Edvard's Supernatural Guide: 2x18 Hollywood Babylon
Once more I find myself at a bit of a loss about what to write for this episode. It is both a fan favourite and an episode which I (mostly) enjoy: it was another of the 10 or so episodes I watched with a friend one evening along with e.g. 1x11 Scarecrow and 3x13 Ghostfacers. As was the case with 2x16 Roadkill it speaks for itself and leaves little for me to do. I was almost tempted to simply post a link to Paula R. Stiles’ review of this episode because she said almost everything I would have said plus a great deal more, but I believe I can milk a bit from this episode’s udders.
This is Ben Edlund’s third episode of the show with 2x05 Simon Said and 2x12 Nightshifter being his previous works on Supernatural. This one, however, is the first one to break the fourth wall and introduce meta-humour. At the time of release in 2007, meta was still a rather new phenomenon and had a few years to go yet before it became tired. Buffy did it on occasion, but Supernatural did it better.
What this episode also does is draw heavily from the sources of inspiration behind the show’s existence, i.e. horror films from the 1970s and 1980s. The Evil Dead was one of the films I watched with my Media Studies class in 2008 during on module on the horror genre (the same class which was so disgusted by the rimming scene in Queer as Folk, and the same module where I first met the love of my life Dean watched Supernatural), so the setting of the tiny cabin in the middle of the woods with the swinging chair knocking against the cabin wall struck me instantly.
The film within the episode – Hell Hazers II – features many other horror tropes and clichés from the classics, such as the teenagers speaking to the books in Latin and summoning evil from Hell. Edlund also used these tropes to occasionally poke fun at Supernatural itself, such as the executive asking ‘If the ghosts are in Hell, how can they hear the chanting?’ From Paula’s analysis:
Then there’s the whole author-insert rant about horror movie rules. Now, is Brad an idiot? Absolutely. But he does have a point – even fantasy (and that includes supernatural horror) must have internal rules which it follows in order to work. The show’s problem, which has come up again and again, is that it often doesn’t follow its own rules, thus confusing the audience and lowering a tolerance for plots that don’t appear to be going anywhere, or worldbuilding that isn’t signaled with heavy loads of infodump, or characters that don’t start off on the right foot. See, if you stick to your own rules, then you imply a whole lot more and get away with it because the audience can reliably infer what’s going on.
The show’s other problem is that the Hell Hazers director (here representing the showrunners) doesn’t understand why Brad is an idiot because there are excellent answers within the mythology itself to Brad’s question. For a simple start – Hell is not generally considered by theologians to be a literal place but a metaphysical one. As such, both Hell and Heaven are connected to the earth in ways that make it easy for their denizens to hear the doings on earth, including invocations from mortals. Depending on the theology, Heaven may be nearer (GrecoRoman) or farther (abrahamic) from earth than Hell. Heaven is way up there in the sky while Hell is not so much six leagues under as immediately underfoot. So, yeah, the demons in Hell can hear an invocation because they are not distant at all. In some very significant ways, they are close as the closet, as the next room, and can hear everything you say. That’s the real reason why they are so dangerous.
Where does this come from? It comes from mythology, theology and folklore. I’m guessing I’m one of the very few here who’s actually taken Patristic Latin, but I’m sure some of you have heard of Church Fathers like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, who spent a lot of time dissecting these questions with scientific precision. Yes, somebody actually thought these things through, in addition to the general consensus attained in folklore by people who came up with these stories to explain their world and why it worked. Magical systems don’t exist in a vacuum.
Read her full review here.
Her comment about Hell being close put me in mind of my discussion of ghost!Dean in 2x01 In My Time of Dying:
Something else I thought worthy of discussion (or contemplation, rather) is how exactly Ghost!Dean interacted with the world. We see him as he was in life, but it is never made clear to the viewer whether this is an accurate representation of being a ghost. It could very well be that ghosts in the Superverse are invisible, disembodied entities walking on the same ground as the living and ultimately experiencing the world in almost the same way as the living. If they have no body, however, then they have no eyes and no way of taking in light to perceive their surroundings. One could argue ‘a wizard did it’, but I am not as content with lazy storytelling as Supernatural is (I hope that does not come back to bite me in the behind when I publish my novel…). It is possible that a ‘ghost’ is not a disembodied figure or spirit, but rather thoughts, memories, emotions, and experiences on a different plane of existence. If this is the case, then they would not have eyes, ears, or a mouth, and would not interact with the world the same way we do. However, it is possible that such an entity would be able to perceive the brainwaves, heartbeats, and general goings-on of our plane of existence in a way which essentially approximated our senses of sight, sound, touch, smell, and touch.
While on the subject of Dean, he was given centre stage in this episode in contrast to his being kept in the background in 2x17 Heart. He does a lot of the work in this episode as well, but Sam is not useless and provides insights such as the Latin incantation actually being genuine (although why Dean would not have recognised this straightaway is beyond me). However, Dean is allowed to have a lot of fun and while doing a lot of the legwork, but unlike previous instalment of the show he actually gets recognition at the end by way of sexual intercourse with the lead actress in the film.
Dean posed as a PA during this episode, and the ease he adopted the role with is interesting when viewed from a neurodivergent point of view. ‘Masking’ is the word used for a person with autism or ADHD hiding their difference from other people and essentially pretending to be ‘normal’. People with autism struggle with social interaction because it does not come naturally or easy for us. Autism is a neurological condition whereby things which usually happen during development of the brain just did not happen: something else happened. Simply put, the autistic brain works differently and cannot pick up social cues which neurotypical people do instinctively. As a result, autistic people have to observe and learn almost scientifically how interactions are supposed to work, and women and girls especially will strive to mimic their peers’ mannerisms, dress, speech habits, even interests etc in order to fit in. This is called ‘masking’ and it is essentially adopting a role. (Men and boys generally have greater difficulties with masking than women and girls generally have, but that is a different issue.)
Things are similar for people with ADHD, and indeed ADHD and autism may be variations of the same thing. A lot of what I said about the autistic brain could be applied to people with ADHD, and ADHDers frequently have similar social issues to autistic people. I think there is a very good chance Dean would qualify for what used to be called Asperger’s, i.e. the type of autistic person who is exceptionally intelligent and capable of masking his symptoms and thereby not being obviously autistic unless you know what you are looking for. His ability to adopt roles so easily is a piece of evidence that supports such an interpretation, but it is far from the only trait he has. Hyperfixation (classic rock, horror films, the Impala), emotional dysregulation, rejection sensitive dysphoria, depression, anxiety, suicidal ideations, substance abuse, social isolation, low self-esteem.
Of course some people reading this might dismiss all that. ‘That’s ridiculous’, they might scoff. ‘Dean’s not autistic.’ To which my reply would be: ‘What do you know about autism? And how can you reasonably dismiss all this evidence in support of Dean being autistic?’
Aspie!Dean is like bi!Dean: you do not have to interpret him like that, but the evidence is there and neither interpretation contradicts the show. It is similar to my views on trans!Dean: the Dean of my interpretation is cissexual, but Dean being MTF would not change the story or the character. That just is not how I see him.
Anyway, Deans effortless donning and revelry in his role as PA reminds me a lot of somebody who has a long history of hiding many aspects of himself and pretending to be somebody else to fit into his surroundings. We will see something similar in 2x19 Folsom Prison Blues, and like in that episode Dean thrives in this environment, even seeming happy on many occasions.
Sam on the other hand is plainly miserable and unnecessarily negative throughout the whole episode. I understand it has not been long since he shot Madison, but even so I had little patience with him. At first he could just have been having a bad day, but it soon seemed like he was just irritated with and embarrassed by a certain brother. This was especially obvious when Dean was excited about meeting the Z-list actor from all the B-movies and horror films Dean had watched on Syfy late at night. It reminded me a lot of the filthy look Sam shot Dean in 1x14 Nightmare when Dean was eating food at a wake which had been put out for people to eat. How dare he blend in, am I right?
Anyway, this is the end of another surprisingly short analysis. The episode is many orders of magnitude better than its predecessor 2x17 Heart, but there really is little I have to say on the subject of satire. Dean had fun, Sam was an annoying downer, and the exec’s head really should have rolled off his shoulders after being hanged from such a height. 2x20 What is and What Should Never Be is fast approaching, and I have a LOT to say about that one, so perhaps it is good I have had a few short ones recently to save my energy. Before that, though, we get to see Dean flourishing in a homosocial environment.
You can read more of my analyses here: Series 1
Series 2
And for a more in-depth review of this episode, please do read Paula's analysis here.
