Supernatural and Consent: Why Season 9's Writing Team Has No Excuse
So I recently found out that when Sera Gamble was still writing for Supernatural (up until the end of season 7) she reached an argument with the rest of the writing team in season 4 with the reintroduction of Ruby. Ruby’s sexual relationship with Sam was to be a part of the plot but Sera Gamble was put off by it since Ruby was possessing someone’s body and that would mean that that someone was conscious while intercourse was happening, making the whole act non consensual.
Q: I need to take a few sentences to gush over “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” The script was gorgeous, as was Jared’s performance of Sam at his absolute lowest point. You gave him some outstanding material to work with. Out of all your scripts, that so far is my favorite. Having said that, did the ridiculous fan debate about Sam being a rapist prompt you to give Ruby an empty shell to inhabit (great line, by the way, “Al Gore would be proud”) or was that the plan all along?
A: We started work on the episode before any debate began that I know of, so none of it was a reaction. But we did know that Sam having sex with a demon would be provocative. Actually, I was very excited to work on the episode. People do a lot of otherwise unthinkable things when they’re grieving. Who doesn’t want to write the episode where a character they’ve worked on for 70 episodes does stuff he’d otherwise never do?
But anyway, the state of Ruby’s body was the subject of much conversation, mostly because I couldn’t shut up about it. I just couldn’t get past the rape thing. I think I actually disappointed some people I work with, who thought I’d be tougher or darker or something. Or possibly just didn’t care as much as I did one way or another. But I took a lot of writers’ room time talking about it. And ultimately took the long way around so I could get her into a vaguely more morally acceptable body. I readily admit it’s rather silly, and the mechanics are contrived — that’s why I leaned into the joke so much. (x)
Ok so regardless of the really horrible wording of the question (“ridiculous fan debate”) and the fact that Gamble was essentially pushed around by her (misogynistic) coworkers into seeing her issues with the episode as “silly” my anger does not come from the shitty writing team of the past but from that of the present. When Gamble was there in season 4, she made sure that the soul of the body that Ruby was using had already left it. Unfortunately, Gamble was not there in season 9. I know that everyone has discussed this already when the episode came out but I feel like bringing this up again because of the above interview.
When Castiel has intercourse with April in episode 3, she is being possessed by a reaper (I’m not sure when reapers possessing bodies became a thing but whatever). Human April is still there while the reaper that’s possessing her body and Castiel have intercourse. Human April is being raped.
The excuse that a lot of people had for what happened in that episode is that the writers probably didn’t think about it that way and when the fandom shitstorm happened, it was too late to change anything. However, the same fucking issue had been brought up five seasons earlier and there is no way that everyone in the writer’s room forgot that. Basically what happened was that there was no one who stood up to say “hey, this is rape” so the whole thing was ignored. It wouldn’t have taken long for them to establish that human April was no longer there either, all it took for Ruby was three short lines of dialogue between her and Sam:
Ruby: Proof. This body is 100% socially conscious. I recycle. Al Gore would be proud.
Sam: You grabbed a coma patient?
Ruby: You didn’t want me to take a body with someone in it, and I made sure that the spirit was gone. Apartment was empty. You happy?
I’m not going to talk about why this happened because the only answer I can come up with is that the current team of writers are all misogynistic assholes who couldn’t care less about how uncomfortable they make the fandom since the fandom’s concerns are “ridiculous”.
My main point with this is that the writers have no excuse for what they let happen with April. To make matters worse, not only did they not apologise for what happened or even have the characters in the show discuss it and feel remorse (something that I think would have been in character for Castiel) but they brought up the rape again and in the most uncomfortable way ever.
Castiel: Well, Bartholomew wants to reverse Metatron’s spell. Presumably to – to retake Heaven once his following is large enough. That’s according to April.
Dean: The reaper you banged.
Castiel: Yeah, and you stabbed.
Dean: Yeah. (awkward pause) She was hot.
Castiel: So hot. And very nice.
Dean: (appreciatively) Mm.
Castiel: Up to the point she started torturing me.
Dean: Yeah. Well, not every hookup’s perfect. (Dean pats Castiel’s arm companionably.)
Really? Are you being serious right now Supernatural writers or are just fucking with us? You bring up April in conversation for basically a whole awkward minute and all you have to say about her is that she was “hot”? They could have had Castiel show remorse for doing something that he never intended to do. They could have shown him feel guilty for having raped a woman who was then murdered by Dean. I mean even Hannibal, a show about a man who eats people refuses to have rape be a part of it.
But no, our “heroes” only care that she was so hot and what a shame that she died because it was really fun for Castiel to bang her because, you know, Castiel is not and has never been a multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent, he is a heterosexual man who just loves to have intercourse and stare at women’s cleavage (nice waste of 5 seconds on screen there by the way).
Not only that, but when you think of it, Castiel was being violated himself. Rape by fraud is a very legitimate thing, and while yeah, in the real world, that fraud isn’t going to be as intense as the person you think you’re having sex with is being possessed by a supernatural creature, that almost makes it worse. He should be upset. He shouldn’t be fine with it. The Castiel from earlier seasons WOULD NOT BE FINE WITH IT. In any form. It’s just ridiculous how low the writing has fallen. And this, children, is why I pretty much stopped watching after that episode. It upset me too much as a survivor of sexual assault to continue watching the show. There, I said it.