Eternal Sunshine of Dean Winchester's mind
I believe this is the most controversial scene when it comes to analysis of Dean’s sexuality, and personally, it really frustrates me when people consider Dean’s interest in cross-dressing to be a proof of his non-heterosexuality, because 1) this is a stereotype straight from Sexual Orientation Hypothesis and 2) you’re kind of missing the point?
The point here is not that he put on some pink panties or that he liked it.
Let’s not fixate on the fact the Dean once was entertained by the idea of wearing female underwear, and think about the circumstances of us finding out about this. Whom is he telling this and why?
He is telling it to his future!self in order to proof his identity. This is one of those scenes when Dean’s unconscious is answering for him, because he doesn’t have time to think the answer through. This is one of the scenes that truly open up his inner world.
All his life Dean has been pushing his emotions and issues so deep, trying to silence them forever, but of course, it can’t be done, so they hid in his unconscious. As the result, Dean is a walking freudian slip. He identifies himself with music lyrics, he projects other people’s problems on himself. When he tries to talk people down, when he reacts to certain situations - it is always more about him and his own insecurities, than about people he is talking to. Everything he says is actually deeper than it seems to be. By the way, it seems that people close to him know it and react accordingly. Here is a good example (but most certainly not the only one):
Dean: Maybe it’s punishment, maybe it’s sick, messed-up, erotic, kinky, clamps-and-feathers kind of love…
Sam: Okay, okay, that’s—that’s going way too deep there, cowboy.
Dean is not talking about a married couple of witches. Sick, messed-up? Kinky? Clamps-and-feathers? Dean is talking about himself, and Sam realizes it. Does Dean? No, I don’t think he does. This is an impulsive speech, specifically created to let Dean speak without giving it a second thought and under extreme circumstances, and his choice of words in nothing else but his unconscious talking.
And that scene resembles the one in “The End” very much.
I want to draw a parallel here, and bear with me, because it’s not quite the obvious one. If you ever saw the movie “Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind”, it would be easier for you, but if not, here is a short summary: the hero is unable to hide his beloved who is being erased from his mind in their shared memories, so she asks him to hide her somewhere deeper, somewhere really buried: in his humiliation.
And it works for a while, because this is a place where she doesn’t belong, where no one belongs, and the program can’t find her - not until the doctor manually deletes that memory as well.
Why is this important? Because every one knows, demons and other monsters can read minds. There is nothing you can possibly say to prove that you are you.
Unless you go deeper, so deep where they won’t look. You go into your most suppressed memory. “I’m you, because I know your deepest, dirtiest secret, something no demon will ever find”.
Now, as I mentioned earlier, there is nothing wrong with putting on female underwear. It is not supposed to be humiliating, And it is not “gay”, especially considering that that was happening during a heterosexual intercourse and he was basically a teenager eager to get in her pants. When I was a teenager, I once made my boyfriend to wear lipstick and mascara, because I wanted to. That did not make him gay, I can assure you.
So why is Dean so afraid of this memory? Why is this the memory he resorts to for identification? What is this scene really trying to say?
In my eyes, this scene is just another indication of Dean’s suppressed personality, coming from masculine image he was trying to build around him to impress John. This scene does not identify him as queer (although other things do, but it’s been meta-d about so many times I lost count), but it most certainly shows us once again how deeply he is afraid of letting go of his stereotypical and forced masculinity.
In this season, we got to see Dean wearing a costume and being cool about it. Not only that, we got to see Dean wearing a literal queen crown - the most feminine symbol of all - and be cool about it. This is Dean coming out of his father’s shadow and starting to be himself. This journey progresses through the episodes, especially I would like to point out the subtext in “As time goes by”: Henry smashing the Impala’s window, Henry saying that Dean was never meant to be a hunter and showing them the other journey, and, of course, Henry falling out of the closet, followed by three mentions of that fact, including the phrase Sam says: “When one of us falls out of your closet…”. In the next episode we see Dean hiding his FBI badge when Aaron is flirting with him and then saying to Sam several times about the “gay thing”. The subtext in the latest episodes is getting pretty blatant, and that’s no coincidence: Dean is getting more and more comfortable in his shoes, so there is no need to cling to subtext and innuendos anymore.
Now, why is this happening now and why is this so important?
I believe the answer hides in the Castiel’s storyline. When Castiel saved Dean, he was an absolute. He was a beautiful, strong warrior who had no doubts. Saving Dean broke him, and essentially led him to the situation he is now - situation he can’t save himself from - not only physically, but also psychologically. Dean’s story mirrors Castiel’s, but the roles are reversed: Dean ends his journey as a heroine and becomes a hero, whereas Castiel becomes a heroine who needs to be saved. (I will write a separate meta about this, because this one already getting longer than I anticipated).
The fact that Dean stepped on that journey doesn’t mean he is there yet, nor does it guarantee he won’t take any steps back. On the contrary, they are inevitable. John’s ghost, this fake persona Dean created for himself and lived as for so long will fight back for its survival. “He did a hell of a lot more good than he did bad”. But even here, we don’t get “the best he could” speech. Instead, Dean is saying: “he did bad”. It is not a statement, it is a bargain. His inner demon is trying to push back with “the weight of the world is on your shoulders” coin, but sooner or later it will stop working. Sooner or later, he will realize that he can’t save everyone, and it’s not his job to save everyone. Even more, it is not his destiny anymore. And that doesn’t mean that he will ever stop being a hunter or helping people. It simply means he will accept himself for who he truly is.
