#i wasj ust going to talk about queer john but i feel like i kinda went off the rails

[wigglebox]

okay gonna type this out b4 the meds kick in and i’m pulled down into the emotional sadness of 1x04 for spnwin 

but like, i know i was like ‘omg fucking....john/carlos???’ last night but also with mary/latika lmao but like for real

i already started seeing some ‘but i don’t want the homophobic man to be queer’ 

and i just wanna say something? there’s no canonical evidence that john was homophobic. that can be your headcanon, your take on his character, whatever, but in terms of the actual TV show there’s no canonical proof that he was. i know someone’s going to mention that journal thing but that’s so quasi-canon to me and not really viewed at as actual canon, and also it has contradicting canon in itself from the show so i don’t count that.

so when you see things like ‘john winchester is homophobic’ just understand that it’s a reading and not fact. 

second of all, the reason why i love 1x04 so much is that we are seeing the ramifications of 

1) the culture of the time of young men, and in john’s case way too young, going into something as horrific as the Vietnam War was [on all sides] and witnessing [and in some cases participating in particularly] horrifying things 

2) this mindset of kinda toxic masculinity in the sense that men, and especially in this time frame, are expected to suck it up. his raised voice at carlos regarding therapy sessions reminded me of that, but also we have to keep in mind that john was on edge the entire episode and clearly quick to anger. but again, it’s 1972, and john’s a young adult, white male, in the midwest, veteran. i can see how he’s resistant to talking to people about his problems, especially if he just feels no better doing so [a common misconception that just one session of therapy and you’ll start to feel better], therefore it’s easy to associate therapy with feeling like shit and then avoiding it all together. 

and you combine john’s mental health issues, bc clearly he has PTSD [*note, not everyone with PTSD is angry, violent, or volitile. but SOME are. and clearly john is one of them, likely backed up by other issues throughout his childhood with the father issue] — with this queer...well i was going to say coding but that look he gave carlos and some other implications in this episode feels a little stronger than that lol — then you get an interesting situation. 

i think it’s important for us to not forget the nuance that SPN often undertook, and that the team at the helm of this show also aren’t unfamiliar with. this was literally the strongest episode so far, and i know usually episodes get stronger as seasons go on, but this was particularly strong. 

because — the nuance here is that not all queer people are good, kind, nice, whatever. queer people can be abusers, queer people can have anger issues, queer people can shun treatment for issues [with understandable reasons] and leave things to fester — 

queer people sometimes don’t come out the otherside of things in a good way. 

and i think it’s also important to have characters like that. 

*NOW please understand i’m not saying to revert back to Hollywood in the... idk 40s 50s and 60s? even 70s i guess. but there was really a run in movies where queer people were the predators the villains the — blahblahblah. essentially demonizing us in film. and then when Hollywood got tired of doing that to us, they’d just punish us and never give our characters a happy ending. 

But, much like with many things in storytelling, it honestly depends on the story and imo, the time period in which you’re telling it. 

Like i already said, the team at the helm of this show already know and understand’s SPN nuance and coding abilities. 

so to me, having a young adult, white male, who witnessed a horrifying tragedy [one of many he probably experienced but this one in particular], who doesn’t feel like he can get help, doesn’t trust the process, in the early 70s, who is about to be thrown into the ringer [he’s actually in it already] with cosmic forces, who’s literally facing down a violent god in this episode — who perhaps may be queer. 

this isn’t a show demonizing someone being queer and also being a neglectful and manipulative and emotionally, physically abusive father — it’s just the fact that sometimes, queer people can in fact be neglectful, manipulative, and emotionally/physically abusive parents in the future. 

and since it’s fiction we got cosmic forces mixed into the salad plot bowl as well.

honestly i’m really happy that they already showed that john’s issues do not just happen upon him when mary dies. that he’s always had this simmering anger. 

anger is a secondary emotion brought on by frustration, confusion, annoyance, fear, and all of that fun stuff. 

the winchesters isn’t going to be a lighthearted happy comedy. we know where john winds up. 

making him a more dynamic character in spn canon is fascinating, and since we already know where the ride is going to end up, no problem in encouraging that dynamic character building [while also wondering ‘what if’ a lot of the time like myself lol]