#s13x16

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Dean: " That was the coolest thing that ever happened to me! And that includes the Cartwright twins!"

Cas, immediately: " What did you do with the Cartwright twins?"

Dean: laughs uneasily and walks away

Bear with me here, because I’m going to ‘In Defense of Dean Winchester’ this a little bit. Honestly, people have been back and forth over the subject for weeks, but I’ve not really discussed it much except to write the post where I pointed out just how curvy SPN’s Daphne was. That didn’t change at all in the final cut, and if anything I was even more surprised, and if anything I was sitting there going ‘right, cause it’s the 70s, of course she’s not wearing a bra.’

This was not the Daphne of our childhoods. This was Male Fantasy ‘I can get two shotguns!’ Daphne. If we take the meta reading that Scooby was a projection of Dean’s psyche, it’s very little surprise that this is what you get as a result. Dean preserves the spirit of the Scooby Gang ultimately, but he almost watches his childhood destroyed by hunting real ghosts in the process. It is a powerful meta episode on performing Dean, a powerful episode regarding childhood trauma (even Sam’s flies out of the box and tries to nail him), and a powerful episode episode about toxic masculinity–ultimately all Dean’s skeevy - and I will agree they’re skeevy - efforts get him is groping a ghost. 

But that’s where the performance takes him. The moment he drops it, he stops trying to pursue Daphne too. He uses what he knows about Scooby Doo (Fred’s plans always backfire), and comes up with a plan B (Dean taking the role of Fred himself). And at the end Sam gets the kiss, and Dean strikes out with everyone, including Cas.

I could probably stop there, but I’ve not answered the question quite the way I want to, so I’m going to move onto the part that I think is somewhat harder to answer (without pissing some people off). It’s about the fact that fandom finds Dean’s age and treatment of women creepy in general, and just. Okay. Have you ever met a teenage boy? So Dean watches this cartoon when he’s a kid, and he finds Daphne hot (I mean, she’s designed to be hot, bi woman can confirm). This was the eighties. While Sam was outright pinning posters of real older women over his bed (you can imagine whatever you want about that), Dean was quietly lusting over a cartoon character. You carry those teen crushes with you. I’m sure if I happened to fall into Gundam Wing universe the Misha Collins version of Duo Maxwell would sweep me off my feet, because it’s my imagination and I can do whatever the fuck I like.

So Daph is curvy. Daph is the personification of that fantasty crystalized, permanent in Dean’s psyche, from when he was a teenager with a budding libido. She’s his Jessica Rabbit, and when she takes form, she is everything he imagined she’d be–as well as untouchable. Hilariously, and maybe somewhat sadly, Dean becomes the creepy dude trying for a kiss who never gets one. It’s like he feels old. And let’s face it, there’s probably some residual protectivism going on there, because Daphne is sweet and pure, even if she is still a sex object in his mind, and so ultimately Dean doesn’t get with her. And yes, I used the phrase ‘sex object’, because there’s no doubt there’s objectification involved (even if it’s just the animators living their own fantasy through the late night TV slot). The scene with Daphne and Velma settling down to bed together was not in the original episode, Daphne in her tiny nightgown stretching out over the bed–Dean’s objectification? The cartoonists? Ours?

So look, I will agree Dean is creepy, but he’s a 40 year old man living out his 15 year old fantasy, I think it’s fair to give him a break. And at the end of the day he is self aware creepy, he cockblocks himself. I know it is difficult, especially as a woman, not to conflate his toxic behavior alongside real life actual creepers (because god knows this is the society we live in and we need to keep changing that) but cartoon Dean just isn’t the problem here. It would be very different if we were talking about Dean and a rl woman, unless he got his ass handed to him for the behavior. I would be right there outraged with you. It’s not. This is Dean, his teenage fantasy, and his cartoonish self well and truly striking out. 

I suggest if this topic really does worry you that you bury yourself in the meta about what this episode was really saying about Dean, because it is going to take some of the edge off. And try not to think of her as 17 because, among other things, Daphne is an immortal vampire and just doesn’t know it yet. 

This is Daphne from the SPN promo

Daph is definitely sexier in this version. nvm the explicit ‘sloping to a nipple’ artist technique you more often see in comic books, what about the curve of her breast under the scarf?

For additional reference, here’s Daph in a 2000s era cartoon.

Don’t. For the love of God. Look up 2017 Scooby Doo. I can’t unsee it.