"If you're generic enough, you'll do" : on Lisa as Dean's fantasy of an "apple pie life"

[amonitrate]

(xposted from my tumblr)

Inspired by this framing of the Dean/Lisa relationship:

IMO, the Lisa/Dean dream sequence in “Dream a little dream of me” and I’ll go as far as to say, their relationship in S6, is basically “What is and should never be” with Dean having a fantasy about a model he saw in a magazine, but that has escalated to him using

Comments

[borgmama1of5]

I always saw Dean and Lisa's relationship as real because Lisa was realistic about Dean being damaged, and knew his poor self-image got in his own way. Ultimately the relationship ended because, sadly, Dean couldn't see himself as bringing anything positive to Lisa and Ben. Watching Dean lose them, ultimately erasing himself from their memories, was a stake to my heart.

[amonitrate]

Yeah, it was painful to watch.

[geckoholic]

How some people talk themselves into an opinion that negates the importance of the women Dean ran to along the way and how he felt about them is beyond me. You, on the other hand, I totally agree with. ♥

[amonitrate]

ha, thanks! Yeah, I kept finding more examples that refute the silly statement about Dean not liking women with their own agendas: CASSIE for example. Probably the biggest example of all!

[geckoholic]

Very good point! I might go as far as saying he fell so hard for her BECAUSE she was so self-paced and no-nonsense.

[amonitrate]

Yeah, that's the thing that puzzles me about that statement. Over and over again we see Dean attracted after it becomes clear that a woman is rocking her own agenda. I can't even think of an example of the reverse, because wow Bela doesn't count given the whole PUT SAM IN DANGER thing. I mean, if a lady's agenda is that they don't care if their actions cause Dean's brother's death, and actively shoot said brother, yeah, I don't see Dean being down with that.

[smilla02]

I feel a little bit responsible for this meta with those links, but given the end result, I'm happy that it inspired you to write this. I dislike profoundly when the relationship between Dean and Lisa is reduced to a) promise, b) it's all about Sam so it doesn't count, c) Dean doesn't really want something different than hunting because hunting is all that makes him happy and is in "his blood". Also makes Lisa a great disservice because she apparently would allow that from a man. What a loss of nuance these opinions allow!

Dean isn't interested in and is turned off by women with their own agendas
I think this goes hand in hand with another common opinion: the above must be true because Dean is insecure in his masculinity and hates when women smack him down or are strong enough to 'threaten' him. It also goes hand in hand with the, also very common opinion, that Dean is sexist. Despite having CANON scenes that belie that assumption and despite the fact that all the women Dean has liked have been strong personalities.

[fannishliss]

One of my favorite scenes is in 5.2, the War ep, when Dean and Ellen plot together about what's happening to the town.

There's a great air of mutual respect between Dean and Ellen, and in this scene Ellen juggles her mother-instinct towards Jo with her Hunter instincts -- and she makes Dean use his brain instead of just bemoaning that he doesn't have access to Bobby or Sam -- so that Dean quickly figures out the problem. They are fellow Hunters working together, and you can see that Dean respects that in Ellen, especially the fact that she's still thinking like a Hunter even while Jo seems to be possessed.

I love that there's like this little undercurrent between Ellen and Dean working together like "we are so hot right now" -- When Ellen says they have to work together and figure it out, Dean readily agrees. He doesn't, for example, belittle Ellen's sense that something is off, but he rolls with it and figures it out.

[amonitrate]

Oh yes, I love that scene between Dean and Ellen!

[amonitrate]

You did inspire the writing of this by sending me that link! Sometimes it's good to have something to push against in meta writing. And yeah, agree with that list of DNW reductiveness.

Dean says sexist dumbass shit sometimes, I fully agree with that -- but his actions tend to not be sexist. The example of Jo, the reasons why he didn't want Jo to get into hunting, and how those reasons were about the fact that she had a choice and a chance at another life, one he didn't have -- nothing to do with her being a girl, everything to do with his feelings about hunting.

And yeah, like I was mentioning to geckoholic, I forgot to include Cassie in my aside at the end of the essay. Speaking of women with their own agendas.

[kitap]

I can't imagine Dean would really know how to deal with a not strong woman for any long period of time. He has always been around strong people; hunters are not noted for being weak and clingy and airheaded.

For me part of Dean's charm is that he thinks there is nothing wrong with a woman's being smart, independent and strong. I suspect his interest level in Lisa went up when he discovered that she is all of those.

[amonitrate]

I don't think we have to set up a dichotomy between "strong" women and "not strong=weak and clingy and airheaded" women in order to disagree with the idea that Dean runs away from women who have their own agendas. I think that feeds into a whole other set of sexist stereotypes.

[fannishliss]

I have to admit I am a huge fan of Lisa Braeden. I think she is a great example of the interesting women characters that appear on Supernatural to show what real life is actually like, as opposed to the horror story that Sam and Dean live out

[amonitrate]

Yeah, Cassie is probably the best example there is to refute the OP's conclusions about Dean. The entire statement is so ridiculous on its face, but as you dig into it further more and more examples come up that are the direct opposite of what she claims. It's pretty impressive.

And yeah, one thing I've always loved about the women on SPN is that they *do* have their own agendas, nearly always, if they get any kind of screentime. Even Lilith had her own agenda going, and so did Eve.