Dean Quixote & Sam Panza: Supernatural's Meta & Self-Satire
I bet the following is true of other professors, too: When I watch TV, I do it for pleasure, but I can't help myself. When I hear or see something familiar my brain goes, "Hey! You could totally apply that to your ___ lesson in class." I'm pretty sure I could write a whole book about how Supernatural could be used to teach interpersonal communication & pop-culture concepts like machismo, cursing & class warfare. I even have a paper I'm presenting in Feb. & will post when it's complete (Calle Ganking Peter Pan: How Sam and Dean Have ‘Full-on Swayze-d’ Generational Stereotypes). However, writing and English were my first loves, and I can't help but connect a classic piece of literature to "The Road So Far" . . .
"I'm sitting in a laundromat reading about myself sitting in a laundromat reading about myself." -- Dean The Monster at the End of This Book
To me, meta is kin to Quixotism, or is a natural progression of the idea. It's especially easy to connect the idea of meta/Quixotism to Supernatural
(I mean, the fans are used to seeing the / symbol anyway, right?). The quote above says it all when it comes to metafiction, doesn't it?
Scholarly books lik TV Goes to Hell: An Unofficial Road Map of Supernatural, call the series a "road movie", a western, and so many other things, but the show is Don Quixote in a lot of ways.
1. Their names begin with the same letters (Dean and Sam vs. Don and Sancho) and they take on similar roles in the narrative. Don Quixote is the older man/hero, while Sancho Panza is the sidekick/protege who agrees to the proposed adventure. Even for those who haven't read the novel, Wikipedia's depiction of the two men who "sneak off in the early dawn", leaving Sancho's wife behind, can see the striking resemblance to Dean seeking out Sam for help in the "Pilot" (1.1), leaving Jessica behind. (But luckily, Sancho's wife doesn't die on a ceiling.) Sancho is also like Sam in the fact that Don isn't his boss, nor does he understand all his motivations, but he agrees to the journey anyway. Don Quixote doesn't think Sancho is as smart as him either, but like with the Winchester Brothers, they simply have different types of intelligence (which Sancho sometimes has to go out of his way to prove to impress Don).
2. It's a journey on the road where Don/Dean are knight errants on a heroic quest, though some of the old notions from fairy tales, etc. are mocked. Like Dean, Don Quixote (though not related to classic rock, that name was an alias) traveled with an old horse/nag (aka 1967 Impala) that the hero named, was inexplicably tied to & made "the most important object in the universe" through his reliance on her. If you looked at the essay, "The Uniqueness of Rocinante" by Mary Power, you could easily Don for Dean and Rocinante for Impala and still see a great many similarities, as:
"Rocinante has few of the expected attributes of prize literary horses . . . Throughout the novel, the reader is aware of Rocinante’s presence and becomes convinced of his fidelity and durability. Rocinante may not come up to the physical criteria set forth in tradition, but more than proves his worth by qualities of temperament and soul. Don Quixote does not value Rocinante for his athletic abilities or his potential on the battlefield, but rather looks on him as a chosen companion . . . In the epics and romances Cervantes mentions-El Cid, La Chanson de Roland and Orlando Furioso, horses figure as flamboyant players in dramatic scenes of competition and battle. They complement and enhance their masters’ bravery in scenes of danger and death. In Don Quixote, something markedly different takes place; Rocinante along with Sancho’s Dapple figures importantly as an enduring friend to the knight on the road. Rocinante is used to establish a level of moderate and civilized reality and daily life lived . . . Though Cervantes sometimes shows that Rocinante’s performance departs from the horses of epic and romance in comic fashion, more often he shows the companionable relationship of horse and master. Don Quixote always provides for Rocinante. Whatever may be said of Don Quixote’s sanity, he never forgets to take proper care of his horse . . . Don Quixote’s care of Rocinante is second nature, an almost instinctive response; he never has to be reminded of Rocinante’s needs, nor is it even possible to imagine Don Quixote jeopardizing Rocinante’s welfare with some kind of extreme behavior. Without sentimentalizing Rocinante and Dapple, Cervantes at times shows how man and beast share experiences like pain or sleep. Epics like La Chanson de Roland show somber scenes of carnage on the battle field. There are great heaps and tangles of dead men and animals. Cervantes makes quite another point: men and animals can endure discomfort companionably."
3. According to Wikipedia, "Tilting at windmills is an English idiom which means attacking imaginary enemies. The word “tilt”, in this context, comes from jousting. The phrase is sometimes used to describe confrontations where adversaries are incorrectly perceived, or to courses of action that are based on misinterpreted or misapplied heroic, romantic, or idealistic justifications. The phrase derives from an episode in the novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. In the novel, Don Quixote fights windmills that he imagines to be giants. Quixote sees the windmill blades as the giant's arms, for instance." While the monsters Sam & Dean fight aren't imaginary in the scope of the show, the boys are big on tilting at windmills, too. Both duos are "fighting unwinnable or futile battles" with their optimism. Just as was mentioned by Sam when he pointed out there was only one thing demons and angels agreed on -- that the Winchesters had destinies as vessels.
Though the brothers always think they can beat the odds, that shouldn't suggest that they never encounter "confrontations where adversaries are incorrectly perceived, or to courses of action that are based on misinterpreted or misapplied heroic, romantic, or idealistic justifications". The motivation behind hunting as a career stems from the idea that the Winchester boys must follow in their father's footsteps and save the world -- even if that means sacrificing everything. Beyond that, both Sam and Dean have struggled with whom the other chooses to trust, because he sees the person as an adversary, monster or potential betrayer (Sam's trust of Ruby and Amy as well as Dean's trust of Cass, Anna and Benny).
4. The obviou metafiction romantic irony/heroi literature story within a story nd self-satire as a tool o self-reference is evident in both story lines. Lionel Abel called Don Quixote "the prototypical, metatheatrical, self-referring character" because the context of Don Quixote is largely meta overall the prototypical, metatheatrical, self-referring character
While there isn't as much meta within Supernatural, we get the occasional metaterrific treat with "The Monster at the End of This Book" and "The Real Ghostbusters". However, the most meta is probablty in "The French Mistake. Not only does the episode poke fun at the names "Misha" and "Jensen", but also that Jensen Ackles was on Days of Our Lives, that the boys are from Texas, the show's filmed in Vancouver as well as sho ratings, actual cast and crew member appearances/names, etc.
It also depicts Misha tweeting, because Misha Collins loves to tweet and
he actually copied what his character claimed to be tweeting in "The French Mistake" on his real-life Twitter feed and posted it the same time the show aired live (above). Similarly, Jensen Ackles used a deep voice (his own) to pretend to act, then claiming "that's how he (Misha) does it."
It also pokes fun at Jared Padalecki's marriage to Genevieve Cortese Padalecki (Ruby), including a camera shot of her real wedding ring in the episode as well as and one of their actual wedding photos by Kirsten Shultz (above) on the mantle of their mansion where Sam jokes, "I must be the star of this thing". (While Jared Padalecki has top billing in the show, there is wide debate on who the show "is actually about" among SamGirls and DeanGirls -- though I've read Kripke feels it's a story about how Dean will deal with what their father reveals about Sam in Season One). This leads into the claim that the guys don't talk outside of the workplace, though it's well-publicized that they are best friends, were each other's groomsmen in 2010 and Padalecki claims he sees Ackles more than he sees his wife, dogs or parents
I assume they also purposefully found a sigil that poked fun at the show itself. I noticed that the sigil painted on "the set" resembled a #4, which is probably a reference to breaking through the 4th wall, as well as t this lazing Saddles scene of the same name (above right).
But those aren't the only examples
The episod My Bloody Valentine has ame name as the remake of the horror/slashe movie hat Ackles starred in and was released in January 2009. The episode aired in February 2010 (IMDB). My Bloody Valentin was mentioned again, but you may have missed it. While Dean's recovering from his broken leg (The Girl Next Door), he falls asleep and the commercial on TV is for the movie My Bloody Valentine. This is an obvious meta-reference, considering it was years after the movie's release.
My favorit Supernatural iki and IMBD has plenty of meta references when it comes to the episode The Monster at the End of This Book including Dean's reference to himself being "full frontal" in Route 666, the amalgamation of real cast and producers names to create names such as Carver Edlund and the Supernatural books having the same title font and books as episode titles. In fact, Wikipedia uses this episode of an example of a story-within-a-story.
Most of all, this is an example of metafiction o Quixotism r romantic irony, because Chuck thinks he's making up these stories as he goes, a romantic irony s defined as being a work where the narrator "creates an illusion of reality but then destroys the illusion by revealing that he is arbitrarily making up the story as he goes" (Manner, Wright University).
Other meta I love from the same #SPN wiki:
5.15 Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid
Dean: wesome. Another Horseman. Must be Thursday.
This is a reference to the airing day of Supernatural, Thursday. fro 1.17 Hell House il the end of Season 5.
6.07 Family Matters
Dean: ince when do you give a crap about vampires?
Crowley: ince... What's today, Friday? Since, let's see... Mind your business.
A reference to the fact Supernatural started airing on Fridays from the beginning of Season 6.