Rewatch S6: Caged Heat (6.10)

[hells_half_acre]

Caged Heat! This will be different knowing what we know now...

Random points before we get started:
1)The clothes were easy in this episode. They wore the same stuff the whole time. The only thing I had to keep track of was when they took off their jackets.
2)This is possible the most controversial episode of S6, at least when it comes to the mentions

Comments

[hells_half_acre]

Thanks! My younger self would have appreciated that. :P

[hells_half_acre]

Haha, yeah, I didn't want to be TMI but "nauseated" didn't really cover it. :P

[claudiapriscus]

Not to open any cans full of wriggly things, but I don't think the charge was about whether or not it was a joke. Rape culture is rape culture, and one of the ways it perpetuates itself is by normalizing such things and then saying, 'jeez, I was just joking."

I think it would have (rightfully) caused debate and outrage by itself...but I think coming at the end of an already...problematic... episode didn't help matters at all.

[hells_half_acre]

Oh, don't get me wrong - like I said, it was a tasteless joke, but I was speaking only to those people who actually DID think it was serious and not just a tasteless-joke/part-of-rape-culture, because there WERE people who thought so. I didn't mean that there was nothing at all wrong with the joke. It's TASTELESS.

[claudiapriscus]

Tasteless is harmless, you know? That's why it's a big deal to me- rape culture isn't. You can joke about, oh... muggings, you know, because we don't live somewhere where robbery is dismissed as a crime. I know that in theory rape is taken seriously, but it's really not in practice. When the news stories reporting the gang rape of an 11 year old girl by 20 guys focus on if the girl wore "age appropriate" clothing, the tragedy of so many young men's lives ruined, and then publish pictures of her (easily identifiable) house....well, that's the symptoms of a culture that does not really take rape seriously (except to punish the victim). I use that one example because it is SO extreme that it's hard not to miss the awfulness of it, whereas more subtle examples fit in so well with the world as we know it that it's hard to see how fucked up it is

[hells_half_acre]

I agree with everything you just said.

Tasteless =/= harmless. Words have more power than people realize. I know you and I had a very long discussion about this before, and it basically came down to the fact that you'd prefer that Supernatural set a good example, rather than reflect society as it is. And I certainly wouldn't be upset if they did so too.

(I think that was you, anyway.)

"You can't do that! Sam will suffer!" Me: ??????????????????????????? x 100,000.

HAHA, YES! I'm glad I'm not the only one. What the hell, Show?!?!

[missyjack]

it's so interesting, and disturbing, to re-view this episode knowing about Cas' collaboration with Crowley. I mean Cas plays a dangerous game, and when he gets sent away by Samuel using the sigil - well Dean and Sam could've died at Crowley's hands. And yes, Cas trying to deter Dean from getting Sam's soul back - I think Cas is actually just being pragmatic here and I think youa re on to something when you say he just doesn't udnerstand (or is denial) abotu how different Sma is. Continuing the theme of the season Cas is being rather "soulless" about it.

wrt the Meg torture - I'd say the seen is deliberately sexual. The episode is named after a 70s women's prison exploitaiton movie after all. And eprsonally I find the scene a real turn on! Also we do later on see Crowley torture a male monster whos at elast (from memory) half naked, and Criowley is explicit in his sexual delight of it.

it amuses me when fandom clutches its pearls at scenes like this, which are positively vanilla comapred to what you'll read on kinkmemes!

[hells_half_acre]

it amuses me when fandom clutches its pearls at scenes like this, which are positively vanilla comapred to what you'll read on kinkmemes!

Haha very true. "No, it's ok for US to do it, just not the actual show..."

I'd say the scene is deliberately sexual. The episode is named after a 70s women's prison exploitaiton movie after all. And personally I find the scene a real turn on!

Good to know! Meg isn't the type of girl that I find attractive, so I was just like *shrug*. But you're right, we do get half-naked men too. I don't want to unleash angry women on myself by saying the wrong thing, but it kind of bugs me that fandom complains about any sort of sexualized violence towards a female character, and they don't seem to even notice that the series started out with Sam being molested in the very first episode. But yeah...rant for another day...

Continuing the theme of the season Cas is being rather "soulless" about it. Very true. This first part of the season really is almost a battle between pragmatism and heart/emotion. No wonder

[missyjack]

No wonder Jensen was so run down by mid-season, he basically was solely responsible for holding up the emotional centre of the show. I am fascianted that he still harks back to how hard that period was for him, and you're right we was the meotional center - and as an actor he did not have his usual dynamic with either Jared or Misha to play off.

[claudiapriscus]

I can't stop poking the can of wriggling things! Sorry! I just feel the need to explain!

It's not that people don't care about the men, it's just that context matters. The context of course, is that we live in a society that still struggles with misogyny. There's not actually all that much misandry at a societal level, not in a way that's coded at men for being men...if only because "male" is our assumed normal. It's the starting point, against which everything else is differentiated.

It's the same as why dumb blonde jokes aren't considered to be in the same league of offensiveness as jokes about oh, black people. Blondes don't really face systemic discrimination (to say nothing of the too-recent history of slavery and lynchings and etc).

[elliemurasaki]

Can we please not use the word 'lame' to describe things that have nothing to do with physical disability? Associating patheticness with people with physical disabilities is insulting and demeaning to same.

they see it as Dean somehow saying that he was going to give permission for Castiel to rape Meg

wtf. Stupid rape-culture-perpetuating joke is rape-culture-perpetuating and stupid but that doesn't make it intended to be taken seriously.

[hells_half_acre]

Can we please not use the word 'lame' to describe things that have nothing to do with physical disability? Associating patheticness with people with physical disabilities is insulting and demeaning to same.

Oops, sorry. It's hard to change ingrained habits. I'll go back and change it to a different word. You know, back when I was 13, I used to regularly call my friends fags and say things were gay when I just thought they were stupid - pretty damn horrible in retrospect, but I remember at the time I was all like "it's just a WORD, I don't actually MEAN IT LIKE THAT." Ugh. *shakes head at self and society*

[elliemurasaki]

Thanks.

[4422shini]

Huh... vaginally raped with the knife? I never even thought of that much less assumed it... BUT NOW I AM. DAMN IT!

:)

[hells_half_acre]

Hahaha, and the cycle continues! Now you will never NOT see it. :P

[4422shini]

Hahaha, I knowwwwwww!!