rest of his family (mostly). In this aspect, he doesn’t get to be an autonomous being. His loved ones are the Absolute, he is the Opposite.
As for Dean seeing himself as something else – all of it is highlighted in „Skin”, both in dialogue between the brothers and by the shapeshifter!Dean revealing Dean’s secrets, which, literally presents Dean as the Other, seeing how it’s Dean’s skin the monster chooses and how it thinks Dean and it are very much alike.
The most important and narrative-affecting part of coding Dean as feminine, is him being a victim of parentification (the mechanism affected Sam and John as well, but differently). Dean became Sam’s mother in all the possibile ways. In regards to John, Dean in many aspects stepped into the stereotypically female spouse’s place. In both cases it was instrumental and emotional: Dean was the emotional caregiver, the one who created the „homely warmth”, the one who passed on the tradition, the one who was supposed to keep Sam and John healthy, he was the one who prepared food and made sure there would be food in the first place. He was the mediator between Sam and his father. During conflicts between the two, Dean always shielded Sam with his own body. Symbolically, because of the deal Dean made, he not only gave his life away for Sam, he became his mother even in the aspect of literally giving Sam life.
Even Dean’s personal heaven is a part of the coding. The things that Dean’s soul craves for the most and what he remembers most fondly are things that are associated with women – his heaven consisted of having a happy family, of love, of giving and recieving care. It’s a stark contrast with Sam’s heaven which represented things associated with masculinity – aiming for independence and both social and economical success that would put him in position above other people, wanting to be respected, in general.
Dean i also almost always mirrored not by men, but by women (and also obligatory by mothers, like Linda Tran). Working kind of like Jung’s animas, the female characters are an expression of the emotions and behaviors that Dean doesn’t accept in himself, those he doesn’t want to talk about, those that are supposed to show not tell about his state and those that might also be seen as foreshadowing. Since I was looking into the pat tern with a very specific context in mind, I chose Betsy, Charlie and Suzie Lee as my examples. Since the first two have been analysed to death both in fandom and in my thesis, I’ll Just briefly bring up Suzie Lee since I’ve never seen her mentioned. I read her, in short, as a mirror to Dean deciding to return to his old behaviors and mechanisms, deciding to abandon his personal needs to again become an effective tool (part commentary, part foreshadowing; all of it due to guilt, as always. Because the day the spn narrative decides to not blame Dean for something and make him feel bad, is the day you have to yell ‘christo’ at it. But that’s a rant for another time). Suzie’s shame about a successful career in the porn industry can be seen as a mirror to Dean exceling in hunting, in using violence, in using his body as a work tool, in general. Both are also a taboo. That would be the cliff notes version, I suppose.
I’m sure there were more instances in all the seasons, in all the possibile contexts, though.
