We have followed the controversial casting changes at Supernatural very carefully, and have concluded that Supernatural fans don’t want the new girls. It could be the hundreds of negative comments left here, or it could be the thousands of negative comments out there, but the bottom line is Supernatural fans by and large do not like the smell of Supernatural’s latest arrivals. Fans would rather see Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) go it alone. What is behind all this anxiety? What would Freud say?
Part of the problem seems to come from the notion that Dawn Ostroff at the CW took Eric Kripke into some dark, damp room at the back of the CW’s headquarters, put a knife to his throat, and said “Hot chicks or else.” The assumption being, this is all a rouse from the CW to prey on the sensitive male hormones in a ploy to bring air headed viewers to the struggling show.
Perhaps that point is what all the brouhaha is all about. Let’s not forget that Supernatural was famously on the bubble at the end of its second season, renewed behind closed doors in the eleventh hour. Are visions of knife wielding Ostroff’s running through your head again?
In fact, Supernatural is a show that uses clichés and archetypes as the basis for its plot. Exploiting the collective unconscious is what Supernatural does best, that is the realm of all heroes and monsters after all. It is also the home of our sex drive, and that statement is not a digression.
Is it so difficult to believe that Kripke himself is doing what he has done best all along, tapping into our unconscious with an insidious twist in mind? Supernatural has never been accused of towing the line of its genre mainstays, the Supernatural ‘effect’ has always been how it treats predictable horror clichés with a dose of its own signature mythology.
This weekend Kripke, Padalecki, and Ackles will be answering questions live at Comicon. Suffice to say, I’m glad I’m not in their shoes. By the way, not inviting the girls, stroke of genius, nobody likes weeping sex objects. But as we all wait to hear the reports of how a mob of he-man woman hating Supernatural fans chastised Kripke and crew for bowing to network pressure, maybe we should ask ourselves this: would Kripke do something as contrived as sexing up the show without finding a really good way to do it? For some, the question is in the same category as “Would Kripke bring Bigfoot on the show, and have it really turn out to be the legendary man beast?”
– Jon Lachonis, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image Courtesy of the CW)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
