SPN Analysis – S1E10 – “Asylum” – Oral Traditions and Horror Cinema

Okay, everybody, it’s time to head over to Zeroth’s blog and read this most excellent analysis! It’s one of my favorites so far.

There are certain tropes common to horror cinema, ones that have been rightfully criticized.

  • If a character has sex, they’re going to die.
  • The black guy dies first.
  • The survivor will be the white blonde virgin.

These tropes were established back in the heyday of horror movies, and they’re criticized because they communicate specific, poisonous social norms. The killer is often presented as an unstoppable force of nature, killing seemingly indiscriminately, and yet somehow, fitting these tropes much of the time.

There are consequences, delivered by a force of nature, for breaking specific norms, such as “don’t be black” and “don’t have sex”.

Seems fairly arbitrary, eh?

But horror cinema is simply an extension of a much older phenomenon: oral traditions.

Read the rest!

And I promise I’ll catch up on my backlog of SPN analyses soon.

SPN Analysis – S1E10 – “Asylum” – Oral Traditions and Horror Cinema
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Supernatural S1 E10 Summary: “Asylum”

We start at a creepy old gothic-looking abandoned asylum at night. You know nothing good can come of this. Someone cuts through some serious chains on the doors. All we see is their shadows stepping through the door. Then there are two cops coming after them. This is for the sake of exposition: Older Cop tells Younger Not-Local Cop the legend of the asylum. It’s your stock haunted-by-spirits-of-patients-who-will-drive-you-insane-if-you-spend-the-night story. The cops go in to fetch the kids out, and unwisely split up. Younger Cop goes through a steel door with a radiation symbol on it.

Screenshot shows a white cop with a hat with a badge on it. He's going through a dirty old metal door with a small rectangular grate near the top. Just beneath the grate is a painted red radiation symbol.
Never do this. Continue reading “Supernatural S1 E10 Summary: “Asylum””

Supernatural S1 E10 Summary: “Asylum”

Supernatural S1 E9 Summary: “Home”

If it’s not already obvious from the title, Sam and Dean are going back to Kansas. It’s on, y’all.

There are shenanigans happening in their old childhood home. A pretty young single mom is moving in. As she unpacks, her daughter comes to tell her something’s in her closet. Mom checks and finds nothing. She does the parental reassurance thing and goes back downstairs, where she hears a skittering like rats. We know it ain’t rats. She goes down to the basement, where she finds a box full of old Winchester Family photos.

And, back upstairs, the chair wedged against the closet door slides away, and a burning figure steps out.

Image looks into a dark closet, the two white doors wide open. A vaguely human-shaped pillar of flame stands within.

Freaky-deaky.

Meanwhile, Sam has a dream about the mom standing in the upstairs window of their house and screaming. He turns to art, sketching the tree from their house on hotel stationery while Dean tries to find a case for them. He gets a count for asking Sam if any of these possibilities are blowin’ up his skirt. Continue reading “Supernatural S1 E9 Summary: “Home””

Supernatural S1 E9 Summary: “Home”

Supernatural S1 E8 Spork: “Bugs” – Worst Episode

Because Zeroth is genius, he has expounded upon all of the things that are horribly wrong with “Bugs.” He has noticed patterns that I didn’t see, even.

We can learn something from dissecting what went wrong here.

So first, check out Dana’s excellent breakdown of the last time Supernatural was egregiously bad with cultural appropriation: “Wendigo”

Notice a pattern? Laziness. No research and no respect for NDN peoples and their cultures. Once you start with that attitude in one aspect of the writing, it can invade the rest quite easily. And that’s what happened here. A lackluster and frankly lazy script followed up by shoddy camera work and exploitative filming.

So let’s expound on what is lazy with the script.

But that’s not all! Continue reading “Supernatural S1 E8 Spork: “Bugs” – Worst Episode”

Supernatural S1 E8 Spork: “Bugs” – Worst Episode

(Repost) Supernatural S1 E8 Summary: “Bugs”

(Reposting due to social media sharing issues with the last one)

We’re not going to do a traditional summary for this episode, because both Zeroth and I can’t stand it. It’s one of the worst SPN episodes ever. I’d rather spend an afternoon with Gwyneth Paltrow learning how to steam my vagina than watch this episode again. At least then I could have a different reason for rolling my eyes until they sprain. And hey – Galadriel. I could tolerate steaming my intimate bits in exchange for an afternoon with Galadriel.

“Bugs” is a poorly-written, poorly-executed attempt to show us what evil lies in store when we trigger ancient Native American curses. And it could have been good: death by bugs is really gross and awful, and there’s a lot to say about the appalling way white people have and continue to treat indigenous folk. Instead, we get Continue reading “(Repost) Supernatural S1 E8 Summary: “Bugs””

(Repost) Supernatural S1 E8 Summary: “Bugs”

Supernatural S1 E8 Summary: “Bugs”

We’re not going to do a traditional summary for this episode, because both Zeroth and I can’t stand it. It’s one of the worst SPN episodes ever. I’d rather spend an afternoon with Gwyneth Paltrow learning how to steam my vagina than watch this episode again. At least then I could have a different reason for rolling my eyes until they sprain. And hey – Galadriel. I could tolerate steaming my intimate bits in exchange for an afternoon with Galadriel.

“Bugs” is a poorly-written, poorly-executed attempt to show us what evil lies in store when we trigger ancient Native American curses. And it could have been good: death by bugs is really gross and awful, and there’s a lot to say about the appalling way white people have and continue to treat indigenous folk. Instead, we get Continue reading “Supernatural S1 E8 Summary: “Bugs””

Supernatural S1 E8 Summary: “Bugs”

Supernatural S1 E7 Analysis: When Sexual Repression Kills

Ah, good old repressed American culture. We’re so very obsessed with sex, but we’re terrified of it. Like many human cultures, we want to enjoy it, but we believe we have to carefully control it. And so we hedge it round with ridiculous rules. We demand women adhere to strict modesty standards in the vain hope we can keep the boys in line (while teaching the boys to ignore all the rules, of course, because having sex with girls is how they prove they’re men). We even come up with horror stories to teach the kiddies that if they give in to their hormonal urges, they’ll die.

That’s what the Hook Man’s for. He’s there to keep young people away from Lover’s Lane. At the beginning of this episode, we see a randy young man getting fresh with the virginal preacher’s daughter. We see him die for his immodesty – a nice departure from our cultural habit of punishing the woman for the man’s inability to heed the word “no.”

In the urban legend, the Hook Man is an escaped serial killer, a dangerous mental patient, or both. The girl who, upon hearing the news of the homicidal escapee, insists on fleeing rather than just locking the doors and having their fun, saves the day. It’s how the randy couple ends up with a hook on their door handle rather than in their tender flesh. In this episode of SPN, the Hook Man isn’t a corporeal being, but the spirit of an 1860s preacher who, enraged by all the immorality going on in the red light district, went on a spree and murdered thirteen prostitutes. And he’s hung around beyond death to fight against carnal sins. People can’t flee him because there’s no warning over the radio that he’s coming. The only way to survive is never to sin in the first place.

But he’s just a symptom now. Continue reading “Supernatural S1 E7 Analysis: When Sexual Repression Kills”

Supernatural S1 E7 Analysis: When Sexual Repression Kills

Supernatural S1 E7 Summary: “Hook Man”

It’s Supernatural Thursday! Zeroth was kind enough to do the summary for this episode. Cross-posted from Social Justice Wizardry. Thank you, Zeroth!

We open up at a sorority house at Eastern Iowa University. A young white woman paces nervously and asks her black roommate for clothing suggestions. Her roommate suggests a red halter top. The roommate tells the nervous woman, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” and gets in friendly rejoinder, “There’s nothing you wouldn’t do.”

Black woman sits on a bed and reads, while her roommate, a white woman in a red halter top, leaves, saying "There's nothing you wouldn't do."
Joking…

We cut to the jeep stopping underneath a bridge, and it is dark and rainy outside. There is a quick glimpse of a cloaked figure with a hook for their hand. Continue reading “Supernatural S1 E7 Summary: “Hook Man””

Supernatural S1 E7 Summary: “Hook Man”

Supernatural S1 E6: “Skin” Summary and Counts

Oh, joy. Get ready for the torturing of women as a plot point, because our episode starts with a terrified young woman tied to a chair and bleeding.

Blood and Gore: 1

Unlike many shows of this sort, though, they don’t linger on the helpless female. They cut straight to the SWAT team in the yard. So we know she’s going to be rescued. And they don’t make the shots of her overly sexy. A lot of shots focus on non-sexy things, like her arm.

Of course, what they’re leading up to is this dramatic moment:

Screenshot shows a very mean-looking Dean standing in a doorway, a red laser sight targeting his face. He his lifting his hands. There is a knife in one. It's all very grim-dark and gritty.

Dear oh dear, Dean! Continue reading “Supernatural S1 E6: “Skin” Summary and Counts”

Supernatural S1 E6: “Skin” Summary and Counts

Supernatural S1 E5 Analysis: “Bloody Mary” – Framing and Action

My SPN partner Zeroth has a beautiful piece up analyzing the use of framing and action in Supernatural Season 1 episodes “Phantom Traveler” and “Bloody Mary.” Most definitely check it out!

Taken together, “Phantom Traveler” acts as a mirror for how the world, at least Dean and John, see Sam. And then “Bloody Mary” is about how Sam sees himself. He’s in pain, and that pain is induced by how Dean and John view him.

It’s also reflective of a certain bias and issue with the show overall – Dean is the character they care about. The one that is the voice of morality and ideals. And I argue that is a serious flaw because Sam has all the makings of a fantastic, tortured character. And its never really been delivered well. The show runners don’t know what to do with a guy who isn’t posturing endlessly about his masculinity or straightness. He’s comfortable in who he is, at least on fundamental identity aspects like that.

Dean on the other hand, is the character the show runners like and empathize with. They understand a man, whether consciously or subconsciously, that wrestles with his sexuality and masculinity. They don’t always understand abandonment issues, or how someone sensitive like Sam would handle these issues.

So let’s take a look at how the show framed these aspects, of Dean overshadowing Sam in “Phantom Traveler” and “Bloody Mary” being about that pain.

 

Supernatural S1 E5 Analysis: “Bloody Mary” – Framing and Action