Bitchwatch, part three

[apocalypsos]

Okay, here's season three.

I don't know, I feel like I should add somewhere in here that most of the reason I'm doing this is because I'm putting my own curiosity to rest. It's one thing to hear both sides of an argument, it's another thing to look at the facts and judge accordingly, I guess. Most of the time that this wank's been going on, I keep sitting here thinking, "Well, maybe I'm just looking back at things through rose- colored glasses," and, "Maybe Dean's just always been a dick."

Here's the thing. After looking at season three, even if Dean's always been a dick, he's gotten WAY worse this season.

SEASON THREE

Bitch

Magnificent Seven ("Evil sons of bitches," 1) *
The Kids Are Alright **
Sin City (Casey, 1; Ruby, from Sam, 1 ***) ****
Fresh Blood (Bela, 1)
A Very Supernatural Christmas (Madge Carrigan, 1)
Malleus Maleficarum ("Craggy Old Blair Bitch," 1; Ruby, 2) Ruby does respond to one of these times by telling Dean to stop calling her "bitch." You might notice from the fact that the list doesn't end here that he doesn't.
Dream A Little Dream Of Me (Bela, 1)
Jus In Bello (Bela, 1; "You kinky son of a bitch," 1)
Long-Distance Call (Ruby, 1) *****
Time Is On My Side ("This immortality thing's a bitch", 1; "The bitch of the bunch", 1) ******
No Rest For The Wicked (Bela, 1; Ruby, from Sam, 1; Lilith, 1) *******

Slut

No Rest For The Wicked (Ruby, 1)

Skank

Sin City (Casey, 1)
Malleus Maleficarum (Ruby, 1)
No Rest For The Wicked (Ruby, 1)

Whore

Fresh Blood ********
Malleus Maleficarum *********

Broad

Red Sky At Morning (Gert, 1)
Time Is On My Side **********
No Rest For The Wicked (Ruby, 1)

* Tamara calls Isaac (or more aptly the thing IN Isaac) a "son of a bitch."
** Ben says, "Only bitches send a grown-up." Dean responds that he's not wrong, to which Ben says, "And I'm not a bitch."
*** Ruby responds to Sam calling her a cold bitch by saying, "And this cold bitch saved your life."
**** When Dean says to Casey, "What are you laughing at, bitch? You're still trapped," Casey responds with, "So are you, bitch."
***** The father of the dead girl who attacks Dean calls him a "son of a bitch."
****** Bela calls Lilith a bitch.
******* Bobby tells Dean, "You're almost Hell's bitch, so you can see Hell's other bitches." Also, Ruby calls Dean a "son of a bitch."
******** When a vampire refers to his daughters, Gordon corrects him with "fang whores."
********* Ruby calls witches "whores." Also, just to save myself from a longer list of footnotes, "Tammy" tells Ruby that it was a "bitch of a fight." Oh, and she calls Ruby a "lying whore."
********** The spa workers in the first scene refer to one of their clients as a "crabby old broad."

IN SUMMATION

*sigh* Okay, let's start simple.

Dean calls a grand total of six women by misogynistic pejoratives. And no, I don't discount the phrase because the character in question is a demon, or as it seems to be implying, "because she deserved it."

Demon and human, good and bad -- he covers his bases this season. Keep in mind, that's twice as many women as he insulted in the previous two seasons COMBINED. And he didn't even offset it by calling any men bitches, not even Sam. The only time he comes close is during the discussion with Ben in "The Kids Are Alright," and Ben's the only one who actually says the word.

"Slut" makes its first and so far only appearance in "No Rest For The Wicked," when Dean calls Ruby -- a character who has been, and continues to be until her bodily expulsion by Lilith, practically sexless -- a "slutty little Yoda."

"Skank" is another word used only once before on the show, not by Dean and not in regards to a female character but in regards to a "skank-filled" jar containing some really gross stuff. This season, Dean calls Casey a skank once and Ruby a skank twice. Ruby's special like that, as you can see from the episode tallies.

I include "broad" this season because -- and this might be wrong, so if I am feel free to correct me, I wasn't paying as much attention for this as I was for the others in the previous seasons but I don't recall any -- this season it suddenly pops up a couple of times. Dean calls Ruby "one ugly broad" and refers to Gert -- a good woman, and a human -- as a broad when talking to Sam.

Here's a good question -- where did "son of a bitch" go? In season one, there are eighteen instances of the phrase. In season two, there are a whopping twenty-six instances. In season three, there are only five. When Dean did use it in reference to another character it was almost exclusively male, and almost exclusively their MOTW antagonist. If you consider their antagonist as a creature or person who is intentionally causing others harm (I didn't count Madison, for example, and nameless demons were also not counted), the numbers of major male and female antagonists during each of the three seasons is about the same. There are about fifteen male antagonists a season and about six female antagonists. Season three only weighs slightly heavier than normal on the female side, but not by much.

The difference is pretty easy to tell from the tallies above -- the Big Bads this season are female.

Okay, so maybe not Big BADS, per se. Lilith is obviously the Big Bad, but she only gets one instance where she is referred to as "Queen Bitch." Bela, as sort of a secondary Big Bad, gets called a bitch four times, and none of those are to her face. The final instance is even after she's dead.

Ruby gets the brunt of it at NINE separate occasions. You know, their ally.

I know, I know. She's a demon, and as she says at the end of "Malleus Maleficarum," the Winchesters are a wee bit bigoted towards demons. But after a season of saving their lives, giving them information, and backing them up -- selfish reasons or not -- they continually falling back on calling her a bitch, a slut, a skank. Even Sam starts up. Two of those instances are from Sam, a character who up until this season has only called one female a bitch -- a character on a soap opera.

On the good side, in many of the cases where a female character is called a bitch, she turns right around and gives as good as she gets. Ruby in particular does this a few times, which seems fair because by the end of the season Dean almost has forgotten her name and just resorted to whatever pejorative pops into his head. Look at the finale -- Dean calls her a bitch and a slut, she calls him a dick and beats the crap out of him. There's also the case of "Sin City," where both of the Winchester brothers call a female character a bitch only to have her throw it back at them with a snap in the next line of dialogue. So, there's that.

But basically here's what it looks like:

Season one -- Dean or Sam refer to a woman by a pejorative three times in twenty-two episodes.
Season two -- Dean or Sam refer to a woman by a pejorative three times in twenty-two episodes.
Season three -- Dean or Sam refer to a woman by a pejorative eighteen times in sixteen episodes.

Maybe they were making up for the shortened season?

**

Okay, done. Now where the hell is that happy squishy porn I was writing? AND WHERE THE HELL IS MY BOOZE?

Comments

[tinylegacies.livejournal.com]

I wonder if Kripke & the writers were responding to fan criticism of Ruby's character by having the boys (especially Dean) be so derogatory toward her.

*sends you booze*

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

God, I hope not.

*gets wasted*

[chichiri-no-da.livejournal.com]

I didn't really want to take this wank seriously and have to feel bad about the way females are treated on my show, but WOW.

That's hardcore D:

[nyoka.livejournal.com]

Wow. I had a feeling the writing for S3!Dean had gotten worse in terms of gender stuff, and yep, it has. And the sociologist in me loves that you did a breakdown by numbers. :)

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Heh. Thanks. There's just a part of my brain that wasn't satisfied with both sides going, "It's gotten worse!" and "No, it hasn't!" back and forth. I wanted to see results. Tangible evidence! \o/

[trinity_clare]

I'm going to print this out and include it in my letter to Kripke, if you don't mind. God, it's like the dudemeter gone horribly wrong.

[vee-fic.livejournal.com]

This *is* like the dark side of the Dudemeter. I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

my sense of things here

[catdancerz.livejournal.com]

is that season three was driven by the demand that supernatural's writers focus on bringing in 'males aged 18-34' as the target demographic the network was looking for.

the idea that the CW network seems to have of what males in that age range find attractive and interesting to watch is as insulting to them, to men, as the content of the shows has been to everyone, male and female characters alike.

the wrestling show, men beating the crap out of each other on friday nights, with empty macho posturing, is one idea of what CW figured 'guys' wanted to watch. now that they have deliberately given up on that male demographic target they are dropping the wrestling like a hot potato.

i find it a damn shame that supernatural's writers seemed to feel that 'targeting the male demographic' as ordered meant writing the entire show down to a lower level, its not just dean's words, its all the characters actions, being coarsened and made more crude and less thoughtful, dumbed down, in general.

if that is what CW thinks young men want to watch, a caricature of a show, super obvious plots, dialogue that TELLS YOU what is going on instead of the drama showing you, and caricatures instead of characters...well...duh, no wonder they're in trouble...no one, really, male or female, enjoys watching this...or being told that they admire watching idiots...

maybe things will change next season...i can only hope...but i think a lot more is going on here than dean being a sexist jerk...

and as far as that...the concept of a flawed hero still works for me...i still admire his courage, his desperation to save his brother, his willingness to totally sacrifice himself...even as i see his flaws and limitations as a person...i just wish the show and the network were willing to write that, the flaws even, to a higher standard...instead of descending to the easiest thing they could...just have people call other people names...and ask us to laugh or agree with it...

but again, there's more going on here than just dean and his words...

Re: my sense of things here

[static-pixie.livejournal.com]

i find it a damn shame that supernatural's writers seemed to feel that 'targeting the male demographic' as ordered meant writing the entire show down to a lower level, its not just dean's words, its all the characters actions, being coarsened and made more crude and less thoughtful, dumbed down, in general.

I think you hit it on the head right here. It's really the CW that's behind this, just like they were behind Kripke's putting 2 female characters on the show rather than the one he'd planned on. Which just makes me kinda sad because that was the one thing I liked about Dean's character; that underneath all the sleaze he put on for show, he was really pretty equal opportunity.

[telaryn.livejournal.com]

I include "broad" this season because -- and this might be wrong, so if I am feel free to correct me

I think realistically we have to give the boys a pass on "broad". I file that under the same category as a lot of their other pejorative choices -- they had a non-normal upbringing, and Dean in particular imprinted on John pretty strongly.

And I'm betting if you were to challenge John on the idea that broad was a derogatory term, he would probably be genuinely confused that you thought that way.

As far as the rest goes -- depressing as hell. I could even hand-wave the "bitch" tally, but slut, skank and whore? No way. It's gratuitous and unnecessary.

Now I *really* need to dig up gender breakdowns for the audience demographics. If Kripke et al are *knowingly* doing this for a predominantly female audience, that's really not okay at all.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

he would probably be genuinely confused that you thought that way.

Yeah, but that's the thing -- it doesn't stop it from being offensive. I mean, if you were talking with a guy and he called someone an "old broad," wouldn't you at the very least cringe?

[kerri]

THANK YOU.

People keep saying to me that 'oh, he's been like that all along!', and uh, NO, he hasn't! And I'm so glad that I was right in saying that.

I've linked to this, I hope you don't mind. And I'll probably print it off as well, when I write in, again, if you don't mind. (Without any personal references, of course.)

[opportunemoment.livejournal.com]

Has anyone linked this to Metafandom yet, and would you want it to be? I'm sure people would find it really interesting.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if they have but I wouldn't be against it.

[the-rejection.livejournal.com]

Wow, it's really depressing to see this laid out so simply. I mean, I had the feeling it was worse this season, and a lot of people agreed, but to *know* - well. That combined with our two kick ass female characters (Ellen and Jo) being replaced with two female characters everyone is clearly supposed to hate alongside Dean (Bela and Ruby) and I feel at a loss at to what season four will look like and if I even want to watch it.

The thing is, Dean has always been a flawed character, but we got that in the first two seasons *without* this language.

Thank you so much for doing this! It must've been hard.

[earis.livejournal.com]

Interesting and sad.

Part of me wants to chalk Dean's increased crap to his 'oh-fuck-i'm-going-to-die!'problem, but they didn't really show that anyway else so, nope, I don't buy that theory.

The other thing that gets me is the 'pussy' insult. Why? Why is that an insult? Why does it mean coward?

I'm frustrated with a lot abuot this show. I love it, and I just posted about why I love it, but I just don't understand why female characters are apparently a big no-no, gay characters are pathetic or funny, black characters die, and there are no non-Americans EVER.

[sgriobadh.livejournal.com]

Well, "pussy" also suggests "kitten" or "cat"- so, scaredy-cat. Also, Bela was non-American, but look how that turned out.

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

Thanks for doing this. It's nice to have something to point to to say, "No, it wasn't always like that."

[florahart]

I have a question. I watch this show ...sometimes; the ick factor frequently outweighs the pretty for me because my ick tolerance is fairly low. But, what did he call the bad guy (male, guy, the demon that died when John came out of the door thing at the end of S2)?

I'm not particularly arguing your premise, just trying to decide whether I think the problem is that pejoratives for male characters are words we don't think are about maleness (or, whether ones that are, we don't allow on television), per se, and that makes the analysis be partly stuck in a problem that isn't actually Dean's.

I mean, he could call the guy a dick--I think I think regular TV won't censor that in that context, will it? hm.--and that would be a sex-based pejorative. He could certainly not call him a cocksucker (whole other problem with that as a pejorative for a man, but either way, not on the TV, no).

Yes, now I'm rambling. My point is, are these words ones that can be gotten away with where masculine equivalents can't, or, are there masculine equivalents used for a bad guy guy, or are you saying that he only calls female characters anything bad?

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

He continually called the YED a son of a bitch. Most of the times Dean says "son of a bitch" in season two, it seems to be about him.

For the most part for the first two seasons he was calling male antagonists worse things than he was the female antagonists. And most of the time, it's "son of a bitch." This season, "son of a bitch" has almost dropped off the radar while bitch, skank, slut, whore, and broad are all over the place.

[blue-berry.livejournal.com]

Here via esorlechar's journal, and just wanted to say thank you so much for doings this, it is appreciated.

[elynross.livejournal.com]

Thank you for doing this, it's really interesting. Reading through comments, I'm struck by how people seem willing to write off SOB as being more or less "okay," or not as bad as directly calling a female character of whatever sort a denigrating name. To me, the casual use of SOB, where the entire insult towards the target is based in their descent from a bitch, whether intending to say their mother was a dog, or that she was a woman of low moral character/whatever "bitch" connotes, still shows a certain level of misogynistic attitude, whether intentional, or culturally assimilated.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Exactly. That's part of why I made a point of documenting every time someone was called an SOB -- because it's insulting a man by insulting a woman.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Thanks for putting this together. This season of SPN has made me wince so many times and it's nice to have proof that there is a quantifiable increase in sexist language.

[stewardess.livejournal.com]

Ugh. Thank you for the confirmation of what I had sensed.

[medie]

Yeah. Ironic part is, if Kripke is doing this in response to the more vocal fans, he's only serving to do his show a disservice. I know in my case, when I've had opportunity to spend money (and thus support) on show-related material, I've opted not to. Purely because of the way season three seems to have gone out of its way to alienate me as a woman. If, because of my gender, I'm not good enough for Supernatural, then clearly my money isn't either.

And this would be why the CW is one season away from oblivion.

[lily-liedtome.livejournal.com]

I'm almost glad I haven't watched the third season yet, if this is what I have to look forward to. I love this show and these characters, but, christ! When I first started watching during season one, i would find myself yelling at the screen over gender issues and misogyny and that it's gotten worse, just. Fail, guys.

Thanks for putting this together, though, it's really informative.

[vee-fic.livejournal.com]

Thanks for all the labor that went into this. It's very depressing.

(And the secret inside part of me is also going, Dudes, get a thesaurus! I can think of some awesome, censor-approved name-calling you could do, that doesn't have any gender application in the slightest! And now that I'm thinking about it, I bet douchebag is even censor-approved!)

[tinylegacies.livejournal.com]

Douchebag gets used on How I Met Your Mother, so it must be censor-approved.

[se-parsons.livejournal.com]

I was going to do this myself after arguing that the insults were much thicker on the ground this season, but you've taken that bullet for all of us.

Thanks.

[static-pixie.livejournal.com]

Hey, thanks for putting up this tally, though it's sad to see. I mean, you could just tell from watching this whole season that Dean's language in particular had changed, I think I commented on it once after one of his encounters with Ruby.

Like someone above said, I think it's to appease the networks and try and get that male fanbase. People keep saying that Dean's a sexist asshole and, while he does have his moments, SPN also took great pains with his treatment of Jo to show us that when it comes to business, the sexism drops away and you're either a good hunter or a bad hunter, a good guy or a bad guy. And the fact that female pejoratives were used against men so often in the past sort of signified that, I think. I could always deal with the way he treated Jo in BUaBS because I knew he was treating her like an inferior hunter who'd get in the way, not a silly woman who'd get in the way. If the same thing had happened this season...I probably wouldn't have been so sure (probably because he'd have said something like, 'and don't try and follow me you stupid skankwhorebitch!')

[kestrelsan.livejournal.com]

Thanks for putting this together--it's even more of a difference from S1&2 to 3 than I expected.

[amalthia]

thanks for gathering this information. I mean I felt like this season was more offensive having the facts makes me feel not as crazy.

[phaballa.livejournal.com]

So, going on the assumption that word choice is both important and intentional:

1) Possibly part of Dean's animosity towards Ruby is because he sees himself in her. She's what he's going to become, it's his worst nightmare, and when he calls her a bitch and a slut, he's also calling himself those things. I'm sure I could write a whole essay on that, actually. They're mirrors in a lot of ways, not just because Dean has sold his soul and is about to become her, but because they both fight for Sam's attention; they fight to have Sam believe them and not the other.

2) It's definitely important to look at the ways in which the other characters and the world of SPN itself reacts to the name-calling. Does the world ever punish Dean for being a jerk? Yeah, it does--Ruby beats the crap out of him. Clearly, the world itself isn't so keen on Dean being a jerk. His character might be misogynistic, but the show itself doesn't condone that.

3) I think it's also important to look at Dean as a whole person with a background and a history and so on. In SPN, as in a lot of horror/fantasy shows, the supernatural is a traditionally female world; if we consider old, patriarchal views of society, science = masculine and witchery, faith, etc = feminine. In that case, you've got Dean, inherently masculine and physical, trying to navigate his way through a feminine space that he not only doesn't understand, but has been brought up to NEVER understand and to hate without just cause or reason. In Dean's world, masculine=good and feminine=bad, and only in a very few instances can he be convinced that supernatural=good (ie the Vampires), and that's only when those supernatural beings give UP their supernaturalness (ie their femininity) and embrace science (ie animal blood, etc) instead.

So maybe Dean's freaking out in S3 with the bitches and sluts because he realizes that very soon, he's going to become a part of that feminine supernatural world he's been fighting against since he was a kid, and this is just one of his many petty forms of resistance. If he tries to strip the supernatural world of dignity with words, maybe he can regain some of the masculine power he lost when he made his crossroads deal.

...or something.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

1) Yes. And if the show criticized his name-calling of either Ruby or Bella in the same way it criticized his self-destructive behaviors of violence and casual sex (i.e., often, and often through Sam's intervention), then we'd be having a separate discussion. But instead his behavior goes unremarked.

2) As Trollprincess points out, Ruby asked Dean stop calling her a bitch *several episodes* before the fight, to no effect. Although she does beat him up for his language, it's strongly implied that he provoked the fight in order to get the knife away from her and to get her into the circle. As punishments go, that's not very effective, and as the critical voice of the narrative it ... kind of doesn't work at all. As does the failure of anyone to call Dean on his remarks to Bella.

3) What in the show itself do you see as criticizing this conception of the supernatural as feminine, weak, wicked, and immoral, as opposed to depending on and reinforcing it?

[gelliaclodiana]

Thanks so much for pulling this together -- I'm a little shocked by just how seriously the usage escalated this season. I knew it was worse, but not how much worse.

It's so disturbing.