#a movie abt two brothers where the younger one is named sam and the older one is named *micheal* hello???

[angelsdean]

dean has made his family watch the lost boys 36 times. and we Know he’s watched it way more times on his own. the bisexual vampire movie. 36 times

[toxicsamruby]

comparative post abt supernatural and revolutionary girl utena :( tw for incest, csa, abuse, and a brief mention of suicide. Also, spoilers for rgu.

supernatural and revolutionary girl utena (the anime. i havent seen the movie or read the manga this post is abt the show only) hit a lot of the same thematic notes and it is really striking because supernatural seems to hit them by accident and ends up with a totally different conclusion and when you compare it to rgu actually ends up endorsing everything that rgu criticized.

revolutionary girl utena is a surrealist show about ohtori academy, which is removed from reality and controlled by a godlike figure, akio. akio maintains his own power through grooming the students in his care and having them reproduce power dynamics, namely the system of gender, through abuse, violence, and bullying. akio sexually abuses his own younger sister, anthy, and multiple other students over the course of the show, and in turn, boys in attendance at this school learn abusive patterns of behavior while girls are conditioned to accept them. the key themes of the show are cycles of abuse, violence in gender roles, and the way interpersonal gender-based abuse feeds into the larger system of gender and misogyny and vice versa. the fact that ohtori is so removed from reality, that all the fighting and abuse that takes place inside of it is isolated from the "real world," is important; extremely stringent gender roles are reified as natural and necessary, as is akio's power, despite the fact both are social constructs.

surface level, supernatural couldn't be more different, yeah. but it actually does hit similar notes: the system of hunting is removed from the "real world," and although the characters tend to weave between the supernatural and normal worlds, there is always a level of separation between them and normalcy, there's always the sense that the supernatural world is almost entirely distinct from the normal one. even when they do mix, the subplot is resolved, and by the next episode or the next season the mix is forgotten about, as if the real world had never been touched by the supernatural at all. it is considered of paramount importance that "normal people" are never told about hunting but never explained why (this rule, at least originally, is made by john. an abusive figure of authority making arbitrary rules of isolation to control the children in his charge? hm.)

this level of isolation between the supernatural and the "real world" helps to reify the concept of monstrosity itself: within the world of hunting, anything other than human is a monster, even though these definitions are constantly shifting and the consequences for monstrosity change frequently. we are shown over and over again, textually, that there are many many sentient monsters with thoughts and feelings and emotions and needs and desires, who are just as morally complex as any human beings, but most of them end up under the control of hunters or exterminated anyway. why IS a monster a monster? the separation of hunting from normalcy serves to keep people from asking that question. the system of hunting is so entrenched in the world of the supernatural, and the world of the supernatural is so separated from normalcy, that the concept of monstrosity is considered to be natural and necessary. where a "normal" person might ask why those vampires in 'last holiday' had to be killed bc they didn't really do anything wrong on screen, hunters know that monsters need to die because that's the rules of the supernatural world.

in rgu, akio maintains his control of ohtori through the hierarchy of gender. that's how the school is structured, with boys playing a specific role and girls playing the counterpart role. akio needs that system, because it's what facilitates his abuse of anthy, and his abuse of anthy (and similar relationships where boys abuse girls and more specifically brothers abuse sisters) is what gives the rest of the system permission to continue existing. touga grooms and later sexually assaults his younger sister nanami. touga is a human child, no older than 16 years old, and was himself groomed by akio and the system in which he lives. his abuse of nanami is a manifestation of that system. these abusive relationships allow and are allowed by the system. at the end of the show, utena and anthy, two girls abused by akio, help one another escape not only their abuser but the school which permitted and fed off of their abuse. their escape doesn't destroy akio or ohtori or the system as a whole, but it puts a crack in it. it serves as a example to other abused children, and offers a path to healing. overall, its a genuinely impactful story about how gendered abuse happens, how damaging sibling abuse and incest is, and how a system of power both facilitates and depends upon abusive relationships happening within it.

the interesting thing about this is that supernatural's system of power is different (monsters and humans instead of girls and boys), but it's also enforced in similar ways by the god figure (well. the literal biblical god, actually. chuck.) in supernatural. monsters and human beings are divinely separated both in the afterlife (despite the arbitrary nature of the difference between them) and on earth (chuck has written down everything ahead of time, especially surrounding the protagonist hunters and their way of life). sam is established very early on to be monstrous, first because of the demon blood, then as lucifer's chosen vessel, later as soulless. each time, he needs to be brought back under human/hunter control, meaning dean's control. dean's authority over sam (and later his abuse of him) is in part a manifestation of the accepted power dynamic of hunter over monster, which is established at the beginning of season 2 when john tells dean that he might have to kill sam if he becomes a monster.

in rgu, the only acceptable male-female dynamic is controller and controlled, protector and protected, abuser and abused. women can only be witches, like anthy, or princesses, like nanami. in supernatural, the only acceptable human-monster dynamic is the same. monsters can only be 1. dead, or 2. under the control or supervision of a human/hunter. most end up dead, of course, but sam was always under the supervision of dean. it's at dean's discretion whether or not to kill sam in season 2, it's dean who's trying to get control of sam all through seasons 4 and 6. because of sam's self hatred about his monstrosity and "disappointing dean," he nearly kills himself at the end of season 8, and dean again makes major decisions for sam. the imbalanced dynamic between them is in large part because sam's humanity is always in question, and it's always up to dean to protect him, to control him, to put him down if need be. in supernatural, the imbalanced relationship btwn sam and dean is facilitated by the rules of the supernatural world, and it is because they can't break out of this power imbalance that they are so completely incapable of rethinking the system of hunting.

of course, it isn't 100% dean's fault. he was given the responsibility of Sam by john and by the bigger system of hunting. touga was groomed and most likely abused by akio, and it was only in imitation and admiration of akio that he abused nanami in the first place. in the context of hunting, it's dean's job to do harm, because that's the job that's been assigned to him by his father, the larger power system, and chuck. he was abused, and he also suffers by being forced into this role- he can't really connect with the people he cares about in a meaningful way. that's how the cycle continues.

the weird difference between the two? the system of hunting is never actually criticized, and the relationship between dean and sam is never addressed as abuse. so while revolutionary girl utena is a thoughtful and compassionate exploration of sibling abuse and gender, supernatural is a hamfisted action story that validates unhealthy family dynamics and eugenicist ideas about "monsters" that aren't really monsters at all. so at the end of rgu, utena and anthy break free of ohtori and akio. they end the cycles of abuse and are finally able to see each other outside of the roles prescribed to them by an abusive system. at the end of supernatural, the cycle isn't broken, the idea of monstrosity remains unrefuted, and sam and dean never see each other any differently than they always have.