And regarding that last reblog, it reinforces a point I will always and forever come back to.
Which is that Lucifer and Sam are the same person, and that later interpretations by the story to turn Lucifer into Sam's external abuser kinda fall apart and don't entirely work well. Because Lucifer's role in the story from the outside is just to be another version of the same character.
Lucifer IS Sam. It's inextricably linked, even within the Hallucifer storyline. Which at absolute best, is just a version of Lucifer that exists in Sam's head, not the real thing. A version of himself that exists in his own head. If we're picking up and pulling at the narrative thread the story has already established for itself.
And yeah, this is maybe hard to understand or internalize when viewed through a purely Watsonian lens. Which fandom has a really hard time detaching from when it comes to analyzing stories.
But Supernatural is an incredibly meta, 4th-wall-breaking show. Like, across the board. They are not subtle or shy about saying that Lucifer is Sam and that's the exact way you're supposed to, doylistically, read it. That's the great thing about meta story writers; they treat the audience as smart and aware enough of stories as simply communication of ideas, from one real human being to another real human being. With the story not being a living thing itself, but just a complex, creative way for 2+ people to share ideas with each other using symbolism.
Sam Winchester is one of my favorite characters ever, but he does not "exist," there is no real spn universe we can shift to. It's just a theoretical place that the writers play dollies in, and those dollies connect to concepts and contexts and themes about how our real world works.
Making Lucifer Sam's one-dimensional abuser and nothing else effectively changes the rules of playing dollies on the audience midway through the game without warning.
In a specific context, already established by the writers themselves!! One that reinforces the idea that outsiders are inherently bad, being different is wrong actually, and that being a queer-coded man makes you either a rapist or the victim of one, thanks for coming to my tedtalk
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This is aimed more at my fellow USAmerican crowd, or anyone living under the resurgence of fascism.
But the unfortunate reality of Supernatural, honestly? Is that it's a very culturally rich text, absolutely brimming with queer coding.
Not just the kind of queer coding that's fun, or that let's you jump off and imagine ships and headcanons. Not the kind that's meant to be affirming or clear - if anyone even consciously meant for it to be there in the first place.
It's the kind of queercoding that is distinctly tied to what average non-queer people associate with us. In both neutral and incredibly violent, dangerous ways.
Ways that have not gone away. Are stronger forces in our current America (and certain other places around the world) than they were when Supernatural got big on Tumblr 10+ years ago.
It is a more dangerous time to be queer now. It is a more dangerous time for the cishets to be absorbing queer-coding that isn't intentional or overtly sympathetic.
For your own safety, you need to become more media literate when it comes to recognizing queercoding that's more than just two conventionally attractive dudes smiling at each other and establishing that they vaguely care about each other. Or making a joke that could be taken as queer or queerphobic, depending upon the audience receiving it.
And when it comes to Supernatural, you need to be able to recognize queercoded themes, episodes, plotlines, tropes, motifs, and imagery. And the bulk, the character that shoulders the absolute burden of all those aspects of the show? What got absorbed from past media/real-world stereotypes into the text, and then repackaged and blasted back out into mainstream TVs and streaming services, to be re-absorbed and to reinforce those same ideas??
It's SAM.
It's not Dean that the queerphobes recognize as queer while sitting in their saggy couches or showing on reruns on the TV at the gym. Dean is not the ones consciously or unconsciously tripping their "this guy could sure use being called a slur, lol" vibes.
Not in Middle America, in any case. Not in the conservative US.
It doesn't matter who you like or who you ship or who you relate to. Because that's not what coding is. Coding is what the stereotypes and tropes the larger culture associates with a certain type of person. And it's almost never complimentary, accurate, affirming, or fair.
If it was, it likely wouldn't be coded.
This is not about you liking Sam. You can hate him. You can write destiel fanfic until the day you croak, all while writing about a Sam who died offscreen in the background because he tripped and fell into a wood chipper. That's fine. It doesn't matter, and no one is stopping you. I'M not trying to stop you!
But Sam is still the queercoded one, and you have to recognize that as a sociological truth that exists regardless of your personal feelings or your fandom bff's feelings. Outside of your own preferences.
Because you have to be able to tell when someone is being queerphobic, intentionally or not, in their media depictions. So you can also tell when they're using the same queerphobic language and concepts in churches, schools, and political arenas.
Again, to reiterate: You need to be able to recognize these kinds of symbols.
For your own safety, and for all the queer people who are going to come after you.
If you're interested in a few ways that I've laid out how Sam is queer-coded, or you feel like you don't understand my definition of queercoding, check out the below. I also use the tag "#queercoded Sam" on my blog to tag anything I think ties into those ideas or presentations within the show (especially based in the Kripke era).
So. I'm in a bad mood, about something not spn related, just irl. Apparently that means that I should finally post about Sam's queercoding, for inexplicable brains-are-bad-at-decisionmaking reasons. Most of this I've been slowly putting together in the drafts for a loooong while. But the analysis got so long, I realized it probably needed at least two different parts at least to talk about everything.
For this post? I just want to talk about Sam and college.
Sam Winchester & College/US Culture & Geography
For some background in case you're not USAmerican? Working class conservative Americana has a Big Dislike of the concept of higher education. Especially at the turn of the millennium. College was a bad place which "brainwashes" your kids into "liberalism."
And for many queer kids before the internet became a mainstream form of connection, this was pretty much the major way you got out and got a chance to find people like you, intentionally or by accident.
From the perspective of your conservative parents, church, and community, college and big cities were dangerous dens of iniquity. They were going to Turn You Queer there. Because religious and socially conservative people believe queerness is a choice or a learned ideology, not an identity. It can be caught by being around the wrong people. (You'll note how scared modern day conservatives are that trans kids, for example, are just being trans because of peer pressure. Or because they read the wrong books. Same deal, except 20 years ago, those anxieties were mostly focused on kids going to college.) That queerness is an orientation and an identity is not something social conservatives or conservative religious folk really understand.
But they would understand - viscerally, symbolically - John and his reaction to Sam going to college. John, a recognizably red-blooded American man: From his history in the Marines. To driving American-made gas-guzzlers. To raising his kids outside the mainstream and teaching them to "hunt," to use guns from a young age. To making them call him "sir" and teaching them to not question his orders. All the way down to the brands of liquor he drinks. They would Know Him. They would get him. They would recognize, understand, even relate to him... And to his fear of Sam going away to college. The fear of his son leaving the rugged, individualistic, hyper-paternalistic culture of blue-collar America... and coming back wrong. Coming back with new perspectives. Questioning the core values of the culture you left behind. Ready and willing to argue and backtalk.
Coming back soft.
Too soft. Emasculated, and okay with it.
Queer.
More important than the fact that Sam went to a college, any college, or that Sam went to a coastal city, any coastal city, is exactly where he went to school. He goes to Stanford - a place in California, and within driving distance of San Francisco.
If you're not from the US, that might not mean much. But it's important to understand that Middle American cultural anxieties in relation to the larger American landscape run absolutely rampant throughout the series (especially the Kripke era) as themes. And that no place triggers those anxieties and resentments IRL more than New York and California. Places consistently used by bigoted conservatives as symbolic dogwhistles for two kinds of people: Jewish people, and queer people. The latter who supposedly have an "agenda" solely focused on destroying wholesome mainstream American life and culture. Not only that, but Sam doesn't just move to California. Out of all of the thousands of colleges across the country, he goes to a school within easy driving distance of San Francisco. Again, if you're not from the US, San Francisco is The Gay City. Not literally, but in the popular consciousness. Every really real adult in the US knows that without it having to be explained. It's part of the cultural DNA, and would have been especially so a decade+ ago.
The point is, from the very first episode, Sam's rejection of a gun-toting, hypermasculine, mainstream Americana in favor of living a softer, more intellectual life by choosing school over the blue-collar-coded family business? More specifically, choosing of all the thousands of colleges in the country, one that was ~30 minutes outside the gayest city in the gayest state in America? Yeah. That's it. That's the moment. Your elder millennial friends, your GenX parents or relatives, and your Boomer grandparents did not need that spelled out for them. They didn't even need to be conscious of it. These associations are part of the deep lore and motifs of American history and culture. Sam's character is just ticking boxes all over the place that are associated with being a violation/rejection of Midwestern/redstate American cultural values at the turn of the millennium.
i.e.: Gay.
We've already established that Sam has an affinity, connection, and desire for demons back in part 2, right? So, why does this matter?
Well, in conservative Protestant Christian America, largely known as evangelicalism or born-again Christianity? The kind that is everywhere, but especially culturally dominant in small-town/rural/red state/blue collar American culture that Supernatural was primarily written about?
Demons and the devil are not viewed as symbolic, but as very real (albeit spiritual) forces.
They want to tempt you, they want to destroy you, they want to destroy everything wholesome and good and American and Christian (nuclear families, heteropatriarchal gender roles, simplistic views on who/what is good vs evil).
Queer people in modern day America probably receive the largest brunt of being associated with the Devil and the demonic of any current marginalized identity. Being tempted by demons. Bearing unique responsibility for rejecting the demonic influence, or "choosing" damnation by giving into their unnatural queer desires.
Demons in Supernatural are overwhelmingly, by far, the most queer-coded, in the Disney-villain meaning of the word. They are flamboyant, they are arch, they are camp. They are snarky, quick-witted, sneering, and hypersexual.
They shamelessly flirt with everyone, socially acceptable or not (<- one could argue they are pretty much all written to embody the stereotype of the evil bisexual).
They show up and kiss another man in their very first introductory scene (RIP Crowley).
They are one of the first characters in spn history to be canonically queer (maybe the very first? That doesn't sound right and I can't remember. Either way, RIP to Ruby and her demon ex-girlfriend)
Actually I think it was Lily Baker, one of the OTHER demon-blooded special children, who was the first queer character. Like Sam, also tied on a deep inherent level to the demonic. To having been "chosen" by demons, imbued with demon blood and demon power. (Remind me to talk about the deviance/othering/queering of all the "special children" later!)
Point is, demons in Supernatural are E~V~I~L.
The fun kind of villain!
...But the type that is still queer-coded.
And Sam's entire arc, again, is about being associated with them. Whether he wants to be or not. Often romantically/sexually.
The demons routinely claim Sam as their own, as one of them.
Whether it's Azazel who thinks of Sam as his favorite (and is the first to introduce the drinking blood motif).
Or Meg, who gloms onto Sam, and flirts so overtly that Dean notices and catalogues her as one of Sam's several "monstrous" lovers, his "demon chicks."
He almost sleeps with Lilith. The whole storyline is about Dean, heir/enforcer of the "protector of the nuclear family dynamic" role. Trying to prevent this. Terrified that Sam would "fall to temptation" or wouldn't be "strong" (or "normal") enough to resist what she offers.
Brady is referred to as his "demon lover."
Crowley also gloms onto Sam in the early-post-Kripke era, in part due to an elaborate and intimate ritual involving sharing blood (I talked about the queer-coding of blood-sharing in Part 2, which will be linked at the bottom).
Meanwhile, Ruby is (a canonically queer) character Sam sleeps with. Who literally tells Sam (and the audience) that she is "the little fallen angel" on Sam's shoulder. Again, conjuring powerful images in large portions of the US of a very real, believable phenomenon. From a culturally mythical creature, associated with being the antithesis of Christianity. Most urgently associated with queerness and queer desire.
The show even grapples with the idea for a hot minute that not all demons might be bad, that maybe they're misunderstood, and that maybe demons are actually on Sam's side and don't want bad things for the sake of bad things.
Before they sort of trash that in seasons 4 and 5, bringing it back around to Sam's "sin" of "letting the Devil into the world." (Starting the apocalypse - a huge mythos in American culture. And a rightwing fearmongering symbol, not just of the destruction of the world, but the destruction of American mainstream culture and normative values. One and the same to Middle America).
All because Sam did not suppress his proclivities and desires for demons well enough. Because he trusted a demon's influence instead of rejecting it.
The fact that the show gets a little wishy-washy in later seasons about how the mains - and we as audience - are supposed to feel about demons doesn't diminish the subconscious connection.
These are implications most people in the US would feel, if not be conscious of. Especially if they live in conservative America, are Christian, and/or are older than a certain age.
I'm the world's foremost believer that you really can't separate how queerness is treated from how monsters are treated in the show. Those things connect and sync up, even when the story itself doesn't directly notice or acknowledge this.
Nor can you separate how those things are treated from the double standard both the show, and Dean himself, apply to Sam vs how they apply to Dean
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Following up on my "Kripke-Era-Sam is a Pretty On-the-Nose Queer Metaphor" series. Which started with Sam and college. Now continuing on with one of my favorite pieces of evidence, although one of the saddest in terms of how it intersects with the lived histories of irl queer people:
The Demon Blood
The largest arc of Sam's storyline, and his supposed Achilles' heel, is demon blood. You know, his bad blood? His cursed blood. His scary, diseased, monstrous blood??
It's HIV. It's AIDS. In case you weren't picking up on that. Intentionally or not, it's an AIDS metaphor. ("I've got HIV demon blood in me, Dean! This disease, pumping through my veins, and I can't ever rip it out or scrub it clean!") I'm not going to belabor this point, I don't think I should have to explain why stories about cursed or tainted blood lend the collective unconscious to an association with real-world diseases transmitted through blood... which in the last 50ish years, is associated with queer people. Specifically men who sleep with other men. This would have been even more strong of a connection when the show began airing back in the mid-2000s, a decade and a half out from the 1980s, which were in large part defined by the AIDS crisis in the US.
Sam's storyline isn't just about him being "infected." It's in having a particular affinity for/with the other people who also carry the diseased blood - men who sleep with men demons. In Sam's inability to completely reject them, even when he wants to. This adds a major dimension to Sam's story arc: denial/repression of desire. The narrative lens is horrified over the fact that Sam "should know better" than to associate with or sleep with other people who could metaphorically also be carriers demons, yet struggles to internalize the danger or stop himself. That he is both metaphorically drawn to/sympathetic with them... and literally physically attracted to them.
Here's a fun gif I found of Sam totally failing to suppress his desire for another character also queercoded by actually being queer in the narrative as well as by being a carrier of the bad blood- I mean, a demon:
Big thanks to the gif-maker!!
Anyway, giving into his desire for demons and demon blood feels good in the beginning, but in the end hurts Sam, causing painful physical and psychological symptoms. Because, when it comes to heteronormative and mainstream imaginings of gayness, AIDS, and how those two go together, it is the gay person's fault that they are diseased. The desire for other people who may have that bad blood is the root, is the cause. And the disease is the punishment. For not being able to suppress desire for the wrong kind of person.
Sam becomes more and more aware as the Kripke era narrative goes on (and in some cases after, like in s8) of the power of this blood and the inherent humanity and attractiveness of the people - like him - who have it. And it gets harder and harder for him to suppress and ignore the connection he feels with them, or his desire for their blood.
Fans of homoerotic vampire fiction are probably also lining up somewhere offscreen to talk about how blood and blood-drinking have been metaphorically associated with taboo sexual desire, especially queer desire, since even before Bram Stoker's Dracula. I'm sure Interview with the Vampire fans would be happy to attest that blood has, uh, erotic symbolism as well. The desire for blood often symbolizes the desire for sex considered other, wrong, infectious, and deserving of suppression. While blood drinkers are often societal outsiders, portrayed as wanting to "destroy" the safe insular domestic realm. Or as tragic figures, eternally cast out, haunting the edges of society, never allowed a home in the inner circle. (Symbolically, queer people.)
Confusion as to why some people insist Sam Winchester is the more queer-coded brother has reared it's head again.
I've been wanting to jump into this convo for years. But it also seems a little pointless, because... almost everything I would say to explain why Sam's the more queercoded one has already been said. Many, many times. Very eloquently, with rigorous, meticulous detail. Completely divorced from whether people are expected to like Sam, or ship Sam with a man, or relate to Sam. Because that's not what anyone is saying at all.
And I keep going, everyone who has explained this has explained it really, really well, right? So then why is it still not clicking for so many people?
And I think a lot of people, myself included, have just been like, okay, this must be an example of the sort of character-stanning, ship-war culture. Where people just ignore information they don't like, and that's that. "It's just people behaving badly when confronted with information they don't like on the internet again!"
BUT.
Really, that's... not what's happening. Not entirely, at least. What's happening is actually a pretty fundamental misunderstanding/context collapse around the term coding.
(Longpost incoming.)
Coding = Symbolism/Metaphor
So, people who are saying Sam Winchester is queer coded are using the word "coded" in it's original academic, media-analysis sense.
This term has experienced tons of context collapse, as people with academic training blended together into general fandom culture. A big problem overall on the internet. The original, really important meaning of words in all sorts of fields of study enters the mainstream, but people adopt everyday use in a way that's different. Strips most of the original meaning out of the word.
This is okay, as long as we do some catch up to help people consciously understand what's happening, because society still needs the word in its original context to function. As long as people can recognize the two different contexts/definitions, and can appropriately code-switch, using the right word in the right context. I, for example, know what people mean when they say they are a "Cas-coded Deangirl." Despite the fact that, from a media analysis perspective, those words don't actually mean anything. That's pretty much gibberish by actual media analysis standards. No one can be "Cas-coded" or "Dean-coded" or "Sam-coded" or any other type of coded in the true media analytic sense. Because we, as real individual people existing irl, are not by definition symbolic or metaphorical representations of irl concepts. We are people! If someone tried to treat me or you as more of a symbolic code that represents other groups of people, that would be dehumanization. And likely a formof bigotry - marginalized people irl being treated as stereotypes or as the sole representative for what people like them are like, is a form of bigotry.
But individual fictional characters birthed from the experiences of the creator(s) aren't a marginalized group of people, by definition. They are constructs which reflect a wide variety of influences the creators have absorbed through living in the time/place that they do, which they then reflect back, sometimes intentionally but most of the time not, into their fictions. Therefore, a character is a symbolic reflection of different cultural beliefs that existed during the media's creation. We can infer things about the time period in which the character originated - including what anxieties, bigotries, stereotypes, and associations would have influenced the character's development, and how that character would have linked up with popular ideas or associations in the general public's view of the world. In short, all characters are symbols of facets of mainstream society's perspective. When we do that, look at what the 1900s/early 2000s generally believed about queer people, for example, we can then look at a piece of media and see if any scenarios/characters/institutions within the media reflect or are in conversation with those views.
EYE know the person who says they're "Cas-coded" is really saying that they relate to or have a lot in common with Cas. But it's important to remember, that's not what "coding" means when we're talking about media analysis.
Queer people, or queerness itself, can be "coded" in the traditional sense. Because mainstream society understands these people as
a real group of people who exist in the world,
who are "other," not the mainstream, not "us" in the popular consciousness,
which relies on stereotypes, and oversimplistic ideas of traits/experiences mainstream society associate with that group, in real life, and also in fictional tropes.
Whether or not it's intentional, it's always symbolic. Not a literal reading of the text. Some texts are meant to be read as more symbolic than others.
If you were ever expected to read the short story The Lottery in school, you would remember that the lottery isn't meant to be read as a literal lottery, but as a metaphor for the concept of drafting young people into war. If you've ever read Animal Farm, you might have felt sorry for the poor horse. But Animal Farm is an intentional political allegory. He wasn't meant to be read as a literal individual character, but as a representation of people who enthusiastically work themselves into unhealthiness and eventually death for the sake of the fascist state.
Some stories are more intentionally metaphorical than others, like those examples. Some are meant to be read where you just immerse yourself in the story and that's it, and they don't want it to symbolize anything. But too bad, because fiction doesn't work like that. Stories always tell on the culture in which they are written: Their values and thoughts and cultural associations, both real and imagined. (Tolkien's Hobbit/Lord of the Rings stories are symbolically about the early 20th century world wars. Doesn't matter that it made him mad to say that, it just... is). Stories that involve the supernatural (pun!) or other impossibly unrealistic elements? By definition, they represent something, too, because nothing is created in a vacuum. Stuff like that might represent a lot of things. Or sometimes they represent something reallllly specific. Or there might be multiple possible symbolic readings, but one reading fits the most snugly. Whether the creators even intended any of this or not!
Point is, we use the term "coding" to help us understanding a work's symbolism. What cultural ideas it represents, intentionally or not. Which aspect of societal beliefs that a work/character/motif/etc, etc, turns out to be a metaphor about.
Coding =/= Literal Media Interpretations
What coding isn't: A functional fan theory.
Doesn't matter if the fan theory is accepted as canon, or beloved, or even very likely. A popular theory, even one that becomes fanon, isnt coding. That is a completely different concept, in a completely different dictionary.
Fan theories can be a group of like five fans wearing tinfoil hats with ideas that make sense to no one else. Or accepted as fanon. Or very well-known, but controversial within a fandom. Fan theories can be about answers to worldbuilding mysteries or plotholes. They can be about character motivations that felt underwritten or out of character in the narrative. They can be about a character's orientation(s), or the nature of the relationships between two or more characters.
Whatever form they take? It's still not coding, which is a completely different concept with a very different use. Coding is about how society acknowledges/discusses art's larger place and impact in our world. There's literally nothing wrong with coming up with fan theories about stories you get invested in, and sharing those with other people. We all do it, all the time! That's how a lot (definitely not all, but certainly some) people ship, and what shipping means to them: Which character relationship(s) could plausibly be a romantic one, as portrayed onscreen? Which plausible relationship(s) do I vibe with enough to get invested in (canon or not)?
But that's still fan theory, not coding. And that's okay! But we still need to be able to tell the difference.
A fan theory is what happens when fans read what happens in the story as it's directly presented (not as a metaphor). For example, Castiel is an autistic-coded character. This is not in any dispute, because he comes from a VERY long line of autistic coded characters written exactly like that, intentionally or otherwise. Castiel, many other angels, Anya from BtVS, Connor from Detroit:Become Human, Data from Star Trek, Seven of Nine from Star Trek, Spock from Star Trek... Lotta Star Trek in there, lol, but the point is, these characters aren't intentionally written as autistic, yeah?
Symbolically, Castiel represents how mainstream society sees autistic people. More specifically, he is another entry into the popular ongoing trope, where characters with autistic traits are portrayed as literally alien/inhuman/robotic in fiction. This is how it feels to mainstream society that autistic people should be perceived and treated.
This, and other coding, doesn't have to be intentional. And in most cases, it likely isn't. Especially once stereotypes or tropes gain momentum in culture. Robot characters written as symbolically autistic is such a common, long-running trope many writers probably don't realize they're perpetuating it, and might struggle to figure out how to portray robots otherwise.
This is different than a fan theory that Cas is literally a character with autism within the universe of Supernatural. You absolutely can have a fan theory about Castiel or other angels being literally autistic! I mean, there's a good bit of evidence, right? And it's not like Data from Star Trek, where he's a robot who shouldn't have any direct connection to any human psychology. Angel psychology in SPN is pretty loosie-goosie from a lore perspective, so why couldn't an angel have literal autism? No good reason at all!
But the character is not literally autistic on screen. The character is never spoken about or referenced to be autistic. In fact, I don't think autism is ever brought up once, or that one actual human character is intentionally represented as autistic in 15 seasons. Cas and many of the other angels are running around coded up to their eyeballs, in a fictional universe where autism... does not actually exist.
So Cas is definitely symbolically autistic coded. With the story written open-ended enough to also allow fans to engage with it on a fan theory level, and decide that yes, autism exists in the spn universe, and just percentage-wise many more angels happen to have it than humans, Cas being one of them. Totally valid fan theory! Very little evidence, if any to dispute it, if it's a fan theory you like!
But still. Coding and fan theories aren't the same. (And neither are the same as canon.)
One more non-spn example, to help cement the difference?
A notable popular fan theory is probably Anakin Skywalker from Star Wars. I hope most people are vaguely familiar enough with Star Wars that I don't completely lose you here, but anyway a popular fan theory is that Anakin was literally created by Palpatine (or maybe Palpatine's own master?). I vaguely remember this might be confirmed in some extended universe book somewhere. But since canonicity is a tricky bitch in Star Wars, and for the sake of this example, let's just say: For mainstream audiences, this theory is just... it's a great fan theory that most people think is interesting. Whether or not they personally adopt it as a more "true" reading than what we're literally given onscreen. Which is that he was basically immaculately conceived.
Evidence for the fan theory comes from things Palpatine alludes to, in terms of the ability to create life potentially being a power he has. And the fact that immaculate conception wasn't ever mentioned as, like, a thing that was possible, outside of this example.
What Anakin is not, though? He's not "created-by-Palpatine coded." Does that make sense? Created-by-a-specific-sith-lord's-evil-force-powers isn't like, a thing that happens in real life. It's a theory about a single situation literally happening in the universe of the fictional world of star wars. Not a metaphor for a collection of real-world experiences, or a trope about certain types of marginalized people. I cannot, for example, wake up tomorrow and say, "I want to write an essay about irl people who are created-by-Palpatine's-magic-force-powers! Specifically, what does art which symbolically represents people created by Palpatine say, about how our society views all those totally real people!"
Fan Theory? Watsonian. Coding? Doylistic.
Basically what I hope I'm explaining well enough is, that in the age of the internet, the concept of "coding" has really gotten mixed up with the concept of "a popular fan theory." Or, "a fan theory that a lot of people can point to in-universe evidence for, that seems a really compelling way of re-thinking onscreen events in a given piece of media."
To make it as simple for Tumblr as I can possibly make it (perhaps even a little badly oversimplistic):
Fan theories are more of a Watsonian reading. Could the thing you're trying to argue possibly exist in the "literal" world of Sherlock Holmes? Is it a possible fan reading, that there's not enough evidence to successfully dispute, in that world? Even if no one said anything about your theory directly in the piece of media?
Coding is more of a Doylistic reading. We are keeping in mind that the text is a text (text in academic terms means the individual piece of art/media we're talkinga about in a given analysis). We're asking ourselves stuff like, "What impact does the representation of Sherlock Holmes' personality have in the real world? What cultural ideas about, say, drug users, or war veterans, does it reflect about people's beliefs about those things, during the time the story was written?" When we talk about queer coding, we're saying, "What tropes do the characters fall into? What stereotypes are represented? What common experiences, literal or symbolic, do queer people commonly share at the time of the story being written? Which character, if any, does any/all of that kind of evidence strongly point to?"
Well, Which One At Least is Good Rep?
Neither.
As maaaannnnnny people keep trying to point out, coding =/= equal good rep. Coding =/= rep AT ALL. In fact, coding really only exists in context of a bigoted society. A non-bigoted society won't have coding, because they'll have no use for it, consciously or not. Most coding is, by definition, -phobic or -ist in some way. Unless it's written specifically by queer people/allies, who are so oppressed they can only represent queer characters metaphorically, not literally. Either way, there are really only four contexts in which something will end up with queercoded rep:
A queer person/ally writes a character who's queer in a time/place where they cannot write overt rep due to oppression.
A queerphobic person writes a character that has negative or stereotypical queer characteristics on purpose.
A person (usually non-queer but not always) writes a character subconsciously pulling from stereotypes that have become common because of the above two types of guys (gn).
A queer person (who may know or not) writes a character with stereotypical queer traits they identify with, not realizing.
Fan theories are by definition neither good nor bad rep, because they're not confirmed canon parts of the text. Only confirmed queer representation has the possibility of being true "good" representation. And that doesn't mean all confirmed rep is good rep, btw. Like, that's very much not true. It only means that you have to have confirmed rep to even have a jumping off point to even start to ask the question. Before that, it's all bad. It's all queerphobic, actively or passively. Even if coded representation is done with the best intentions by queer people who have literally no other option, it's still not really "good rep." But, neither are fan theories. They're more... true neutral I guess. Since almost no one adopts queer fan theories unless they're queer themselves. And because of queer identity erasure, in media and IRL, you can have a queer theory about ANY CHARACTER EVER. Just... some characters there's a bit more evidence to support it.
A bit more.
What Does This Any of This Have To Do With Sam VS Dean, PLS????
So the thing about Dean Winchester queer readings vs Sam Winchester queer readings? Sam Winchester's portrayal is symbolically queer-coded. VERY. Very, very. Veryveryveryveryveryveryvery.
BUT!
Besides all the canonical moments Dean and Sam get clocked as a couple (the text does that... just a truly unhinged number of times. After a certain point it's genuinely starting to get weird. But that's a whole other can of worms.) Outside any of that? There is very little to almost no usable textual evidence that Sam is queer that works as a fan theory. Probably the whole thing with Brady, in that one s5 episode? The fact that he has longer than normal hair and everyone questions his masculinity a lot? Annnnd pretty much not else! And that's why it's a less popularly accepted fanon!
Dean, on the other hand. Is not queer coded. Hardly at all, by the real, media analysis/queer theory concept of coding.
BUT!
There is wayyyyy more wiggle room with Dean to work in the idea that he is queer. As a functional, workable fan theory. Which is why it is the more popularly accepted fanon!
In More Detail:
Sam's entire s1-5 arc functions as a symbolic queer narrative. Actually almost any other reading, symbolic or not, doesn't work nearly as well as a queer reading for what he's literally going through onscreen. All the getting kicked out of his family, or the motif of the demon blood tainting him, or the desire for purification, or the salvation/redemption/'getting labeled an abomination by your own religion' symbolism. No one is saying that John literally kicked him out because Sam is literally gay. Nor is anyone saying that the demon blood motif made him literally kiss men. What we mean is, these aspects of his character arc symbolize - they imply - common tropes, stereotypes, ideas, and beliefs regarding queer people in the popular cultural imagination. Intentional or not.
Like, if you're looking at it from the original definition of coding, there is no better lens through which to read Sam's 1-5 arc. A well-educated person versed in both
what stereotypes USAmerican culture held in their heads about gay people in the 20th century/early 2000s
media analysis and queer theory
...people very knowledgeable in both of those? Will run circles around any other possible reading of Sam Winchester. Any other reading just can't feasibly hold up. The symbolic amount of evidence for Sam Winchester as a queer metaphor is a mountain. It's a deluge. It's an ocean. It's a whole fucking solar system. I could - and have! and will! - write thousands of words about it and I'm sure I'd still be accidentally miss big chunks of evidence. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't make a good counter-argument, knowing what I know about tropes and stereotypes of queer people/characters at the turn of the millennium. It would maybe be a fun exercise just to try. But I'd absolutely lose if I had to go up against someone else well-educated about 20th century/early 2000s queer stereotypes. If I tried arguing against Sam Winchester's queercoding in a formal academic setting.
Dean, on the other hand? Well, if I'm not going the academic, media literate/formal analysis route? I'm just trying to put together a Watsonian fan theory that can't be refuted within the world of Supernatural?
Dean's my guy.
He's actually got a lot more complicatedly-intimate relationships with dudes onscreen than Sam does. There's the fact that his gender is, textually, not symbolically, a performance. It's few and far between, but there are more times Dean gets clocked as potentially queer outside of interactions with Sam directly. There's whatever deal he had going on with Crowley. Whatever deal he had going on with Benny. Cas is a whole other text for another day. The fact that he seems to avoid romantic relationships for the most part. Just... there's a lot going on there, and if you have a fan theory that the connecting tissue between all that is that he's... pick the one that gels for you most: Bisexual. Aromantic. Trans. There's just a lot to work with. (I'll talk about how most queer identities - like aromantic, bisexual, transgender - are erased from the popular imagination. And how that kind of fucks with queer people's expectations of media in ways that aren't always fair to anyone involved. Another day).
But yeah. If you're looking for a character who's onscreen textual behavior can support your queer fan theory... he's your better bet. Of the two Winchesters. Without question.
In Conclusion
I want to point out, there's no right or wrong here, when it comes to which fanon you want to engage with more. Because, it is. Fanon. For both characters. All the way down. Neither character was directly, incontrovertibly proven to be queer in a way that is unmistakable to mass audiences. Nothing is confirmed, is likely to ever be, in any way that is definitive, based on how "canon" actually works. With so many hands in the cookie jar when it comes to the creative team behind spn, we'll never have confirmation unless they make more show and give us incontrovertible proof. The kind that even your homophobic Boomer grandma can't possibly miss. That's what canon rep actually is. Again, neither coding nor fan theories are canon rep. Only unmistakable canon rep... is ever canon rep.
I, for one, don't want that for spn, btw. Other, less fundamentally problematic properties? Future media? Without question.
But I think Supernatural works much better as a locus point for the queer community. As a form of drag! As a kind of vehicle through which we're all performing different versions of our queerness, that we connect to what we perceive in the text. In fanfic, in art, in cosplay, etc. I think it's an incredibly queer show, overall, in a larger symbolic context, when it comes to things like motifs and aesthetics and themes and vibes. Stuff like gender presentation, and relationships with fathers who expect a specific type of gender performance. The isolation and identity struggle that comes with being societal outsiders. The motifs of heaven vs hell. Killing God! There's soooo much here that queer people would connect our identities with, consciously or not. Or just vibe with! Way more than most other media! That's why we all do connect with it!
I think we'd all be much happier if we could just... conceptualize the show as a thing that the official spn creative team made. Good for them. Or, whatever. But it means something very different, and undeniably powerful, to us! The queer viewers! The fact that we were all called like a siren song to congregate around and play with this media, that it's one of the top fanfiction fandoms of all time!!! says more about us and what connects us than it does about the show being any sort of good rep. Or rep at all!
This show doesn't give us canon rep! This show gives us space to do our version of drag.
I really wish we could all stop fighting quite so much, recognize what the show gave us. What we built and continue building together. What we can learn from each other about our own and each other's queerness. And just... lean into all that.
I have no idea if this is going to seem like the most or least far-fetched; I'd guess it probably would have a lot to do with what subculture you were raised in.
And, more than anything, I would think that this is 100% for sure accidental. Probably. Who tf knows with spn, though.
But Sam's hair length being longer than the average American guy's, while also having minimal to no real facial hair, is notable. Sam's hair being almost a prop on the show, something recognizable in itself, cements this. It's not the kind of thing that if you took it completely alone, with nothing else, would be damning evidence of queer-coding. But when you add it to all the other stuff, it just becomes a hard-to-ignore piece of evidence.
So, before we get to the evidence itself, let's talk about objections, because I just can feel them. I know they're coming. "Long hair doesn't mean a guy is queer"- Let me stop you there. I agree.
In the real world, in the US, hair length on men is maybe noteworthy, but not immediately associated with queerness. In fact, lots of blue-collar guys have long hair (although he rarely takes his hat off, Bobby's hair is getting a bit longish in the back there, for example. Lol to Ash's mullet.)
And if you're objecting because hair length is actually a pretty hard thing to universally make mean anything, even in one region, yeah. Types of coily/curly hair does not naturally fall long, for example, and associating hair length universally with one gender/gender expression gets tricky when you introduce other cultural meanings. Agreed, 100%. Hair length probably should be removed from it's binary association with gender/expression to be inclusive of a wide variety of people with different types of bodies/identities.
But that doesn't change the fact that, in primarily-white, Western, English speaking cultures, and definitely in the US during most of the time Supernatural aired?
Longer hair on men was, consciously or not, associated with effeminacy and challenges to gender norms. At least in media. It gives lots of people, including queer people, the impression that Something Is Unusual Here.
Other prevalent examples off the top of my head are Bucky Barnes and Loki, two of fandom's/Tumblr 20teens' most intensely-beloved queer-coded blorbos. Or the entire race of Elves from any Lord of the Rings franchise entry (cue my flashbacks to being in the rop fandom and seeing literally tens of thousands of people on this very platform lose their entire minds over how "homophobic" it was, that Rings of Power's male elves did not have universally long, silky hair). Or consider ongoing discourse about how historical depictions of men in Asian media are often problematically viewed as effeminate or queer here in the West, in part due to the length of their hair.
The point is, whether or not you care or agree that it makes sense in real life, how we process depictions of unusually long hair (primarily paired with a lack of beards) in media triggers a queer lens in a lot of people, queer or not.
And the fact that Sam's hair typically gets longer and, instead of becoming unkempt or tied back to keep it functional and out of the way, like IRL straight men are often seen to do, he just... works it. He lets it hang down, even though it's incredibly impractical, considering his job. And it's juxtaposed with the "normal" heteromasculine hair length coding of his father and brother for the times. Or even of later cast regulars like Cas and Crowley.
Sam's hair is so unusual that other characters in-universe point it out, make jokes about it. In particular, make jokes that tie it to womanhood/effeminacy.
