#love how i have appreciation in my inbox over mr. jensen ackles today

[septembersghost]

if supernatural was more mainstream, the emmys for the past like 5 years would have been jensen ackles and four other guys

totally. i mean, you could easily say past ten years, if not more (let’s talk about that dual performance in The End, kripke’s comment about that being award-worthy was right), you could go back even further to What Is and What Should Never Be. On the Head of a Pin. there are a lot of extraordinary episodes where he turned in devastating, nuanced performances, and sometimes he gave us those in one-off motw episodes when he didn’t even have to (which is not a slight to motw episodes, i love those, and we get a lot of the best moments and character development in them because they don’t have to hinge as much on arc plot).

i defy anyone, in any show, to have put as much care, craft, and dedication into a character as we know jensen did with dean.

this isn’t to take away from actors who’ve been recognized, it’s difficult to even compare anything because spn has such a malleable form - they didn’t only have to do the heavy drama and the psychological complexity, they also had to do surrealistic hijinks and wacky comedy and fight scenes and whatever other challenge was required from episode-to-episode, which jensen just...rose to the occasion of and made look effortless. 

to be fair, i 1. am biased and 2. have watched many shows, but have admittedly only seen a small portion of anything that’s been nominated (much less won) in the past decade and a half because i love trash some of it simply wasn’t for me, which is fine! spn had factors holding it back - being a genre show perhaps is the biggest, because genre shows are unfairly overlooked (catch cassie and me talking just yesterday about actors who deserved acclaim for amazing work in genre shows!). the other was the disregard for the network, unfortunately. the cw has gotten critical acclaim for certain shows over the past few years, and even then, the emmys didn’t recognize them in main categories (see: jtv and cxg, where the lead actresses both received well-deserved golden globes, and then the emmys went, “i don’t know her...”). also, the landscape of television has changed so, so much in fifteen years. if you look at the shift from broadcast network series still being nominated, to being completely shut out by cable/premium/streaming networks, that happened during the course of spn’s run. it was never a cultural phenomenon in the way that something like got or brba were (and those shows themselves have nothing in common), yet spn outlived countless other series with a comparably tiny audience. (and a predominately female audience, despite being centered on male protagonists, because of its use of archetypes and deconstruction/Romantic horror/emotional bonds/etc, and i think that’s another factor, but that will get me into the weeds of a whole other discussion where i address the fact that shows which are perceived as especially high caliber - even the ones like brba that are legitimately excellent - are more stereotypical male-driven power fantasies than spn actually ever was, and those are taken more seriously). putting aside any issues, including the finale, that was always remarkable to me, that this show grew such a loyal, devoted, diverse fanbase, and lived so long, despite metrics like ratings and budget. and a huge part of the reason it lived as long as it did was, imho, because we cared SO much about those characters, we let them into our lives, hearts, families, we truly loved them, thus they kept telling stories. idk this is devolving into another post in my head where i talk about how spn was often unironically very good and achieved its purpose in its genre better than most, but i digress... 

other shows may be more lauded, but i’ve personally never seen the outpouring of emotion and love and palpable grief that i’ve seen over dean, which, at the end of all things, is thanks to jensen. he embodied him, made him come alive. we believed in him so deeply that dean transcended page and screen to become a part of us and important to us. you can’t mourn someone unless that love is real. 

so maybe he doesn’t have a shelf full of the shiny trophies he definitely deserves, and the widespread recognition that i wish we could have given him, but that legacy? is impressive and stunning and emotional, and ultimately has more significance and meaning than awards ever could. it’s going to live on and be remembered.