The weirdest part about this whole thing was that it didn't even seem like they were replying to the question that was asked?? It was like they were replying to a totally different question.
Exactly Jensen could of stopped after he said Dean found out at time of confession. That was all that was asked in question they could of moved on without the whole rant
I was in the room when that shit storm happened and I’ve had PTSD since, like, I can’t get it out of my head. My brain started misfiring as soon as Jared opened his mouth and then I think my soul left my body when he talked about not wanting to have sex with his son -_- I went up to the mother who asked the question afterward and she began crying because they made her feel like an “absolute idiot” (her words) and I tried my best to validate and comfort her. But it got me thinking- “No matter what I say to this woman, it won’t change what was said.” So here’s to hoping Jensen and Jared (especially) address it at the next con and fucking apologize. Really tho Bob- this video is what I needed to help process such a horrific moment and attempt to move forward from it. So- Thank you. Deeply and sincerely xx
@@vanessadavis5771it was denver and please watch it because this toxic derangers spread here lies as always only bc jared and jensen said that spn was about platonic love, brothers and not their fanfic ship estiel...
Jared had a very weird rant (and Jensen allowed it) to a question that's not that complicated, they could've just kept it at Dean found out when cas told him and moved on.
Wtf do you mean "and Jensen allowed it"? These guys are grown ass men and, last time I checked, Jensen isn't Jared's fucking father/guardian/warden. Stop.
What should he fibd out you toxic shipper??? Castiel did not tell him that he is in love with him! Just that he loves him - howevrr ugly that scene was, however it made no sense after 2 seassons of cadtiel being everything about jack and not caribg for dean... castiel told sam and dean that he lives them in s13 as well!!! What should dean find out??? Castiel is unhuman thing big as a chrysler tower posessing a body - in spn it was a body of 12y old girl and a straight family father! That collins needed to pander to only fans he has - fanfic shippers is other thing! But in the soeach or in the script or based on the actions - castiel loved dean and everybody else ( it is oart of his speach!) ...he is not in love with anybody!!! In difference to collins j2 know what spn is about and do not need to pander to anybody!
Also, the woman said absolutely nothing about sex, so why did they make their answer all about gay sex??? I’m beginning to think hetero people don’t actually love their partners, because that’s what they think about us.
@@MasterOfTheElements I think they mean if he's thinking about gay sex so much, there's a chance he might be secretly into men but in denial due to internalized homophobia. Of course, you can be attracted to more than one gender. Still, anything Lgtbqi+ is pretty much gay for any homophobe out there and being called secretly gay drives them mad. I love driving homophobes mad lol
@@MasterOfTheElementsI think what they mean is that a lot of straight people, when asked about queer romance, end up talking about sex. Like don't they feel any romantic feelings towards their own wifes? Or do they only feel sexual desires towards them and that's what romance mean to them?
i just dont understand how they had a full year of pr prep and still could fuck up that badly. we expected being annoyed at the bare minimum but this was beyond embarrasing and shitty
I guess they were only prepped for antagonistic or aggressive questions. Which to be fair, makes sense since this fandom is KNOWN for being overtly toxic. Like it was stated in the video, they were thrown a curveball with this gift of a question and their minds were trying to rewire and readjust from the whiplash of not having to be defensive. I mean, Jensen was doing pretty good, but Jared was the one who was struggling, and then Jensen tried to save Jared, and then they both went down in flames.
Thanks for the breakdown! What a creepy answer. Even as an ace, I have to note that whether or not Cas or Dean wanted to boink each other is not the business of cannon. Did Sam want to Boink Eileen? Did they boink and how much? Nobody asks that question for straight ships. And like you said, their idea of sexless love is invalidating. If Dean and Cas had gotten together and wanted to hold hands in public or get married or buy a house together, that is a valid comitted relationship with or without sex. Intentional or not, that is bending over backwards to invalidate the whole thing, and finishing up with the old trope that Cas is just too weird, which in itself has some bad implications for queer, neurodiverse and any people getting the Weird stamp. This is one epic fuckup.
coming back here in may 2024 a few days after mr jensen ackles said the confession was "not subtext, it was clear text" talking about cas' love for dean is.. something. we love to see growth
Can you tell me where he said that? Just curious, bc I haven’t seen it and the validation would be really nice to have for my own eyes. If you don’t remember, no worries!
The biggest sin of the Supernatural cast is that since the beginning of the show they have allowed their homophobic fans free rein on all aspects of the show. If you don't condemn bigotry and homophobia you ARE condoning it period! This show was never a true ally for the LGBTQ+ community or other marginalized communities due to the condoning of the behavior of the fans of this show who are on the religious right.
It was never a real ally, it just acted like an ally to try and get more fans and therefore, more revenue which means more money They are just another greedy company
I really like this response it addresses and explains why people were hurt and upset in a really clear way. I also really think this video shows the virtue of thinking about a response to something without being reactionary.
This is a show I have loved because of the love and loyalty between two brothers. Why pick apart every word ? If you don’t love Supernatural, Sam and brother Dean change the channel.
@@vickichristian4474 because there’s more to it than that. No one’s saying the show shouldn’t have ended with the brothers. They were the core, but they allowed others in.
@@vickichristian4474 It certainly started as a show about brothers. But the producers introduced characters throughout the whole series which were important to the development of the show. It was no ensemble cast for sure but with recurring important characters. And picking apart Jared's words at the con in regard to that question is more than valid. And even if your watched the show bc of Sam and Dean for others it might be different.
This was a great video. At this point, I really don't think there's any other way to interpret this other than Jared and Jenson desperately trying to distance themselves from the LGBTQIA+ legacy of the show. It’s very clear that that’s not what they signed up for and it makes them visibly uncomfortable to imagine the show they spent 15 years on will forever be associated with and remembered for a gay relationship between two of its leads and its iconic queerbaiting. In Jared’s case it’s a gay relationship that doesn’t even include him (the so called lead of the show). It’s the only way to explain why *another* character being in love with one of their characters is enough to prompt this kind of bizarre erasure. I’m honestly going to need people to see Jensen’s response for what it is. I saw people on Twitter talking about the magic of heavenly love that can’t be defined. It is so very clearly a way to distance Dean (and himself) from words like gay and romantic. If not, then it’s some kind of backhanded way to imply that romantic love between two male (male presenting in Cas’ case) would some how make their love less pure. And God forbid two male characters want to sleep together. That might prompt a 5 minute rant that ties in queer love to incest and pedophilia. Jeez.
i mean they did also have wincest. that was a pretty significant thing that happened. like i understand where you’re coming from here but they very much did have wincest. AO3 was founded by a wincest and a thorki shipper because they wanted to make a safe space for ALL fanfics correctly tagged. So like, Jared IS pretty much involved in a gay relationship that will be remembered for years to come, but I'll admit it's probably not as interesting to dissect in youtube essays so this is leading people to believe that destiel is and has always been more popular.
@@Nemamka He's just a living contradiction, he wants to be remembered for something that isn't queerbaiting AND YET ENGAGED WITH INCEST IN HIS OWN SHOW! He had willingly done wincest stuff in the show and didn't care Yet when Dean and Cas are meant to be in love(Or whatever) Suddenly he has a problem? It bleeds with bigotry whether he wants it to or not
I have been kinda avoiding spn “news” because I’ve been dreading exactly this happening, so this is actually the first I’ve really seen about this. *sigh* this was painful. I think that Jensen “might” well have been able to reply to this with some grace…..he at least appeared to be trying to think it thru. Jared on the other hand, needs a muzzle. This isn’t the first time he’s made a twat of himself by “opening mouth, inserting foot” but this time it was really kinda hurtful. The fandom have supported him thru some of his stupider moments, and then he does this? I hope he is going to apologise to the fandom (not just the lbqt fans, but ALL the fandom)for what he said, and hopefully have someone sit him down and explain in little words, exactly what he has to apologise for…….but I’m not expecting it. After all, back pedalling and retconning are how they’ve always dealt with things they don’t wanna deal with. It was like “argh they asked about “it”…….quick, fall back to we’re all “bros”” CAS did NOT love Dean as a “bro”…….that has been confirmed! And then Jensen decided to go with Jared’s ramble…….not ok, but I’m betting there’ll be no apology there either. At this point I was ….here we go again…..so disappointed.
Jared definitely needs to apologize to the fans. This comment and his comments about Dean’s death were both horrible. Jensen I think is just tired of having this narrative pushed. He’s had threats sent to him from this fan base in the past. He said he wasn’t comfortable with the narrative of Destiel and then Misha knowing that said “yea Cas was in love with Dean.”
Interesting to listen to, thanks Bob, my main concern in this whole story is how much, wanting or not, Jared undermined Misha and everything he has said in the past, by essentially implying that he ( Misha) does not understand the character he's been playing for 13 years. That made me sad, TBH.
@@ImCastielsBitch01 He'd probably be heartbroken, he would've thought that Jared and Jensen were both his close friends on set, and they were just willingly demeaning his knowledge about the character HE WAS PLAYING for the past 13 years It's just horrible.
@@ImCastielsBitch01 It really says a lot about those two, I mean how can they act as if they know more about Castiel as a character WHEN MISHA PLAYED THE BASTARD FOR THE PAST DECADE?! They're just assholes for that
Bob, this was just what I needed to hear this evening. I'd watched their panel on UA-cam last night and then went to bed with another SPN-induced ache in my heart. Woke up and discovered SO much emotion being vented on social media (that's mainly TikTok for me) that I almost deleted the app. I mean, I understand the reactions, I do. I felt hurt as well. And it's not that I'm some crazed, obsessive Destiel shipper (although I am), but mainly I'm a 60 year old lesbian who can't understand why they find my kind so distasteful they need to stumble over backward distancing themselves from something the show's writers established as canon. But watching your video now, and listening to your calm, thoughtful, voice of reason - man, I need more people like you in my life! I still don't feel good about it, but I feel better about feeling bad because of you (if that makes any sense). So thank you for being you.
And yet they made Charlie a lesbian which proves that straight men will always be more comfortable with showing same sex relationships between women than between men which is totally unfair.
This is a great! I also think baked in there is another homophobic idea, also under unintentional and more-education-needed category: this insistence on "oh it's angelic and pure! Not *sexual*!!" response. Full of implications that if queer sexual desire were a part of the romantic feelings, that would make those feelings...bad? worse? Icky? Just the contrast between the emphasis there and Adam and Serafina making out all over the place...
Exactly. This idea separates "good gays" and "bad gays". Good gays stay between the four walls and are infantilized, bad gays go to pride and bars and love themselves and live their life and - gasp - might even have a series of partners before settling to marry (like every straight person ever). And this is incredibly dangerous because you'll just never know where the line is. Where is the line crossing from good to bad? When are you going to get discriminated against? Also who holds that power over you and who gives them the right to do so? So yeah it's very very icky that when it comes to queer love, their mind immediately jumps to - oh no but what about the sex because lgbt sex is bad. This is some bullshit thinking we should already have left behind in the 60's, what were they even thinking going on these weird tangents is beyond me.
@@Nemamka They were left in the same bigotry that ruined the original show That queerness is inherently unholy or not divine in any way, they just thought the same way and couldn't move past it
Aside from the - embarrassing at best and straight up disgusting at worst - display of these entire answers they gave, one of the things that bothered me the most was that they completely ignored the context of WHO wrote that scene. The hurt people felt was not just about what theoretical queer people that answer was going to and has been damaging, but the fact that they very much distorted the intensions of and disrespected the very openly gay man who is behind that declaration that they just refuse to acknowledge for what it is. There is an actual, tangible queer person involved (without even including Misha, mind) who could be directly hurt by their words. A whole entire year to think about what they could have said, and yet it feels like they came up with that answer without letting it pass by their brains first at all. It's baffling, having enough time to think about every single angle and element to this and come up so f*ucking short.
They have absolutely no responsibility to cater to that man’s feelings. Did you ever consider that unlike you, they didn’t spend every second of that year obsessing over that scene? And to say that they came up short simply because they didn’t give you the answer or opinion you wanted… That level of entitlement is absolutely insane.
@@Slappys They absolutely have the responsibility to be decent to a coworker. They didn't need to think about that scene for the entire year to come up with a non-homophobic answer, five minutes would have been enough. Plus, you have literally no idea what I wanted them to say so do not make unnecessary assumptions.
@@ChiaraBuries In the last 18 or whatever months, they’ve moved on. They are busy with other projects and their families. Doubt they had the time to sit down and think about every question a fan could possibly ask, and Jensen has already addressed Destiel on a number of occasions.
@@SamiLo2 If you need "18 months or whatever" to think of a non-homophobic answer, maybe you have underlying issues. Also, if, as you say, they have indeed "moved on" and don't want to answer questions about the show, and everything it entails, they can just stop doing SPN cons and stop taking money from fans who go there to ask questions about the show the con is about. You do the con, you get called out when you give a shitty and offensive answer, it's as easy as that.
It makes me deeply sad that the arguments from Good Omens (the experience of love and gender is different for celestial beings) is being transferred over to this series to propagate homophobia. Even in the Good Omens fandom the argument is a biiit suspect at times, tempered only by the fact that the original authors both have proven very supportive of the queer community. For the much less reputable Supernatural actors to be saying "ah, well, it's just not the same as human love" is, frustrating. Just let things be gay already.
spn has always lacked the courage to admit what they did, not like the creators of hannibal, sherlock and good omens, who without being explicit built these characters as lovers and have no problem admitting it. We never need to see Dean and Castiel kissing or having sex to know all the romantic drama and that it was destined for tragedy. hannigram is the top1 of toxic relationships followed by destiel hahahaha
I love this entire take. As an ace person I was so unable to verbalize WHY I felt so grossed out when certain fans were insisting I needed to celebrate the 'inclusive' answer. Thank you ! ❤
You just know if Cas was played by a woman, there would be none of this hemming and hawing about whether or not his love is romantic. Your discomfort with gays is showing, J2.
@@traveler317 lmao no just confused as to why someone who hates Destiel and Bi!Dean and Destiel shippers is here. Are you just here to leave hateful comments because you’re bitter?
I think it wouldn't have worked if it was a woman for the fans. Even Jensen himself said in a panel that if they gave her an official partner they would surely kill her thanks to the fans, so if Castiel had been what he had to be at the beginning, but vercion woman would have killed her in season 4, Much of what Castiel is to this day is thanks to Misha, without him, the character would never have lasted so long. I mean how many times cw brought him out because they didn't want him as he was sticking out a lot like other secondary ones, but unfortunately the fans didn't let them pass and they had to bring him back
I just want someone to ask J2 and the creators why they green lit the confession if they were gonna be so fucking weird about it?? Wasn’t Jensen asked about the confession before it was shot and written and he agreed so what’s the issue??
The issue is Jensen needs/wants to continue working. He has to catter to all audiences in hopes to be seen as more than Dean, the guy who got a confession from a dude.. but you can't please everyone, that's is impossible.
@@mffmoniz2948 As frustrated as this makes me, you're right. We can make other assumptions about character but the fact is that there is absolutely a professional interest in him distancing himself from non-straight roles and characters. That makes me angry. I still stand by the original poster though and wonder...... why would you agree to this though? Why agree if you feel it's so harmful to your career prospects that you're going to try to walk it back at every opportunity. Just say no. It's bizarre.
Yeah I get what both of you are saying don’t get me wrong! I guess I was just hoping he’d say something more diplomatic like ‘I can’t speak on misha’s behalf as to what the intention of the scene or his acting choices were but I enjoyed it greatly and wanted fans to be able to freely interpret deans response’ rather than going on a tangent about heavenly love that alienated fans. Just my thoughts though!
@@mffmoniz2948 Jensen has also said he wants to do more SPN-related stuff, so he can’t piss off the ppl who own the property rights, and he may also be hoping to at some point in the future get to explore it actually as Dean, and being too definitive now as Jensen could limit what people get from that performance later on? Or even make him feel boxed in himself rather than open to the script he’d get in the future?
late but apparently the reason why ppl can’t ask about destiel, about the confession is because of daniela (also cw) but she’s the reason, she’s the one that doesn’t even allow jenmish panels and always make jred interrump them. jensen talked about the confession so different in an interview so that for me just prove it that the problem is those panels and the people that work there. jred ‘helping’ jensen i see more as they muting jensen. and im not trying to defend even tho i love jensen but this is how i see
Thank you for this. I have tried so many times to explain that I am not mad as a shipper, but as a queer person. All I've gotten in response is that I'm just a bitter shipper and that I should be grateful that Jared validated me. It's honestly exhausting. At this point, it's just having to accept that some people will ignore anything you say if they don't agree with your veiw, whether or not you have a good point. I'm sick of having to explain that love doesn't=sex, gender= doesn't equal body parts, and that any form of sexuality that isn't strictly heterosexual doesn't=deviant. But that's just something we have to get used to i guess. I understand that what Jared said was probably not intending to be malicious, however I don't believe it was his place to speak on the feelings of a character that is not his, especially when the actor who played the character has already spoken on the matter. Nor do I think it was his place to speak on a scene he had no involvement in, at all. I think he overstepped. I dont think saying that deserves an attack on my character. Alas, this is the fandom I signed up for.
I don't even ship it because of how Dean treated Cas. I always thought Cas loved Dean though and the confession was obviously romantic clarified by the wording of confession the writer who wrote it and Misha. Jared's answer was horrifying and the worst one but why is everyone coddling Jensen?. Jensen let Jared take over agreed with everything he said and hugged him. Jensen was not mad at Jared he agreed with everything he said. He went out of his way earlier to say if Jack was a girl Dean would glance at him to show that Dean only interested in girls. Outside the Destiel thing they invalidate everything Cas was. Cas always had too much heart, always loved too much so yes he did have human emotion. Jared on this occasion was the most problematic but wish people would stop with this Jensen can do no wrong. Hold them both accountable. The other thing is Why did they even do the confession. Why do this scene knowing the outrage and awkardness it was going to create? Who sits down and goes we're going to do a love confession followed by bury the gays and then we're going to pretend it never happened. The character who confessed his love who is a favourite for many people is going to be treated like he never existed. Why even do it they had to know the drama this would stir up
That bothered me too! It seems like some people were pushing it as a progressive thing behind the scenes, which is just... yikes. I want to question how it is that J and J are this bad after 12 years of shipping and almst a full year to come up with answers to the questions they knew were coming, but if that is what the Spn crew comes up with when trying to be allies... I'll keep an eye on what they do in the future. If Misha wants to be seen as an ally, he'll have to make up for that trainwreck of a scene. The other two are clearly not allies, but their individual views are harder to tell.
@@mimimurlough what can misha do though hes not allowed to speak. He has said on his opinion it unrequited but Cas made a declaration of love. He was proud to speak of the scene then this happened. Him and J2 are never going to agree on it he can't go against them at a con. Cas got a terrible ending and unfortunately the whole destiel thing covered that. They really killed off a depressed lonely character for having one moment of happiness in confessing his one sided love to his friend who barely even cared he was gone. And j2 are so focused on ungaying it that they haven't even said anything about sam or dean appreciating Cas' sacrifice or what the sacrifice itself meant. They're just like yeah the junkless angel has no human emotions his feelings aren't valid your feelings aren't valid and it doesn't matter that Cas died unloved because he had no feelings anyway.
@@shazhamilton5160 I totally agree with you on Castiel's arc. They basically threw him out like so much trash in order to make the last episode brothers only (and even then it's Sam's episode, since Dean is more or less turned into a sidekick with appropriate death). What I'm saying is that Misha was in on how that ended too. He might have been a driving force in turning a meaningless death into a meaningless bury your gays, and he talks it up as if it's a good thing. But you're right that he's probably limited in what he can say about it, which is why I hope he does better in Bridgewater and his other projects. If not? Then he does need to be accountable for his part in this mess.
@@mimimurlough I hold him accountable for letting it happen in first place. He knows his coworker is against it he knew that J2 would use any means to hurt and invalidate people and dodge it and he let this happen. He should of said no Jensen should of said no to scene in first place not let it happen and then act like this. But I believe misha meant well he just wanted cas' ending to be meaningful and to him it was meaningful to me it wasn't it was horrible to see a character I relate to go out like that. J2 have never even entertained the idea of cas being important to sam and dean as family never mind loving dean. How many times have they said cas had no feelings they couldn't relate. Said that Sam and dean would sacrifice cas if needed. Jensen compared cas to a monster once said dean would never be able to relate to him. So how was this a good ending show a character many people love tell another man he loves him and sacrifice life for him while that man in question only sees him as an expandable tool with no feelings.
I get the feeling that all their prep was for more in-your-face sexual questions. And that’s partly because they equate romance and sex. Cas said I love you, not i wanna have sex with you. They didn’t think of the possibility that queer kids might ask about the love and the romance - the pure things, because anything gay in their eyes is sexual and hence not for kids, not pure, not equal to the love of straight people. Their answer I think is a perfect example of trying to sound “woke” but having such a fundamentally wrong perception of queerness that what you say makes no sense - the homophobic thinking seeps through. At the end of the day if queer people see it as homophobia, and the homophobes see it as neutral...then it’s homophobia my guy.
@@MasterOfTheElements Well...they are also in their 40s. And they've had a ton of media training and this subject has been a part of their fandom for years. At some point you have to stop blaming peoples upbringing for their ignorance.
@@MasterOfTheElementsDude, the fact that people expect Texans to be open about being gay. I am Hella gay but I would probably stumble too because of everyone watching and not wanting to piss everyone off. You don't know what crazy person will pull a gun on you for being gay or defending gay people.
It's also weird because before the confession jared in previous panels was totally okay with destiel, so much so that he took opportunities to make fun of jensen or misha because of that, but now.......
I had to go watch it, Jensen's answer definitely could use improvement. He could of easily done that in a less problematic way without "giving anything away" but Jared's answer is a straight up train wreck.
I think Jensen had a (probably) better answer that got steamrolled by Jared and for whatever reason they’re not supposed to disagree too much on stage or something so Jensen had to try to work around Jared’s mess so we ended up with the answer he gave. Supposedly they were seen looking like they were having a more private argument/disagreement not long after?
@@TrappedinSLC It definitely felt like Jensen would of pulled of something a bit more on track without Jared's 'help' I don't want to be an apologist but I'm sure it would of been easy to forget the original question after hearing all that word vomit. They really managed to muck up a real gift of a question though.
@@rahimajackson6899 Exactly. If they’re not supposed to disagree/contradict each other strongly then he was stuck trying to make something out of Jared’s answer and we can’t tell from that what he actually was trying to say at all. Plus if Misha is limited in what he can say about it now, which seems to be the case, then there are probably similar limitations on Jensen. So then we end up with a situation where he’s trying to talk about something without REALLY talking about it (because rules) complicated by Jared adding his own crap that Jensen has to kind of go along with. That’s just not how you get good well-considered answers out of people.
If this is how Jared tried to save Jensen... oof. Jensen began the answer awkward but that's not necessarily bad. I wish he wasn't interrupted at all and we might have gotten an actual answer to the question asked. Jared feeling the need to jump in and just detonate this bomb is really unhelpful. At least Jensen seems to have learned a little over the years going from how he started the answer, but Jared talking about the incest and pedophilia (!!!) is so fucking terrible I'm a little taken aback. 'Love whoever you want, it doesn't mean you want to do something TO them' isn't a supportive statement Jared! As for the gender thing. They do say angels don't have genders but just by watching the show they don't actually do anything with that. They all go by him or her. Everyone refers to Cas as 'he'. Jack call a him his father. It's true he hasn't had a gendered upbringing humans do, but that's all kinda irrelevant because that's never a plot point or even a side story in the show. So for all intents and purposes Cas goes is a guy. So thinking of him as gay or bi is valid.
Jensen, you could tell was trying to verbalize his thoughts and was actually starting to describe Cas' love as a beautiful thing. Jared just waited for Jensen to stop for a breath and just plowed into whatever his hot mess answer was. When they left the stage Jensen didn't even act like he cared if Jared was following or not. Jared ruined what was about to be a thoughtful answer. Glad he got a solo panel and seemed so happy to see Misha.
They always tried to insert an unnecessary woman/random female character on Cas too (meg, emmanuel's unnamed wife, the one human Cas has sex with, that other female Angel). They always used random female characters in order to create conflict between the main (male) characters. They're just clutching at straws when they say Cas "has no gender". Truth is Cas was played by a male actor, and their homophobia/sexism prevent them from realizing Cas was in love with Dean and how fitting/great of a love story that would have been.
Thank you for this thoughtful discussion. I have been in love with a close friend of mine starting from our early 20s to mid 30s now, me being a queer woman and she being straight , I can draw some parallels here. The biggest difference is, my straight friend has always been very open and supportive about our beautiful chemistry to everyone, though there is/will be no reciprocation in the "sexual way". We are always in a very comfortable place in each others' lives. In my opinion, Cas deserves this much at the very least.
Thank you for this narrative and sharing your opinion in that calm and neutral/explanatory way. There was so much pressure on this con and the hopes for answers and confirmations was immense, so trouble, heartbreak and dissapoitment was expected. Personally I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to watch the show again, but I still find community (and solace) in the fandom that is left. I didn’t have high hopes for Jared anyway (regarding his history with problematic answers and online behavior), but this hurt so many people, so many of my dear friends and I’m so exhausted. I’m exhausted to repeat and fight for what Misha originally said after 15x18 and now the show does this weird cover-up. it’s very hurtful to now watch the erasure of what misha canonically wanted for his character and that now he’s the only one to “fight for” big parts of the fandom or calm the people down with reconciliational thoughts, because he cares about us, although he probably also is encouraged to stay silent (see misha/Alex panel) :/
This is such a breath of fresh air. Hearing about what might actually be happening behind the scenes, hearing someone acknowledging the complexity of the situation, it’s really amazing. You brought up so many points I would have never thought about that, and I wish more people were aware of these bts elements (hell, I had no clue either until this video!)
Just to clarify, I’m not saying that if people knew then they wouldn’t have been hurt/shouldn’t have gotten hurt. It still hurts, but it’s just good to know it’s not as simple as it seems.
I actually viewed Jensen's "lust" comment as a response to Jared's weird "junkless" comment because to me it sounded like Jared was implying Cas' confession wasn't romantic because he views Cas as "junkless" and Jensen was responding to that by saying that wasn't important because it wasn't about lust, but maybe that's just how I want to interpret it as an ace person.
That’s how I hear it, too. I’m also on the asexual spectrum so I hear it (combined with some of Jensen’s other comments) as more that Jensen’s take on their overall relationship is that it’s such a big thing that lust is just - not a relevant detail. Like maybe Dean and Cas would have included sex in the way they expressed the relationship to each other, maybe not, but that isn’t really what the relationship is about, it’s just a way of connecting when in squishy human bodies?
~ 6:00 I don't think the question was angling for info about Dean's feelings. Maybe whether Dean and/or Sam were aware of *Cas'* feelings, as she asked whether the actors dropped hints into their own acting, but not if those were reciprocated by Dean. But it was definitely about when the actors figured out/were told that Cas' romantic feelings would be canonised. Instead of answering that, they chose to invalidate those feelings and every fan who saw them as canon, now. If Misha is allowed to say that this obviously romantic scene was indeed about romantic (and therefore in this case, queer by human standards) feelings on Cas side because THAT IS CANON, surely J2 are allowed to do the same? Why are they not in the same vein obligated to keep their mouth shut about another character's sexual interest (or lack thereof) in other people? Sure, romantic attraction is seperate from sexual attraction, but it tends to correlate in most people if the first is present. That's kinda the expected default in reality and possibly more so in stories (at least in straight ships) and should therefore be a perfectly valid interpretation of his character unless canon explicitly states otherwise. There was no excuse for them saying all of that. As you pointed out, it directly contradicted multiple parts of canon info about angels (they can feel human emotions. Some of them too much. Those ones got lobotomised for it ffs). The fact that Jared jumped in with "he's junkless" directly after Jensen said that in his opinion Cas' feelings were free of lust, makes imo all too clear that this was not about gender or validating ace!Cas headcanons, it was about desexualising the queer angel and excusing it with the "Angel" part.
"(they can feel human emotions. Some of them too much. Those ones got lobotomised for it ffs)" it's like!!! yeah!!! do you guys even remember your own plot?!?! No?? Okay then.... Very well phrased comment!
Thank you for this. So well said and I completely agree. I am hurt, angry, & upset specifically as a Queer person! While I ship Destiel, I am not upset as a shipper (I never expected it to go canon or Dean's reciprocation to be confirmed at all)...
They're just actos. They simply spit lines and make expressions directed by a script. Those are questions to be given to the writers, not the actors. Actors can only asume and try interpret. They just know a bit more than the viewer but not that much.
So well said, especially the breakdown of both the answer (and what was so hurtful about it) and the reasons why that answer probably happened at all. I'm a fan of Destiel but know that fans expect a lot from the cast sometimes and look for answers that they just aren't going to get. But I completely agree with you that this should've been the safest question to give a neutral answer to (and that it really seemed like J2 had prepared for a completely different type of question that they weren't asked.) Even worse was that it was asked by the mother of queer kids. I'm glad this answer helped light on both of then and their current feelings about the confession scene and shippers in general, but hate that this is going to be used to invalidate a canonical queer character even further. I don't care people if people choose to see it as unrecripocated or see Dean as straight, but both Misha and writer Robert Berens (a gay man himself) confirmed it was written with romantic intent almost a year ago. And Misha isn't perfect, but he has been so careful to not speak on Dean's feelings or talk about what happened to both characters post-canon. Anyways, thank you for such a respectful video and I hope people from all sides learn from it!
I don't think it's about shipping so much as that many what a very clear and direct answer to *cannon* because we're being told over and over again that our perception is skewered. .. even "mishas confession was romantic," is still being argued with workds by j2 being used to back this up. And it's used in a very attacking way. To people who are trying to discuss *the show* not fanfiction or headcannon... that people are attacked and shit down for discussiong what happened on tbe screen as if it happened on the screen. And I think a lot of people want something from "Dean"/Jensen that will at least confirm and can't be used against, what already has been or shoukd be cconfirmed. "Yes. Cas's confession was romantic. Full stop." Would literally mean the WORLD. Not another response that can be twisted or interpreted to mean this that or the other. Just flat out. Cas was confessing romantic love for dean, you aren't crazy in any way to think that. The fact that this simple statement hasn't been made and apparently is too controversial for Jensen to say speaks so many volumes.
Thank you so much for posting this. It is so hard to briefly explain why I and many others felt hurt and invalidated. I listened to this video while folding laundry and I kept saying things like "yes!", "Exactly!" And "Thank you!" I also teared up a bit. I wish everyone who didn't understand could listen to this with an open mind and heart. I really appreciate you taking the time to put this together to try to explain. Thank you. ❤️
i think what it comes down to is jared needing to let people talk and not interrupt maybe? i feel like jensen was about to give an amazing answer, speaking on cas’s love being heavenly beautiful and all. when jared began to talk i did kind of get uncomfortable with the things he was saying, but i didn’t think anything of it. now i’m seeing all these people that felt the same way
This is why I generally stay away from hero-worshiping actors - really, the whole obsessive culture around movie/tv stars is something I disapprove of - they are people and they fuck up - FREQUENTLY! And yet, people expect them to conform to their expectations, twist their words to suit themselves, attack them for their opinions/actions and/or use them to justify their own beliefs (often horrible, damaging beliefs). Really, if you look at a lot of conventions for this fandom you find problematic behaviour both from the fans and the cast/writers. The Supernatural fandom would have been better as a whole if they'd never had conventions, but of course, they make money so they are a thing (they're just so friggin toxic most of the time).
Same here. Hero worshipping sports figures, actors, musicians, has never been a thing for me, not once in 30+ years of life have I been a fan of someone personally. Gotta say though... that Mr. Collins. He's pushing my boundaries, folks. Hard. Like, I might be in trouble. SEND HELP. ;p
In some countries of Europe people got this clearly. You see shows with very high ratings and the lead actors interviews only got a couple of views in youtube. Actors are just models that talk lines.
Oh my goodness, thank you so much for this. For explaining why it is harmful and not simply fans getting upset unnecessarily. This stuff MATTERS and you detail why. I also have to wonder what Misha and Berens' thoughts were on hearing it.
Thanks for another well-thought-out response to a difficult situation. I wish the toxic elements of this fandom didn't rear their ugly heads as much as they do, but here we are. Despite their blundering through that mess, I know J2 aren't intentionally or maliciously homophobic, so those accusations against them felt wrong. Still, I wish they would step up and address this and apologize for the hurt they unintentionally caused. I won't hold my breath, because neither of them are very good at ever doing that (is it their choice or their publicists who hold them back, I wonder?). Misha's the only one who will step up and listen to what people are saying and apologize and try to do better. Unsurprisingly, Creation tried to shut down a fan asking Misha a question about "the confession" on Sunday and thankfully Misha intervened and insisted the person be allowed to ask. This was even in a 'vetted' Q&A with Alex. (Oops?)
It's been 12+ years that Jensen and Jared have had to adjust to and inform themselves about the nature of a community that's heavily invested in the piece of art/media they've been participating in creating. It takes a mere couple hours of "asking Google" to come up with a decent understanding of how and why their characters are treated the way they are in the fandom-produced works that exist on the internet. That they are STILL redirecting away from sexuality when Dean and Cas have been put through, not-so-subtextually, ALL the stages of a relationship where romantic love and sex are usually involved (for pitys sake, they have a son by adoption), is PR handling at its finest. What they are saying, increasingly, seems to have little or no basis in factual assessments of what has been shown on screen and discovered in actual scripts. Honest to goodness, the fact that such a large group of people have stayed so loyal to the show DESPITE how problematic it is, speaks to just how much potential the topics they are skirting around addressing have. If this was me in an interpersonal relationship with someone, I'd have been the eff out long ago. Leaving things so "open to interpretation" (we are hearing that specific turn of phrase with disturbing frequency, enough to send up the gaslighting red flag) was an intentional, and at this point, business-management choice. It's plausible deniability. That's it. If the relationship between Dean and Cas was brotherly, the way they intended with Sam and Dean, or romantic but platonic/sexless, we wouldn't be having this conversation. We wouldn't be. At all. If that was how the relationship was portrayed we would not be here. The need for plausible deniability would not exist. You only need plausible deniability when something hard and fastly exists that needs to be obscured by it. Thank you again for producing such thorough and thoughtful content. :) Edit: I'm going to step out and just say it. Given that Jared has had 12+ years to improve/adapt his handling of the topic makes his actions willful. He had a specific, company-dictated message he was trying to get across and improvised some horrible filler to boot. There is no excuse for that. While I would love to be able to hear what beliefs each of them actually holds in their hearts on the subject of LGBTQIA+ issues, that whole effusion was awful.
Alternate universe: Interviewer: "Jared, when did you know that there was chemistry between you and Genevieve, and were there any funny romantic experiences between Sam and Ruby that you wanted to explore?" Jenson: "Well, it's important to note that Ruby doesn't have junk, so it's probably not that we could understand..."
thanks so much for the video! like you say its not about dragging or canceling but recognizing behaviors that have a negative impact specially when the people doing them have big platforms. I did a compilation of it just after it happened with some side comments of why it hurt and then I explained it better in the comments, but this is so much better! I already linked it here. The sad thing its that its only been like a day and a half and I already deleted 20 hateful comments some saying I was overreacting, other calling me heterophobic... it will probably continue for a while, but even if it hurts I wont delete the video because we'll never do better if we just ignore this stuff
Thank you so much for this video! I can't believe how two grown men can mess up so badly... it feels like the last straw, honestly, and I think a large part of the fandom feels that way.. I'm tired of having to care about what they might say because of how it affects us, idk what it will take for them to learn to be respectful of queer people. It's been so many years. This whole weekend was so disappointing!!
I was super disappointed in the answer we got to a really innocent, no way prodding question. I wish someone had asked Jensen that on his solo panel. Granted, I agree that there’s homophobia at play. Especially in Jared’s answer. But the fact that Jensen ‘piggy backed’ off it. I needed Jared to stfu cause he was coming across so strong with his hate speech. I was so excited that we were finally seeing the guys at a convention then boom.
I’m definitely willing to give them a chance to realize what’s going on here and switch it up. Especially Jensen. He started going in a good direction so idk. Jared had no business answering it, really.
Thank you for this. The con made me feel so invalid as a queer individual. And I'm happy to see other queer folk who also felt the same and are discussing the issues with it. It makes me feel more valid.
Thank you for the video and for everyone's comments. I did think at the time when watched the panel that the answer was awkward, fumbled, odd and didn't really answer the lady's question. I especially don't understand the need to define the different types of love.
This is a well-thought out response, though I think that you have given Jared too much benefit of the doubt with regard to it being 'fucking up' in the moment as opposed to coming from a place of homophobic misunderstanding of the queer storyline in the first place (a storyline he wasn't involved in, but clearly felt he needed to comment on to disabuse anyone of the notion it was romantic). His association of incest and pedophilia with a queer love confession is emblematic of the most malicious homophobic tropes possible, and it is only our knowledge of Wincest as a going concern that lightens the implications of that in any way at all, and as it is, I still think it speaks to a more insidious problem on Jared's behalf. This is unintentional homophobia that he has had ample opportunity to overcome - this is the man who was given an award for being a good ally just a few months ago. Overall, I felt it sounded like he'd been wanting to say this for a long time, and I do wonder where these opinions came from. They weren't off the cuff - but I don't think they were necessarily invented as an answer to con questions either. Given how the show ended, I can see the line of reasoning that Supernatural 'wasn't about romance' (which Jared has also said in reference to Sam and Eileen) coming from someone like Singer, or others involved at the top level, to justify an essentially homophobic and deeply conservative approach to the conclusion of Dean and Cas' story, and that seems to be something Jared believes wholeheartedly. Lastly, I resented the implication that queer sex and romance can't be heavenly either, but I think I could at least work with Jensen on his interpretation there...
I agree, he said too many wrong things and too many homophobic talking points for me to complete excuse his statement as "fucking up". Personally I've lost any respect I had left for him, but I honesty hope he choses to hear people's frustrations and hurt over this so he can learn and do better in the future. He still has a lot of fans who identifiy as part of the LGBT+ community, and they deserve better.
I agree he did give Jarod too much benefit of the doubt... even doing so though, it's still pretty damning, and doesn't let him off the hook. (Entirely)
this is obviously 3 years ago now but i do also wanna add something that i’ve noticed. i feel like this situation kind of genuinely changed conventions, especially at creation, specifically j2 panels - people know not to ask about destiel anymore (which is sad and ridiculous bc it’s a canon part of the show now whether we like it or not) and whenever someone asks a question about destiel at a con, the room gets quiet and tense. it makes me really sad honestly because i’m so sick and tired of walking on eggshells around these cishet actors just so we don’t make the uNcomForTaBLe as if it isn’t literally THEIR problem if gay people make them uncomfortable.. i’m going to a con soon and i’m excited but mostly i’m scared that someone will ask abt destiel and j2 are gonna invalidate this scene again and this should NOT be a normal reaction to a convention panel like there is something seriously wrong here lmao😭
Thank you for your informative cover on this topic! I had not heard about this happening simply because I'm not on any other social media, and am busy with college. I have to admit it's a bit tiring to see all the conflict regarding Destiel in general. I also admit that I am passionate about Destiel, but I'm passionate internally rather than voicing it out loud and screaming it. However, if someone disagrees with that concept, I respect their opinion and we can move on with our lives. To be honest, it's quite frightening just to see how much hate can be generated by a singular person or group of people all because of one ship in a fandom. In other fandoms, I've never witnessed that much passion. Whether positive or negative passion. Anyway, I wanted to thank you for the video! You're keeping me up to date!
i believe that jareds response was... trying to address all the fandom infighting, the shipping, the people proclaiming their ship won in the end, all of it in one in a way that was totally wrong because it was in such an incorrect context. That of course goes along with the other reasons you explained for this response having issues. This is the only way that his response makes sense to me.
Thank you for breaking this down for everyone. Gunna try to put my opinion on everything that happened under the cut sicne so long. (Like this video is Bob's, what I write is mine and mine only.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . My opinion stays roughly the same, in that Jared should have kept his mouth shut, the question was concerning Dean's thoughts, not Sam's, but what he said genuinely did hurt a lot of people. Do I feel Jensen should have stepped in, maybe but how could he have honestly. (Knowing he has live stage anxiety, and having anxiety disorder myself, I know that probably added to it, not an exscuse, but a reason) His answer before he had to kinda navigate around what Jared said, was very similiar to what Misha said the next day (in a question Creation staff tried to tell the person not to ask but Misha said they could) THAT ALL SAID, the people who are upset by BOTH are completely valid, the only people I'm mad at are the ones who are using that anger to mock and bully people. Being upset is fine, genuinely hating and threatening someone, the actors or other fans, is not and will NEVER be. Treating people who see logic or neutrality as if it's due to actor worship, is NOT okay. As far as Jensen, to me he is comfortable talking about the parts that won't get the CW pissed at him, like how he said if it would have been Cas, not Lucifer, at the door, Dean's reaction coming off what happened in 15x18 would have been a huge embrace. End of day though, humans fuck up bad, other humans stay silent when we wish they would or could have stopped someone from fucking up. But more importantly, Cas' confession is canonly romantic (confirmed in the past by plenty, including Misha, Jensen, Richard who directed the episode, and Berens who wrote it, along plenty of others.) and no weird unneeded rant by someone who wasn't even in the same COUNTRY when the confession was being filmed does NOT change that.
Could you please tell me where did Jensen confirm that cas's confession was romantic? Coz in everytime he spoke about it that i have seen he has tried to find away to make it not romantic or find another interpretation
@@HasnaaAlaa I apologize that I don't have links, sorry. But they all talked about it positively SO many times. He RECORDED THE FILMING OF IT on his own phone because of how big he knew it was. And talked about he and Misha sent videos back and forth of peopel reacting to it. All things said when NOT at a physically Creation Ent led convention. He's made it very clear he knows that's what it was about. Misha has even talked about how the two of them discussed how they would handle the scene because knowing how important it would be to people. If that's not enough proof, again I apologize as well those vids are all buried from almost a year ago.
@@KaylaChan90 yes i have seen what you mentioned & in nowhere in them does he say it was romantic, he said he wanted to keep that moment of saying goodbye to his best friend in his phone, yes he knows it was romantic, bobo had many conversations about it with both misha & jensen, yet still Jensen has never said that it's romantic in any interview or in public, everytime he was asked about it he tried to find other "interpretation" saying angel love isn't like human love & stuff like that!, He knows but he will keep denying it which makes it worse
@@HasnaaAlaa First and foremost, I'm not replying again, because I'm trying to NOT argue about it with anyone, so I'm going to explain why your reply is just something I don't personally agree with. Before Jared's butting in yesterday, he's always treated it as romantic, actually including when a fan asked him about it yesterday. And, because reasons Bob also mentioned in his video, has said Dean's side is interpretationable. THAT SAID! My comment literally says this is my opinion and my opinion is not blaming Jensen for what Jared said, or his blundwrs. Neither you now I need to put words in his mouth. He doesn't have to outright go "Yes, Cas was 1000% in love with Dean." for it not to be considered 'denial' ESPECIALLY, when Misha himself, WAS FORCED by Creation/CW/who the hell ever else/etc, to also say it was 'up for interpretation' the day after Jared's rant and Jensen's fumble, after telling the person asking him that the question WAS allowed even though conversation miss tried to stop it. They are not being allowed to say it, which yeah it's stupid and horrible and why I hate the CW as a company. Again I gave you my answer and this is why I disagree with yours, which was just 'he hasn't outright said it so he must be denying it'. Again my opinion is mine, yours is yours, but this is the deeper explanation of your first question I don't have the strength to explain right now but did anyway.
@@KaylaChan90 No, i am not saying he's denying it because he didn't say it's romantic, i am saying he's denying it because he has been coming up with alternative interpretation for cas's feelings unprompted, he's actively making up strange different reads like angel love isn't human & can't be compared hence we don't know, he's been saying that even before this con
Thank you for making this video, truly. I wish people would take this approach than just vitriol hate. I watched the video of the Gold Panel and didn’t see anything wrong. But I didn’t want to reject it out of hand without understanding. And when I asked, I was literally screamed at when I said I didn’t understand why some people were upset. Thanks to your video, I understand why people would feel hurt by Jared’s statement regardless of his intention. I’m not excusing what Jared said, but I can see how it would be an easy mistake to make. Mistakes can be hurtful - so please don’t read this as “he made an oopsies”. If I’m being honest, I could see myself making the same type of mistake. That’s why I appreciate these kinds of videos so I can learn to be a better ally. It will be interesting to see what happens in NC in two weeks.
I just knew they eventually would have problem with all of this. The authors gained from this development but they lost their hold on their own characters to please the watchers and they still cannot accept it. They should have the guts to stand on the position of the characters as they developed.
As the only person I follow that even talks about SPN, I thank you for the time and effort you put into discussing SPN, its cast, crew and its fandom. I am very glad I haven't been a part of the SPN fandom for seven years because if this had happened then, I would not have reacted well since I was pretty deep into a toxic parasocial headspace and SPN was my only coping mechanism. I've since outgrown it and seeing so many of my "favorite" books, TV series, movies, comics, video games, absolutely blunder through embracing diversity and modern thinking has made me more realistic with my expectations for cast, crew and creators. (Y'all remember when Eric Kripke said Sam and Dean would vote for Drumpf). I stopped having high hopes long for any of the folks on SPN except maybe Felicia Day and Osric Chau. SPN will always have a place in my heart but it'll never just only be SPN that holds that place. It was the fanfic and the fanart, the theorists, video creators, the excitement about Big Bangs, and new episodes etc. Again thank you for keeping SPN content in my life and reminding me that I can still be nostalgic and realistic about my perspective on SPN now and then.
I totally understand what you're saying. My only problem is that Jensen was actually taking his time to verbally think it through, not stumbling. He was calling Cas' love a heavenly, otherworldly thing, and if Jared had left his two cents out rather than not letting Jensen speak....lile 100 other times, Jensen was on his way to explaining the beauty. Jared made it weird, and he wasn't even in that scene!
I got the impression based on what he was able to say and other answers he’s given that Jensen is trying to get at the idea that what Dean and Cas have is such a massive thing that you genuinely can’t put it in one neat box like “romance” or whatever, and to do so lessens it - not because gay romance is bad, but because calling it just romance is like saying the visible part of an iceberg is the whole thing? Because let’s be real, that is not any kind of “normal” scale love there - Dean and Cas’s feelings for each other are on an epic, universal scale. And Dean was denied an opportunity to explore what Cas’s confession would mean for how they expressed things to each other because the writer’s/network/etc. suck.
Thank you so much for this! I've been so unbelievably hurt and upset about Jared's rant and feel like I haven't been able to completely explain why. You've explained BEAUTIFULLY what the issues actually are and I can't thank you enough for it ❤️
At least it looked like Jensen was thinking about the question seriously and by the end was making Cas' love into a beautiful thing....and then Jared happened. Even Jensen didn't seem right with him after that.
This is a wonderful explanation of the issue. I am also now wondering if the people who advise J2 on how to handle this, are actually aware of the canonical topics that revolve around angels having human desires and emotions. I feel like there is heavy disconnect - what they think and what is canon. We know that the actors themselves don't watch the show (at least not fully). Which is one of the reasons having actors as a resource of canon analysis is not the best way to go. They just don't know the full story as the fans do. I don't think either of them is intentionally homophobic either, but they are clearly cluless on the nuances of the matter and the canon story which they tried to deal with here. Like the answer Jensen gave is very similar to the one he gave to someone at a 1on1 m&g last year. Thou back then he explained it through Dean's understanding of Cas' feeling, not from Cas' perspective. Which made a lot more sense. Dean thinking of Cas as someone whos emotions are heavenly is different then Jensen trying to explain Cas' feelings as heavenly. The first one does not argue against Cas having romantic feelings, but the second one does. His first sentence makes sense in that context "not until the end". I am thinking that he was trying to put the already learned consept/answer to the context of this question and it failed badly. Like you said.
I honestly gave up with having a direct answer whether dean reciprocated and loved cas back or not. I know that the cw is just gonna put them in the middle ground and they will NEVER confirm or deny, and they are just gonna keep saying "it's up for interpretation". At this point I'd be really surprised if we ever got a different answer. Idk if the fans will corner and keep asking about it to the point where the cw and actors will give up and finally give an answer just to make it stop, but I think the fans should just stop trying to hint at destiel questions to hopefully get an answer bcs every time the actors are gonna screw up and say some awful disregarding thing like they did at this panel
As I expected you did a fabulous job in breaking down the topic. Thanks for responding so quickly to what happened. What an unnecessary event in the first place. It really didn't expect that by this question. I was really confused after it and how abrupt/ not normal the penal then ended. I mean, noone came to guide them off stage. Or a "last question" singing introduced by Rob and Jensen. Some time ago, I did get the feeling that when something doesn't go well, they start nice talking like "hey brother, I missed you ". Like Jensen then did. Now I always get a bad feeling if they start that because I asume something may did go wrong and they try to cover it up. It felt like Jensen decided to end the penal before it even had to. (I believe there is much more happening behind the curtains, then we'll never know about. I stopped seeing them with pink glasses like they try to present the show. More like a real family, with many issues. )
I watched your video an hour after it came out and for two years always thought about it and just how well said everything was. Because two years later and i am still thinking about this panel. it still makes me sad and angry at the same time. I don’t think i felt the same way about J2 after this and also wasn’t as comfortable watching their stuff after what they said. I am also grateful for misha that he is ,still to this day, making sure we are feeling validated with our „interpretation“ of destiel and aren’t just annoying people for wanting more.
Thank you so much for making this! I have been feeling so many mixed emotions about this and I think your video walked me though them and helped me understand why. I don't believe they intented any harm to anyone but it really ran away from them and hurt a lot of people, myself included. I'm really interested to see what will happen at the next convention (will do my best to keep my expectations in check this time though 😅)
Wow, this was an excellent video. 👏 Thank you for explaining it all so clearly and with so much fairness. I'm pansexual, but in a long-term het-cis relationship so I will never know how much it hurt some people in the community, but I was flinching and wincing throughout, esp Jared's response. If anyone else is still looking for the clip, it's the 2021 Denver Con on GayledIt's channel. Not to justify either of their responses (because there is no justification), but Jared esp seemed visibly nervous - almost to the point of social anxiety? First con after covid and all that...? Also, of these two, he's always struck me as a bit more rainbow-ish (Jaredina, anyone? licking and kissing male co-stars, anyone? campy dances, hair flips...), and as a Texan of a certain generation who is also super sensitive, it seems like that might cause insecurity about his masculinity and sexuality. Apropos the weirdly vehement "fuck no" response to whether he's a vegan on Rob & Rich's podcast, when it'd be a reasonable assumption given the Padaleckis' love of animals and environment. Add to that being overprotective of Jensen in the light of that small but vocal and agro corner of the fandom... I can see my way to forgiving him. All that being said, please excuse me while I go cry into my pillow for a while. 😢
You know why I was upset. I felt they were really digging their heels in plus what Jared said was creepy. I love that they want to save each other, but it really didn't work out this time. I nearly burned everything Supernatural that I own and luckily I slept on it and rewatched the next day. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought, in regards to how it effects my screenplay, but yeah it should be super embarrassing for them, especially Jared.
Jared’s answer was confusing, incoherent, and eventually boring. Jensen didn’t complete his answer. What were they thinking? They weren’t. Sometimes I think the actors should just refer some questions to studio management rather than make a complete mess of them.
@mack Stewart909 He's human, he's obviously gonna make mistakes, and talking to a room full of people wont help. Even Jensens not perfect there are probably conventions where he might've went off script. Like they're human beings and as strangers why should we have the right to judge them when we dont even know them.
Thank you for this, I really needed a rational and calm discussion about this because tumblr is giving whiplash... I started watching this show when I was about 10 back in 05, so subtext was something I was oblivious to over the years, it wasn’t something I focused on because there was so much going on with the mythology, that I didn’t have the awareness to think about the nuisances of character relationships. I didn’t have access to the fandom or meta, so I had no idea about shipping, about romantic trope parallels or anything destiel related. I was blank slate. So when castiels confession aired, I felt like what I imagined Dean to feel in that scenario, like he’d been hit with a moving train. In the sense of, how could I possibly have missed that, how could I have been so oblivious, is this really happening or is this a dream. And with that I was replaying every scene they’ve ever had together and livid at myself for being oblivious to the purest form of love and devotion I’d ever seen on any show. Castiel had just expressed a ROMANTIC declaration of love. This was iconic, and I had to see how others had reacted, cos what I was wrong, what if I completely misunderstood what I had seen. The reason I’m saying this is I had no expectations or awareness of destiel before 15x18, so after wading through a lot of hurtful comments and opinions, we got confirmation from ppl involved directly with the scene that this indeed was romantic. I bring this up because during this panel, and specifically this question, I feel that what Jensen was trying to say, was along those lines of, dean being caught completely off guard by castiels confession, and subsequent death. Like that of being hit by a moving train. I think what he wanted to say before he was interrupted was an answer he’d rehearsed, that dean was not aware of Cas’s feelings, not that he didn’t reciprocate them (I think this is the answer he’s worked on for over a year). The reason I came to that conclusion was 2 things, in an earlier solo panel, a question regarding lucifer’s call in 15x19 and what deans response would have been had it really have been Cas. And although he stumbled and went off on a tangent, his response was along the lines of “well it’s kind of obvious what with how fast dean was running up those stairs”. And the 2nd instance of trying to bring up that question during the j2 panel and have Jared kind of make joke noises you make when you want someone to shut up. So even tho Jensen came off as unintentionally homophobic, and engaged in stand by like behaviour, I don’t believe that he was trying to erase the narrative, but rather used to dealing with the overwhelming dudebrofrat energy from Jared that he just retreated until it was over. I do agree wholeheartedly that for some ungodly reason that they are not allowed to talk about it, either because of the legacy it leaves spn in or the future of their own careers, but what I still cannot fathom, is why if it was huge issue to begin with why it was written in, especially knowing full well they were never ever going mention both the confession, and castiel again, both in the finale episodes and outside in the real world? I cannot fathom why a show wants to cater to an audience that thinks it’s okay when they use queer arcs, characters and situations to make fun at how uncomfortable it makes the characters. And why they would want to work for ppl who continue to perpetuate those ideals. I do understand that is the nature of Hollywood. All I can say is, supernatural has taught me some very important things over the past year. Like what gaslighting and queer baiting is, but more importantly how much the words, queer/gay have been used throughout the shows and movies I used to enjoy as derogatory forms of “comedy”. If the best thing to come out of the sh*storm that is s16 of supernatural, it is the awareness of how harmful even being oblivious to these harmful tropes can be, I’m okay with that. It makes me as a person want to do better. So thank you for elaborating on different forms of homophobia, it really helped to calm the unsettling feeling I get when I think about supernatural.
Forgot to say (because I'm just so pissed off and not done venting, sorry) that you explained this wonderfully and really broke down why J2's headcanon and "all interpretations are valid" just don't work and are more than Just Their Opinion.
@@ultravioletpisces3666 eh they kind of did that a lot with bellarke from the 100. always making the relationship between Bellamy, a man, and clear, a woman, very ambiguous in terms of their feelings about each other. it definitely doesn't happen nearly as much with straight couples as it does with gay couples.
There had already been consequences of Jared's and Jensen's remarks. After the ramble, Misha was more than likely apprised of the situation. So, the following day, Misha took a more neutral and moderate position on the topic that did not sit well with some. This could have lasting effects on conventions and conversations in the future.
@@TrappedinSLC from the con, i think. The next day Misha did have a more natural answer due to where he was and avoiding more division in the fandom. But in his answer he says "i know how I played it"(meaning romantic). It was later said at an M&G that Misha said to a fan "we don't always agree" meaning he and his fellow actors don't always agree on interpretations of the show, meaning Cas' confession. And notice after that Misha stoped being nutrual with his answer, especially at non-creation panels. The Germancon and con in Portugal.
Great take as ever. As for the aftermath, I may be old and cynical but I don't think anything is going to come of this. It is after all possible that J2 will be advised to pretend the whole thing never happened, counting on the fact that people on social media apps have a very short attention span - not to mention the possibility that many fans wanting to ask Destiel-related questions will be more hesitant to do so in the future, for fear of a repeat. I do hope I am proven wrong, though. Keep it up!
Jesus, how can these two be so bad at answering these types of questions after all these years? And like you said, it's 2021. They could have easily informed themselves a lot better by listening to queer people with knowledge of the community and it's issues to not give homophobes unintentionally ammunition. Because they're obviously not good at even repeating rehearsed answers. And frankly the fact that keeping the ambiguity of certain issues has a way bigger priority for the cw than not being homophobic (intentional or not) is saying a lot. If they're not going to even try to do this better without doing damage they just should stop talking about it imo.
Seriously though, they should have had coaching to help them answer coherently. Especially if they were nervous coming out of a long absence from public appearances like this.
I think Jensen has genuine anxiety issues that sometimes get in the way of what he has in his brain being what he actually says. Jared, I got no excuses for.
@@TrappedinSLC I recall reading something about Jensen having stage fright (introverted, other verb). My issue with that is that he can utilize therapy, medication, and public speaking coaches to work on this issue. I had a professor who had a Xanax prescription that she used to manage her stage fright when it was needed. She knew when she would need some extra help to get past her anxiety to do her job properly.
@@RachelAnnPotter Cons are actually not his primary job, though, and not everyone wants to take meds for stuff, for various reasons. And even if he has had a coach, etc, in the past, he’s only human. Anxiety can be worse some days than others. Or with some people - he seems much more comfortable on stage with Misha, for example, I think because Misha can kind of ‘rescue’ him when needed better than Jared.
@@TrappedinSLC wasn't it also Jared that was actually against making destiel cannon? I don't remember where I've read that but if he was so against it his aggressive (and tbh weird af) denial/retconning of previously stated facts does explain it. But agreed, absolutely no excuse for what he said regardless.
Let's be honest, it was bad writing plain and simple (Cas' speech needed to be romantic in order to make sense, but I don't think they've realized it: they just stole the whole "one moment of happiness" from Buffy/Angel and then acted all surprised Pikachu face when people thought Dean being Cas' true happiness was romantic the way Angel/Buffy was). They thought 2 people could friendly love each other the way Frodo and Sam from the Lord of the Rings love each other, but they accidentally wrote romantic love between Cas/Dean (and Dean/Sam, gross) because they're not Tolkien; they are very Bad (and sexist) writers, as proved by that ending. Cas was clearly in love with Dean. At some point Dean was in love (toxic and unhealthy) with Sam: by season 9, you know Dean doesn't love Sam, he just needs him (like Romeo needs Juliet to go on with his life). In short, it was Never brotherly love between Cas and Dean: Cas fell in love with Dean since the beginning, literally realizing what love was because of Dean and everything else Cas said in his 15x18 speech. The SPN authors just can't tell what romantic love is because they're misogynists who think women exist just for the sake of sex and having a male child (who you can call after your brother/father/male friend).
I've only recently gotten into the fandom myself, though for me I really only watched it at the very beginning at season 1 all those years ago, but halfway through it other things in my life at the time pulled me away from TV in general. So actually all these years I never even knew the show had still been going on until this year when I found out about the "destiel" fandom. And for past couple months have been trying to learn more about the show. I have to say it really pulled me in too the more I learned about the story of Dean and Castiel. I've been binge watching your videos that break down episodes season by season with Castiel, as I don't really care about spoilers since i don't really want to spend money to watch everything I was missing.^^ Also, I was reading your fanfic on AO3, the rewrite of season 9 and 10, and really am enjoying it and looking forward to the next chapters of your season 10! :)
Most of what Jared said in his answer was upsetting to hear. What really threw me off the most though was the "junkless" comment he first made when cutting into the conversation. It really felt out of no where and was just honestly shocking to hear someone say in 2021. And then the (probably) unintentional implication of that statement, that someone who can't (won't) have sex, can't experience fulfilling romantic attraction/love? As someone who identifies as asexual, that was honestly devastating to hear. I hope Jared realizes the kind of damage statements like that can do, and addresses it in the future.
Oh my gosh, this is giving me such Bizarre, weird and twisted vibes. I quit watching Supernatural so I never knew about a lot of these behind the scene happenings. With how detailed this is I wish you were a part of the Teen Wolf fandom so I could hear your take on Sterek, the Teen Wolf fandom and the Powers That Be (and Jeff Davis). I have a feeling the whole deal would drive you crazy.
I think Jensen started giving a good answer but did not get to finish! If a dear friend of mine suddenly started telling me that their feelings were more romantic, I would be in shock! Dean’s character would have been the same! I saw his reaction and thought it fit. Dean never had any characteristics to indicate he was or would be in a gay relationship. I think asking a loaded question usually means they already know the answer they want and will jump on when disappointed. Also Jensen tried to bring up that angelic love is impossible for a human to reciprocate or possibly ever understand! Didn’t get to finish! Sad we are even discussing!
This was hard to listen to, even ten days after the fact. :( I wish I believed that "pr" or whoever would actually make either of the J's to think about what they had and how it was profoundly hurtful, damaging, and (in my case at least) borderline triggering. They'll never even hint at some rebuke or change of heart, especially not Jared, whose fan base straight up applauded his homophobic rant as validation for all the ugly, hurtful, homophobic things they themselves believe and have been yelling at destiel fans since at least season 5. His new walker fan base for sure would support this kind of reading. 😫 Anyway. Thank you for this calm thoughtful response. I just wish that anything would ever change with this subject, j2, and the fandom, but I expect things will only get worse before we all give up wanting any answers from either of them. I'd be happy if the word cas never crossed Jared's lips again. (Jensen's a lost cause too imo. I hate seeing fandom continue to get hurt by bashing their heads against that particular glass wall...)
You did teach me something imortant which im grateful for. People can have romantic love without having sexual attraction. As an ok boomer ive never been taught this and its an extremely foreign concept for me. I appreciate the lesson.
It didn't even cross my mind but it makes a lot of sense that both Jared and Jensen expected a very different question and just started answering that instead of what was actually asked. I understand that Jensen is not allowed to go into any detail on Dean's feelings but it would be better if he (and especially Jared) don't try to talk about Cas' feelings at all. Misha is always very clear in that he only talks about Cas and what he felt in a moment and that he can't talk about Dean because he didn't play him. It would be an easy out for both Js to just say "I didn't play it so I can't say anything about it". One big problem with this rant is also that apparently the backlash lead to CE to be more strict about questions and how they're answered since apparently they tried to censor someone asking Misha about the confession on sunday. Misha did answer the question but he was suddenly way more vague about it than he had been before. So the answer to an actor going on a homophobic rant, no matter if intentional or not, is to censor questions about a canon romantic scene just because it's queer. It's not a good look.
I saw that video and it is so annoying, a while ago misha spoke about how certain questions were censored, in that panel she said that castiel was in denial about his feelings about dean because the production was in denial, The scriptwriters played a large part in the story , but others denied the story. When I talk about it I thought it was something from the past but apparently not, since again wanting to censor questions, the girl asks misha if she can not and misha says she can. Obviously for misha it is easier to break the rule since he does not have projects with CW, unlike jared and jensen but after a year they should know how to handle this, the girl who asked them did not expect all that stumbling of words, she expected something cute, they go and ruin it especially jared, like another thing that i didn't like what happened was on misha's panel the last girl asked her something extremely important to her i think she lost someone and she was almost crying, misha was in In the middle of that, jared and jensen entered to interrupt because the three of them could have to take pictures, ok it is understood that there is a time and everything but at least wait for Misha to finish answering. some said that later Misha sought out the girl to give her a copy of her book. I wouldn't be surprised if over time misha limits himself even more to conventions, it's no secret how cw has treated him over the years. If it weren't for the fact that it has a strong audience, they would eliminate it entirely.
@@andNvargas Oh yeah that woman's answer being interrupted was very unfortunate. Though there is no way that was intentional - I don't think Jared and Jensen even heard the question in the first place. Also as much as I feel for that woman (I'm glad Misha found her after and fans crowdfunded a cameo for her) her question was one of those that actually should not have been asked, at least not in the way it was. That topic has come up multiple times over the years that the actors are no therapists and it's very unfair on them (and the 100 or so people in the room who are just there to have fun) to put something so heavy like death of a loved one or mental health problems on them out of the blue. Obviously Jared's rant is the big bad takeaway from this con but it was also a reminder that cons are a two-way street. The actors need to find a way to talk (or not talk) about the confession in a not shitty way and fans need to remember that the actors are people too and that bringing very heavy subjects to them or asking them to dance for you like some circus monkey is not cool either.
The weirdest part about this whole thing was that it didn't even seem like they were replying to the question that was asked?? It was like they were replying to a totally different question.
to be honest, i think thats true. they were trying to answer every fanfiction related question in one somehow, but it was... not appropriate or good
Literally all they had to say was "I found out when I got the script for episode x" or "They talked to about it when y." No reason for all that mess.
Exactly Jensen could of stopped after he said Dean found out at time of confession. That was all that was asked in question they could of moved on without the whole rant
Hell, if anything Jared could have chimed in with when Sam knew, because he's a lot smarter than Dean in these things.
Literally they can say what they want bc the only 2 leads on that show were jared and jensen...collins was never a lead, destiel never real!
I was in the room when that shit storm happened and I’ve had PTSD since, like, I can’t get it out of my head. My brain started misfiring as soon as Jared opened his mouth and then I think my soul left my body when he talked about not wanting to have sex with his son -_-
I went up to the mother who asked the question afterward and she began crying because they made her feel like an “absolute idiot” (her words) and I tried my best to validate and comfort her. But it got me thinking- “No matter what I say to this woman, it won’t change what was said.” So here’s to hoping Jensen and Jared (especially) address it at the next con and fucking apologize.
Really tho Bob- this video is what I needed to help process such a horrific moment and attempt to move forward from it. So- Thank you. Deeply and sincerely xx
OMG was she okay?
What convention was this? I can’t find it
@@vanessadavis5771 More for the people of the future, I guess, but it was Denver on 2021 (on the trusty GayledIt's channel).
same this is the first time im hearing about it@@vanessadavis5771
@@vanessadavis5771it was denver and please watch it because this toxic derangers spread here lies as always only bc jared and jensen said that spn was about platonic love, brothers and not their fanfic ship estiel...
Jared had a very weird rant (and Jensen allowed it) to a question that's not that complicated, they could've just kept it at Dean found out when cas told him and moved on.
Wtf do you mean "and Jensen allowed it"? These guys are grown ass men and, last time I checked, Jensen isn't Jared's fucking father/guardian/warden. Stop.
I still hate the fact that after episode 18 they forgot about Cas. Dean didn't mourn for him, Sam didn't and Jack didn't either.
the easiest answer of all would just be "misha said he played it for the year, but that doesnt mean that dean noticed..."
@@MasterOfTheElementsbc he was not a lead and actualky sam did!
What should he fibd out you toxic shipper??? Castiel did not tell him that he is in love with him! Just that he loves him - howevrr ugly that scene was, however it made no sense after 2 seassons of cadtiel being everything about jack and not caribg for dean... castiel told sam and dean that he lives them in s13 as well!!! What should dean find out??? Castiel is unhuman thing big as a chrysler tower posessing a body - in spn it was a body of 12y old girl and a straight family father! That collins needed to pander to only fans he has - fanfic shippers is other thing! But in the soeach or in the script or based on the actions - castiel loved dean and everybody else ( it is oart of his speach!) ...he is not in love with anybody!!! In difference to collins j2 know what spn is about and do not need to pander to anybody!
Also, the woman said absolutely nothing about sex, so why did they make their answer all about gay sex??? I’m beginning to think hetero people don’t actually love their partners, because that’s what they think about us.
So true. Something is really wrong with jared.
What do you mean? How would them constantly talking about gay sex affect how they treat their straight partners?
@@MasterOfTheElements I think they mean if he's thinking about gay sex so much, there's a chance he might be secretly into men but in denial due to internalized homophobia. Of course, you can be attracted to more than one gender. Still, anything Lgtbqi+ is pretty much gay for any homophobe out there and being called secretly gay drives them mad. I love driving homophobes mad lol
@@MasterOfTheElementsI think what they mean is that a lot of straight people, when asked about queer romance, end up talking about sex. Like don't they feel any romantic feelings towards their own wifes? Or do they only feel sexual desires towards them and that's what romance mean to them?
@@idleglow oh ok, I was confused for a bit there.
i just dont understand how they had a full year of pr prep and still could fuck up that badly. we expected being annoyed at the bare minimum but this was beyond embarrasing and shitty
I guess they were only prepped for antagonistic or aggressive questions. Which to be fair, makes sense since this fandom is KNOWN for being overtly toxic. Like it was stated in the video, they were thrown a curveball with this gift of a question and their minds were trying to rewire and readjust from the whiplash of not having to be defensive. I mean, Jensen was doing pretty good, but Jared was the one who was struggling, and then Jensen tried to save Jared, and then they both went down in flames.
Thanks for the breakdown!
What a creepy answer. Even as an ace, I have to note that whether or not Cas or Dean wanted to boink each other is not the business of cannon. Did Sam want to Boink Eileen? Did they boink and how much? Nobody asks that question for straight ships.
And like you said, their idea of sexless love is invalidating. If Dean and Cas had gotten together and wanted to hold hands in public or get married or buy a house together, that is a valid comitted relationship with or without sex.
Intentional or not, that is bending over backwards to invalidate the whole thing, and finishing up with the old trope that Cas is just too weird, which in itself has some bad implications for queer, neurodiverse and any people getting the Weird stamp. This is one epic fuckup.
coming back here in may 2024 a few days after mr jensen ackles said the confession was "not subtext, it was clear text" talking about cas' love for dean is.. something. we love to see growth
Can you tell me where he said that? Just curious, bc I haven’t seen it and the validation would be really nice to have for my own eyes. If you don’t remember, no worries!
The biggest sin of the Supernatural cast is that since the beginning of the show they have allowed their homophobic fans free rein on all aspects of the show. If you don't condemn bigotry and homophobia you ARE condoning it period! This show was never a true ally for the LGBTQ+ community or other marginalized communities due to the condoning of the behavior of the fans of this show who are on the religious right.
It was never a real ally, it just acted like an ally to try and get more fans and therefore, more revenue which means more money
They are just another greedy company
I really like this response it addresses and explains why people were hurt and upset in a really clear way. I also really think this video shows the virtue of thinking about a response to something without being reactionary.
Well said 👏 👌
This is a show I have loved because of the love and loyalty between two brothers. Why pick apart every word ? If you don’t love Supernatural, Sam and brother Dean change the channel.
@@vickichristian4474 because there’s more to it than that. No one’s saying the show shouldn’t have ended with the brothers. They were the core, but they allowed others in.
@@vickichristian4474 It certainly started as a show about brothers. But the producers introduced characters throughout the whole series which were important to the development of the show. It was no ensemble cast for sure but with recurring important characters. And picking apart Jared's words at the con in regard to that question is more than valid. And even if your watched the show bc of Sam and Dean for others it might be different.
This was a great video. At this point, I really don't think there's any other way to interpret this other than Jared and Jenson desperately trying to distance themselves from the LGBTQIA+ legacy of the show. It’s very clear that that’s not what they signed up for and it makes them visibly uncomfortable to imagine the show they spent 15 years on will forever be associated with and remembered for a gay relationship between two of its leads and its iconic queerbaiting. In Jared’s case it’s a gay relationship that doesn’t even include him (the so called lead of the show). It’s the only way to explain why *another* character being in love with one of their characters is enough to prompt this kind of bizarre erasure.
I’m honestly going to need people to see Jensen’s response for what it is. I saw people on Twitter talking about the magic of heavenly love that can’t be defined. It is so very clearly a way to distance Dean (and himself) from words like gay and romantic. If not, then it’s some kind of backhanded way to imply that romantic love between two male (male presenting in Cas’ case) would some how make their love less pure. And God forbid two male characters want to sleep together. That might prompt a 5 minute rant that ties in queer love to incest and pedophilia. Jeez.
If you don't want to be remembered for a gay relationship between two of the lead characters then don't queerbait
i mean they did also have wincest. that was a pretty significant thing that happened. like i understand where you’re coming from here but they very much did have wincest. AO3 was founded by a wincest and a thorki shipper because they wanted to make a safe space for ALL fanfics correctly tagged. So like, Jared IS pretty much involved in a gay relationship that will be remembered for years to come, but I'll admit it's probably not as interesting to dissect in youtube essays so this is leading people to believe that destiel is and has always been more popular.
@@Nemamka He's just a living contradiction, he wants to be remembered for something that isn't queerbaiting
AND YET ENGAGED WITH INCEST IN HIS OWN SHOW! He had willingly done wincest stuff in the show and didn't care
Yet when Dean and Cas are meant to be in love(Or whatever)
Suddenly he has a problem?
It bleeds with bigotry whether he wants it to or not
I have been kinda avoiding spn “news” because I’ve been dreading exactly this happening, so this is actually the first I’ve really seen about this. *sigh* this was painful. I think that Jensen “might” well have been able to reply to this with some grace…..he at least appeared to be trying to think it thru. Jared on the other hand, needs a muzzle. This isn’t the first time he’s made a twat of himself by “opening mouth, inserting foot” but this time it was really kinda hurtful. The fandom have supported him thru some of his stupider moments, and then he does this? I hope he is going to apologise to the fandom (not just the lbqt fans, but ALL the fandom)for what he said, and hopefully have someone sit him down and explain in little words, exactly what he has to apologise for…….but I’m not expecting it. After all, back pedalling and retconning are how they’ve always dealt with things they don’t wanna deal with. It was like “argh they asked about “it”…….quick, fall back to we’re all “bros””
CAS did NOT love Dean as a “bro”…….that has been confirmed!
And then Jensen decided to go with Jared’s ramble…….not ok, but I’m betting there’ll be no apology there either.
At this point I was ….here we go again…..so disappointed.
what’s lbqt
Jared definitely needs to apologize to the fans. This comment and his comments about Dean’s death were both horrible. Jensen I think is just tired of having this narrative pushed. He’s had threats sent to him from this fan base in the past. He said he wasn’t comfortable with the narrative of Destiel and then Misha knowing that said “yea Cas was in love with Dean.”
L.G.B.T.Q.+ my friend.
@@SamiLo2 What did Jared say about Dean's death?
@@MasterOfTheElementsI’m curious, too. I didn’t listen to fandom after the show ended because of the finale drama.
Interesting to listen to, thanks Bob, my main concern in this whole story is how much, wanting or not, Jared undermined Misha and everything he has said in the past, by essentially implying that he ( Misha) does not understand the character he's been playing for 13 years. That made me sad, TBH.
so true. I wondered what Misha would have thought if/when he found out about this, and it broke my heart and made my head hurt...
@@ImCastielsBitch01 He'd probably be heartbroken, he would've thought that Jared and Jensen were both his close friends on set, and they were just willingly demeaning his knowledge about the character HE WAS PLAYING for the past 13 years
It's just horrible.
@@Archiver_Studio for sure
@@ImCastielsBitch01 It really says a lot about those two, I mean how can they act as if they know more about Castiel as a character
WHEN MISHA PLAYED THE BASTARD FOR THE PAST DECADE?!
They're just assholes for that
Bob, this was just what I needed to hear this evening. I'd watched their panel on UA-cam last night and then went to bed with another SPN-induced ache in my heart. Woke up and discovered SO much emotion being vented on social media (that's mainly TikTok for me) that I almost deleted the app. I mean, I understand the reactions, I do. I felt hurt as well. And it's not that I'm some crazed, obsessive Destiel shipper (although I am), but mainly I'm a 60 year old lesbian who can't understand why they find my kind so distasteful they need to stumble over backward distancing themselves from something the show's writers established as canon. But watching your video now, and listening to your calm, thoughtful, voice of reason - man, I need more people like you in my life! I still don't feel good about it, but I feel better about feeling bad because of you (if that makes any sense). So thank you for being you.
And yet they made Charlie a lesbian which proves that straight men will always be more comfortable with showing same sex relationships between women than between men which is totally unfair.
This is a great! I also think baked in there is another homophobic idea, also under unintentional and more-education-needed category: this insistence on "oh it's angelic and pure! Not *sexual*!!" response. Full of implications that if queer sexual desire were a part of the romantic feelings, that would make those feelings...bad? worse? Icky? Just the contrast between the emphasis there and Adam and Serafina making out all over the place...
Exactly. This idea separates "good gays" and "bad gays". Good gays stay between the four walls and are infantilized, bad gays go to pride and bars and love themselves and live their life and - gasp - might even have a series of partners before settling to marry (like every straight person ever). And this is incredibly dangerous because you'll just never know where the line is. Where is the line crossing from good to bad? When are you going to get discriminated against? Also who holds that power over you and who gives them the right to do so?
So yeah it's very very icky that when it comes to queer love, their mind immediately jumps to - oh no but what about the sex because lgbt sex is bad. This is some bullshit thinking we should already have left behind in the 60's, what were they even thinking going on these weird tangents is beyond me.
@@Nemamka They were left in the same bigotry that ruined the original show
That queerness is inherently unholy or not divine in any way, they just thought the same way and couldn't move past it
Aside from the - embarrassing at best and straight up disgusting at worst - display of these entire answers they gave, one of the things that bothered me the most was that they completely ignored the context of WHO wrote that scene. The hurt people felt was not just about what theoretical queer people that answer was going to and has been damaging, but the fact that they very much distorted the intensions of and disrespected the very openly gay man who is behind that declaration that they just refuse to acknowledge for what it is.
There is an actual, tangible queer person involved (without even including Misha, mind) who could be directly hurt by their words. A whole entire year to think about what they could have said, and yet it feels like they came up with that answer without letting it pass by their brains first at all. It's baffling, having enough time to think about every single angle and element to this and come up so f*ucking short.
They have absolutely no responsibility to cater to that man’s feelings. Did you ever consider that unlike you, they didn’t spend every second of that year obsessing over that scene? And to say that they came up short simply because they didn’t give you the answer or opinion you wanted… That level of entitlement is absolutely insane.
@@Slappys They absolutely have the responsibility to be decent to a coworker. They didn't need to think about that scene for the entire year to come up with a non-homophobic answer, five minutes would have been enough. Plus, you have literally no idea what I wanted them to say so do not make unnecessary assumptions.
@@ChiaraBuries In the last 18 or whatever months, they’ve moved on. They are busy with other projects and their families. Doubt they had the time to sit down and think about every question a fan could possibly ask, and Jensen has already addressed Destiel on a number of occasions.
@@SamiLo2 If you need "18 months or whatever" to think of a non-homophobic answer, maybe you have underlying issues. Also, if, as you say, they have indeed "moved on" and don't want to answer questions about the show, and everything it entails, they can just stop doing SPN cons and stop taking money from fans who go there to ask questions about the show the con is about. You do the con, you get called out when you give a shitty and offensive answer, it's as easy as that.
@@Slappys imagine thinking that wanting a bit of consideration and basic respect makes you entitled
It makes me deeply sad that the arguments from Good Omens (the experience of love and gender is different for celestial beings) is being transferred over to this series to propagate homophobia. Even in the Good Omens fandom the argument is a biiit suspect at times, tempered only by the fact that the original authors both have proven very supportive of the queer community. For the much less reputable Supernatural actors to be saying "ah, well, it's just not the same as human love" is, frustrating. Just let things be gay already.
spn has always lacked the courage to admit what they did, not like the creators of hannibal, sherlock and good omens, who without being explicit built these characters as lovers and have no problem admitting it. We never need to see Dean and Castiel kissing or having sex to know all the romantic drama and that it was destined for tragedy. hannigram is the top1 of toxic relationships followed by destiel hahahaha
I love this entire take. As an ace person I was so unable to verbalize WHY I felt so grossed out when certain fans were insisting I needed to celebrate the 'inclusive' answer. Thank you ! ❤
Wouldve been easy to say "when cas told him! Dean is not observant lol" and moved on
You just know if Cas was played by a woman, there would be none of this hemming and hawing about whether or not his love is romantic. Your discomfort with gays is showing, J2.
Or it’d be because the character Dean is not only completely straight but also a womanizer
@@traveler317 Why are you even on this channel
Why so fragile and defensive? Don’t like the truth?
@@traveler317 lmao no just confused as to why someone who hates Destiel and Bi!Dean and Destiel shippers is here. Are you just here to leave hateful comments because you’re bitter?
I think it wouldn't have worked if it was a woman for the fans. Even Jensen himself said in a panel that if they gave her an official partner they would surely kill her thanks to the fans, so if Castiel had been what he had to be at the beginning, but vercion woman would have killed her in season 4, Much of what Castiel is to this day is thanks to Misha, without him, the character would never have lasted so long. I mean how many times cw brought him out because they didn't want him as he was sticking out a lot like other secondary ones, but unfortunately the fans didn't let them pass and they had to bring him back
I just want someone to ask J2 and the creators why they green lit the confession if they were gonna be so fucking weird about it?? Wasn’t Jensen asked about the confession before it was shot and written and he agreed so what’s the issue??
The issue is Jensen needs/wants to continue working. He has to catter to all audiences in hopes to be seen as more than Dean, the guy who got a confession from a dude.. but you can't please everyone, that's is impossible.
@@mffmoniz2948 As frustrated as this makes me, you're right. We can make other assumptions about character but the fact is that there is absolutely a professional interest in him distancing himself from non-straight roles and characters. That makes me angry. I still stand by the original poster though and wonder...... why would you agree to this though? Why agree if you feel it's so harmful to your career prospects that you're going to try to walk it back at every opportunity. Just say no. It's bizarre.
Yeah I get what both of you are saying don’t get me wrong! I guess I was just hoping he’d say something more diplomatic like ‘I can’t speak on misha’s behalf as to what the intention of the scene or his acting choices were but I enjoyed it greatly and wanted fans to be able to freely interpret deans response’ rather than going on a tangent about heavenly love that alienated fans. Just my thoughts though!
@@mffmoniz2948 Jensen has also said he wants to do more SPN-related stuff, so he can’t piss off the ppl who own the property rights, and he may also be hoping to at some point in the future get to explore it actually as Dean, and being too definitive now as Jensen could limit what people get from that performance later on? Or even make him feel boxed in himself rather than open to the script he’d get in the future?
late but apparently the reason why ppl can’t ask about destiel, about the confession is because of daniela (also cw) but she’s the reason, she’s the one that doesn’t even allow jenmish panels and always make jred interrump them.
jensen talked about the confession so different in an interview so that for me just prove it that the problem is those panels and the people that work there. jred ‘helping’ jensen i see more as they muting jensen. and im not trying to defend even tho i love jensen but this is how i see
Thank you for this. I have tried so many times to explain that I am not mad as a shipper, but as a queer person. All I've gotten in response is that I'm just a bitter shipper and that I should be grateful that Jared validated me. It's honestly exhausting. At this point, it's just having to accept that some people will ignore anything you say if they don't agree with your veiw, whether or not you have a good point. I'm sick of having to explain that love doesn't=sex, gender= doesn't equal body parts, and that any form of sexuality that isn't strictly heterosexual doesn't=deviant. But that's just something we have to get used to i guess.
I understand that what Jared said was probably not intending to be malicious, however I don't believe it was his place to speak on the feelings of a character that is not his, especially when the actor who played the character has already spoken on the matter. Nor do I think it was his place to speak on a scene he had no involvement in, at all. I think he overstepped. I dont think saying that deserves an attack on my character. Alas, this is the fandom I signed up for.
I don't even ship it because of how Dean treated Cas. I always thought Cas loved Dean though and the confession was obviously romantic clarified by the wording of confession the writer who wrote it and Misha. Jared's answer was horrifying and the worst one but why is everyone coddling Jensen?. Jensen let Jared take over agreed with everything he said and hugged him. Jensen was not mad at Jared he agreed with everything he said. He went out of his way earlier to say if Jack was a girl Dean would glance at him to show that Dean only interested in girls.
Outside the Destiel thing they invalidate everything Cas was. Cas always had too much heart, always loved too much so yes he did have human emotion.
Jared on this occasion was the most problematic but wish people would stop with this Jensen can do no wrong. Hold them both accountable.
The other thing is Why did they even do the confession. Why do this scene knowing the outrage and awkardness it was going to create?
Who sits down and goes we're going to do a love confession followed by bury the gays and then we're going to pretend it never happened. The character who confessed his love who is a favourite for many people is going to be treated like he never existed. Why even do it they had to know the drama this would stir up
That bothered me too! It seems like some people were pushing it as a progressive thing behind the scenes, which is just... yikes. I want to question how it is that J and J are this bad after 12 years of shipping and almst a full year to come up with answers to the questions they knew were coming, but if that is what the Spn crew comes up with when trying to be allies...
I'll keep an eye on what they do in the future. If Misha wants to be seen as an ally, he'll have to make up for that trainwreck of a scene. The other two are clearly not allies, but their individual views are harder to tell.
@@mimimurlough what can misha do though hes not allowed to speak. He has said on his opinion it unrequited but Cas made a declaration of love. He was proud to speak of the scene then this happened. Him and J2 are never going to agree on it he can't go against them at a con. Cas got a terrible ending and unfortunately the whole destiel thing covered that. They really killed off a depressed lonely character for having one moment of happiness in confessing his one sided love to his friend who barely even cared he was gone. And j2 are so focused on ungaying it that they haven't even said anything about sam or dean appreciating Cas' sacrifice or what the sacrifice itself meant. They're just like yeah the junkless angel has no human emotions his feelings aren't valid your feelings aren't valid and it doesn't matter that Cas died unloved because he had no feelings anyway.
@@shazhamilton5160 you're so absolutely right about Cas and his situation that it's an actual fxcking tragedy. Actually, you're right about all of it.
@@shazhamilton5160 I totally agree with you on Castiel's arc. They basically threw him out like so much trash in order to make the last episode brothers only (and even then it's Sam's episode, since Dean is more or less turned into a sidekick with appropriate death).
What I'm saying is that Misha was in on how that ended too. He might have been a driving force in turning a meaningless death into a meaningless bury your gays, and he talks it up as if it's a good thing. But you're right that he's probably limited in what he can say about it, which is why I hope he does better in Bridgewater and his other projects. If not? Then he does need to be accountable for his part in this mess.
@@mimimurlough I hold him accountable for letting it happen in first place. He knows his coworker is against it he knew that J2 would use any means to hurt and invalidate people and dodge it and he let this happen. He should of said no Jensen should of said no to scene in first place not let it happen and then act like this. But I believe misha meant well he just wanted cas' ending to be meaningful and to him it was meaningful to me it wasn't it was horrible to see a character I relate to go out like that. J2 have never even entertained the idea of cas being important to sam and dean as family never mind loving dean. How many times have they said cas had no feelings they couldn't relate. Said that Sam and dean would sacrifice cas if needed. Jensen compared cas to a monster once said dean would never be able to relate to him. So how was this a good ending show a character many people love tell another man he loves him and sacrifice life for him while that man in question only sees him as an expandable tool with no feelings.
I get the feeling that all their prep was for more in-your-face sexual questions. And that’s partly because they equate romance and sex. Cas said I love you, not i wanna have sex with you. They didn’t think of the possibility that queer kids might ask about the love and the romance - the pure things, because anything gay in their eyes is sexual and hence not for kids, not pure, not equal to the love of straight people.
Their answer I think is a perfect example of trying to sound “woke” but having such a fundamentally wrong perception of queerness that what you say makes no sense - the homophobic thinking seeps through. At the end of the day if queer people see it as homophobia, and the homophobes see it as neutral...then it’s homophobia my guy.
Well they are from Texas, can you blame them for thinking that way when they were raised in households that promoted toxic masculinity?
@@MasterOfTheElements Well...they are also in their 40s. And they've had a ton of media training and this subject has been a part of their fandom for years. At some point you have to stop blaming peoples upbringing for their ignorance.
@@rozinamouz9286 True, God CW sucks
@@MasterOfTheElementsDude, the fact that people expect Texans to be open about being gay. I am Hella gay but I would probably stumble too because of everyone watching and not wanting to piss everyone off. You don't know what crazy person will pull a gun on you for being gay or defending gay people.
@@setofreakinkaiba8553 true, but then don't make the characters gay.
It's also weird because before the confession jared in previous panels was totally okay with destiel, so much so that he took opportunities to make fun of jensen or misha because of that, but now.......
I had to go watch it, Jensen's answer definitely could use improvement. He could of easily done that in a less problematic way without "giving anything away" but Jared's answer is a straight up train wreck.
I think Jensen had a (probably) better answer that got steamrolled by Jared and for whatever reason they’re not supposed to disagree too much on stage or something so Jensen had to try to work around Jared’s mess so we ended up with the answer he gave. Supposedly they were seen looking like they were having a more private argument/disagreement not long after?
@@TrappedinSLC It definitely felt like Jensen would of pulled of something a bit more on track without Jared's 'help' I don't want to be an apologist but I'm sure it would of been easy to forget the original question after hearing all that word vomit. They really managed to muck up a real gift of a question though.
@@rahimajackson6899 Exactly. If they’re not supposed to disagree/contradict each other strongly then he was stuck trying to make something out of Jared’s answer and we can’t tell from that what he actually was trying to say at all. Plus if Misha is limited in what he can say about it now, which seems to be the case, then there are probably similar limitations on Jensen. So then we end up with a situation where he’s trying to talk about something without REALLY talking about it (because rules) complicated by Jared adding his own crap that Jensen has to kind of go along with. That’s just not how you get good well-considered answers out of people.
I was honestly getting second hand embarrassment from Jared's answer im sorry-🖐😭
@@blink180-shoe it’s awful.
If this is how Jared tried to save Jensen... oof. Jensen began the answer awkward but that's not necessarily bad. I wish he wasn't interrupted at all and we might have gotten an actual answer to the question asked. Jared feeling the need to jump in and just detonate this bomb is really unhelpful. At least Jensen seems to have learned a little over the years going from how he started the answer, but Jared talking about the incest and pedophilia (!!!) is so fucking terrible I'm a little taken aback. 'Love whoever you want, it doesn't mean you want to do something TO them' isn't a supportive statement Jared!
As for the gender thing. They do say angels don't have genders but just by watching the show they don't actually do anything with that. They all go by him or her. Everyone refers to Cas as 'he'. Jack call a him his father. It's true he hasn't had a gendered upbringing humans do, but that's all kinda irrelevant because that's never a plot point or even a side story in the show. So for all intents and purposes Cas goes is a guy. So thinking of him as gay or bi is valid.
Jensen, you could tell was trying to verbalize his thoughts and was actually starting to describe Cas' love as a beautiful thing. Jared just waited for Jensen to stop for a breath and just plowed into whatever his hot mess answer was. When they left the stage Jensen didn't even act like he cared if Jared was following or not. Jared ruined what was about to be a thoughtful answer. Glad he got a solo panel and seemed so happy to see Misha.
They always tried to insert an unnecessary woman/random female character on Cas too (meg, emmanuel's unnamed wife, the one human Cas has sex with, that other female Angel). They always used random female characters in order to create conflict between the main (male) characters. They're just clutching at straws when they say Cas "has no gender". Truth is Cas was played by a male actor, and their homophobia/sexism prevent them from realizing Cas was in love with Dean and how fitting/great of a love story that would have been.
@@knshelton yeah, I feel like Jensen was at least tying to come out on top of the situation but Jared, kinda fucked it up
"Love whoever you want, it doesn't mean you want to do something TO them" is sending meeee how did he dig himself so deep, it's actually amazing
Thank you for this thoughtful discussion. I have been in love with a close friend of mine starting from our early 20s to mid 30s now, me being a queer woman and she being straight , I can draw some parallels here. The biggest difference is, my straight friend has always been very open and supportive about our beautiful chemistry to everyone, though there is/will be no reciprocation in the "sexual way". We are always in a very comfortable place in each others' lives. In my opinion, Cas deserves this much at the very least.
Thank you for this narrative and sharing your opinion in that calm and neutral/explanatory way. There was so much pressure on this con and the hopes for answers and confirmations was immense, so trouble, heartbreak and dissapoitment was expected. Personally I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to watch the show again, but I still find community (and solace) in the fandom that is left. I didn’t have high hopes for Jared anyway (regarding his history with problematic answers and online behavior), but this hurt so many people, so many of my dear friends and I’m so exhausted. I’m exhausted to repeat and fight for what Misha originally said after 15x18 and now the show does this weird cover-up. it’s very hurtful to now watch the erasure of what misha canonically wanted for his character and that now he’s the only one to “fight for” big parts of the fandom or calm the people down with reconciliational thoughts, because he cares about us, although he probably also is encouraged to stay silent (see misha/Alex panel) :/
This is such a breath of fresh air. Hearing about what might actually be happening behind the scenes, hearing someone acknowledging the complexity of the situation, it’s really amazing. You brought up so many points I would have never thought about that, and I wish more people were aware of these bts elements (hell, I had no clue either until this video!)
Just to clarify, I’m not saying that if people knew then they wouldn’t have been hurt/shouldn’t have gotten hurt. It still hurts, but it’s just good to know it’s not as simple as it seems.
I actually viewed Jensen's "lust" comment as a response to Jared's weird "junkless" comment because to me it sounded like Jared was implying Cas' confession wasn't romantic because he views Cas as "junkless" and Jensen was responding to that by saying that wasn't important because it wasn't about lust, but maybe that's just how I want to interpret it as an ace person.
That’s how I hear it, too. I’m also on the asexual spectrum so I hear it (combined with some of Jensen’s other comments) as more that Jensen’s take on their overall relationship is that it’s such a big thing that lust is just - not a relevant detail. Like maybe Dean and Cas would have included sex in the way they expressed the relationship to each other, maybe not, but that isn’t really what the relationship is about, it’s just a way of connecting when in squishy human bodies?
Thank u! This was brilliantly explained and really brought forward the issues and reason behind this :)
~ 6:00 I don't think the question was angling for info about Dean's feelings. Maybe whether Dean and/or Sam were aware of *Cas'* feelings, as she asked whether the actors dropped hints into their own acting, but not if those were reciprocated by Dean. But it was definitely about when the actors figured out/were told that Cas' romantic feelings would be canonised. Instead of answering that, they chose to invalidate those feelings and every fan who saw them as canon, now.
If Misha is allowed to say that this obviously romantic scene was indeed about romantic (and therefore in this case, queer by human standards) feelings on Cas side because THAT IS CANON, surely J2 are allowed to do the same? Why are they not in the same vein obligated to keep their mouth shut about another character's sexual interest (or lack thereof) in other people? Sure, romantic attraction is seperate from sexual attraction, but it tends to correlate in most people if the first is present. That's kinda the expected default in reality and possibly more so in stories (at least in straight ships) and should therefore be a perfectly valid interpretation of his character unless canon explicitly states otherwise.
There was no excuse for them saying all of that. As you pointed out, it directly contradicted multiple parts of canon info about angels (they can feel human emotions. Some of them too much. Those ones got lobotomised for it ffs).
The fact that Jared jumped in with "he's junkless" directly after Jensen said that in his opinion Cas' feelings were free of lust, makes imo all too clear that this was not about gender or validating ace!Cas headcanons, it was about desexualising the queer angel and excusing it with the "Angel" part.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
"(they can feel human emotions. Some of them too much. Those ones got lobotomised for it ffs)" it's like!!! yeah!!! do you guys even remember your own plot?!?! No?? Okay then....
Very well phrased comment!
Thank you for this. So well said and I completely agree.
I am hurt, angry, & upset specifically as a Queer person!
While I ship Destiel, I am not upset as a shipper (I never expected it to go canon or Dean's reciprocation to be confirmed at all)...
They're just actos. They simply spit lines and make expressions directed by a script. Those are questions to be given to the writers, not the actors. Actors can only asume and try interpret. They just know a bit more than the viewer but not that much.
So well said, especially the breakdown of both the answer (and what was so hurtful about it) and the reasons why that answer probably happened at all. I'm a fan of Destiel but know that fans expect a lot from the cast sometimes and look for answers that they just aren't going to get. But I completely agree with you that this should've been the safest question to give a neutral answer to (and that it really seemed like J2 had prepared for a completely different type of question that they weren't asked.) Even worse was that it was asked by the mother of queer kids. I'm glad this answer helped light on both of then and their current feelings about the confession scene and shippers in general, but hate that this is going to be used to invalidate a canonical queer character even further. I don't care people if people choose to see it as unrecripocated or see Dean as straight, but both Misha and writer Robert Berens (a gay man himself) confirmed it was written with romantic intent almost a year ago. And Misha isn't perfect, but he has been so careful to not speak on Dean's feelings or talk about what happened to both characters post-canon. Anyways, thank you for such a respectful video and I hope people from all sides learn from it!
I don't think it's about shipping so much as that many what a very clear and direct answer to *cannon* because we're being told over and over again that our perception is skewered. .. even "mishas confession was romantic," is still being argued with workds by j2 being used to back this up. And it's used in a very attacking way. To people who are trying to discuss *the show* not fanfiction or headcannon... that people are attacked and shit down for discussiong what happened on tbe screen as if it happened on the screen. And I think a lot of people want something from "Dean"/Jensen that will at least confirm and can't be used against, what already has been or shoukd be cconfirmed. "Yes. Cas's confession was romantic. Full stop." Would literally mean the WORLD.
Not another response that can be twisted or interpreted to mean this that or the other. Just flat out. Cas was confessing romantic love for dean, you aren't crazy in any way to think that.
The fact that this simple statement hasn't been made and apparently is too controversial for Jensen to say speaks so many volumes.
Thank you so much for posting this. It is so hard to briefly explain why I and many others felt hurt and invalidated. I listened to this video while folding laundry and I kept saying things like "yes!", "Exactly!" And "Thank you!" I also teared up a bit. I wish everyone who didn't understand could listen to this with an open mind and heart. I really appreciate you taking the time to put this together to try to explain. Thank you. ❤️
i think what it comes down to is jared needing to let people talk and not interrupt maybe? i feel like jensen was about to give an amazing answer, speaking on cas’s love being heavenly beautiful and all. when jared began to talk i did kind of get uncomfortable with the things he was saying, but i didn’t think anything of it. now i’m seeing all these people that felt the same way
This is why I generally stay away from hero-worshiping actors - really, the whole obsessive culture around movie/tv stars is something I disapprove of - they are people and they fuck up - FREQUENTLY! And yet, people expect them to conform to their expectations, twist their words to suit themselves, attack them for their opinions/actions and/or use them to justify their own beliefs (often horrible, damaging beliefs). Really, if you look at a lot of conventions for this fandom you find problematic behaviour both from the fans and the cast/writers. The Supernatural fandom would have been better as a whole if they'd never had conventions, but of course, they make money so they are a thing (they're just so friggin toxic most of the time).
Same here. Hero worshipping sports figures, actors, musicians, has never been a thing for me, not once in 30+ years of life have I been a fan of someone personally. Gotta say though... that Mr. Collins. He's pushing my boundaries, folks. Hard. Like, I might be in trouble. SEND HELP.
;p
In some countries of Europe people got this clearly. You see shows with very high ratings and the lead actors interviews only got a couple of views in youtube. Actors are just models that talk lines.
I have to agree
Oh my goodness, thank you so much for this. For explaining why it is harmful and not simply fans getting upset unnecessarily. This stuff MATTERS and you detail why.
I also have to wonder what Misha and Berens' thoughts were on hearing it.
Thinking of bobo and misha hearing this rant (and jensen's non-contradiction) breaks my fucking heart tbh.
Thanks for another well-thought-out response to a difficult situation. I wish the toxic elements of this fandom didn't rear their ugly heads as much as they do, but here we are. Despite their blundering through that mess, I know J2 aren't intentionally or maliciously homophobic, so those accusations against them felt wrong. Still, I wish they would step up and address this and apologize for the hurt they unintentionally caused. I won't hold my breath, because neither of them are very good at ever doing that (is it their choice or their publicists who hold them back, I wonder?). Misha's the only one who will step up and listen to what people are saying and apologize and try to do better.
Unsurprisingly, Creation tried to shut down a fan asking Misha a question about "the confession" on Sunday and thankfully Misha intervened and insisted the person be allowed to ask. This was even in a 'vetted' Q&A with Alex. (Oops?)
It's been 12+ years that Jensen and Jared have had to adjust to and inform themselves about the nature of a community that's heavily invested in the piece of art/media they've been participating in creating. It takes a mere couple hours of "asking Google" to come up with a decent understanding of how and why their characters are treated the way they are in the fandom-produced works that exist on the internet. That they are STILL redirecting away from sexuality when Dean and Cas have been put through, not-so-subtextually, ALL the stages of a relationship where romantic love and sex are usually involved (for pitys sake, they have a son by adoption), is PR handling at its finest. What they are saying, increasingly, seems to have little or no basis in factual assessments of what has been shown on screen and discovered in actual scripts.
Honest to goodness, the fact that such a large group of people have stayed so loyal to the show DESPITE how problematic it is, speaks to just how much potential the topics they are skirting around addressing have. If this was me in an interpersonal relationship with someone, I'd have been the eff out long ago. Leaving things so "open to interpretation" (we are hearing that specific turn of phrase with disturbing frequency, enough to send up the gaslighting red flag) was an intentional, and at this point, business-management choice. It's plausible deniability. That's it. If the relationship between Dean and Cas was brotherly, the way they intended with Sam and Dean, or romantic but platonic/sexless, we wouldn't be having this conversation. We wouldn't be. At all. If that was how the relationship was portrayed we would not be here.
The need for plausible deniability would not exist. You only need plausible deniability when something hard and fastly exists that needs to be obscured by it.
Thank you again for producing such thorough and thoughtful content. :)
Edit: I'm going to step out and just say it. Given that Jared has had 12+ years to improve/adapt his handling of the topic makes his actions willful. He had a specific, company-dictated message he was trying to get across and improvised some horrible filler to boot. There is no excuse for that. While I would love to be able to hear what beliefs each of them actually holds in their hearts on the subject of LGBTQIA+ issues, that whole effusion was awful.
Alternate universe:
Interviewer: "Jared, when did you know that there was chemistry between you and Genevieve, and were there any funny romantic experiences between Sam and Ruby that you wanted to explore?"
Jenson: "Well, it's important to note that Ruby doesn't have junk, so it's probably not that we could understand..."
thanks so much for the video! like you say its not about dragging or canceling but recognizing behaviors that have a negative impact specially when the people doing them have big platforms. I did a compilation of it just after it happened with some side comments of why it hurt and then I explained it better in the comments, but this is so much better! I already linked it here. The sad thing its that its only been like a day and a half and I already deleted 20 hateful comments some saying I was overreacting, other calling me heterophobic... it will probably continue for a while, but even if it hurts I wont delete the video because we'll never do better if we just ignore this stuff
Thank you so much for this video! I can't believe how two grown men can mess up so badly... it feels like the last straw, honestly, and I think a large part of the fandom feels that way.. I'm tired of having to care about what they might say because of how it affects us, idk what it will take for them to learn to be respectful of queer people. It's been so many years. This whole weekend was so disappointing!!
Love your pfp 😩
I was super disappointed in the answer we got to a really innocent, no way prodding question. I wish someone had asked Jensen that on his solo panel. Granted, I agree that there’s homophobia at play. Especially in Jared’s answer. But the fact that Jensen ‘piggy backed’ off it. I needed Jared to stfu cause he was coming across so strong with his hate speech. I was so excited that we were finally seeing the guys at a convention then boom.
I’m definitely willing to give them a chance to realize what’s going on here and switch it up. Especially Jensen. He started going in a good direction so idk. Jared had no business answering it, really.
@@Evanescence1031 It's been 7 months and they still haven't apologised, I don't think they realise what they did and just forgot about it.
@@MasterOfTheElements yeah, they probably thought they handled it well. Idk shit still sucks
Thank you for this. The con made me feel so invalid as a queer individual. And I'm happy to see other queer folk who also felt the same and are discussing the issues with it. It makes me feel more valid.
Thank you for the video and for everyone's comments. I did think at the time when watched the panel that the answer was awkward, fumbled, odd and didn't really answer the lady's question. I especially don't understand the need to define the different types of love.
Thanks for the vid. Sensitive issues like these should indeed be acknowledged.
Another thing they need to understand is not all terms of love and relationships is sexual...
Thank you for explainging this without showing a clip.
This is a well-thought out response, though I think that you have given Jared too much benefit of the doubt with regard to it being 'fucking up' in the moment as opposed to coming from a place of homophobic misunderstanding of the queer storyline in the first place (a storyline he wasn't involved in, but clearly felt he needed to comment on to disabuse anyone of the notion it was romantic). His association of incest and pedophilia with a queer love confession is emblematic of the most malicious homophobic tropes possible, and it is only our knowledge of Wincest as a going concern that lightens the implications of that in any way at all, and as it is, I still think it speaks to a more insidious problem on Jared's behalf. This is unintentional homophobia that he has had ample opportunity to overcome - this is the man who was given an award for being a good ally just a few months ago. Overall, I felt it sounded like he'd been wanting to say this for a long time, and I do wonder where these opinions came from. They weren't off the cuff - but I don't think they were necessarily invented as an answer to con questions either. Given how the show ended, I can see the line of reasoning that Supernatural 'wasn't about romance' (which Jared has also said in reference to Sam and Eileen) coming from someone like Singer, or others involved at the top level, to justify an essentially homophobic and deeply conservative approach to the conclusion of Dean and Cas' story, and that seems to be something Jared believes wholeheartedly. Lastly, I resented the implication that queer sex and romance can't be heavenly either, but I think I could at least work with Jensen on his interpretation there...
I agree, he said too many wrong things and too many homophobic talking points for me to complete excuse his statement as "fucking up". Personally I've lost any respect I had left for him, but I honesty hope he choses to hear people's frustrations and hurt over this so he can learn and do better in the future. He still has a lot of fans who identifiy as part of the LGBT+ community, and they deserve better.
@@iconicflicks8932 I really, really want this clarification to become a thing in all future confessions now 🤣🤣
I agree he did give Jarod too much benefit of the doubt... even doing so though, it's still pretty damning, and doesn't let him off the hook. (Entirely)
Isn't incest legal where they are from? In the South?
@@iconicflicks8932 I think that if they admitted that Dean was bi the ratings would have risen cause people love representation.
Thank you so much! I absolutely love your nuanced analyses and I appreciate the hard work you put into it. Thank you
this is obviously 3 years ago now but i do also wanna add something that i’ve noticed. i feel like this situation kind of genuinely changed conventions, especially at creation, specifically j2 panels - people know not to ask about destiel anymore (which is sad and ridiculous bc it’s a canon part of the show now whether we like it or not) and whenever someone asks a question about destiel at a con, the room gets quiet and tense. it makes me really sad honestly because i’m so sick and tired of walking on eggshells around these cishet actors just so we don’t make the uNcomForTaBLe as if it isn’t literally THEIR problem if gay people make them uncomfortable.. i’m going to a con soon and i’m excited but mostly i’m scared that someone will ask abt destiel and j2 are gonna invalidate this scene again and this should NOT be a normal reaction to a convention panel like there is something seriously wrong here lmao😭
This is so well thought out and beautifully said. Thank you for making this video. I hope it reaches its intended audience.
Thank you for your informative cover on this topic! I had not heard about this happening simply because I'm not on any other social media, and am busy with college. I have to admit it's a bit tiring to see all the conflict regarding Destiel in general. I also admit that I am passionate about Destiel, but I'm passionate internally rather than voicing it out loud and screaming it. However, if someone disagrees with that concept, I respect their opinion and we can move on with our lives. To be honest, it's quite frightening just to see how much hate can be generated by a singular person or group of people all because of one ship in a fandom. In other fandoms, I've never witnessed that much passion. Whether positive or negative passion. Anyway, I wanted to thank you for the video! You're keeping me up to date!
i believe that jareds response was... trying to address all the fandom infighting, the shipping, the people proclaiming their ship won in the end, all of it in one in a way that was totally wrong because it was in such an incorrect context. That of course goes along with the other reasons you explained for this response having issues. This is the only way that his response makes sense to me.
Thank you for breaking this down for everyone. Gunna try to put my opinion on everything that happened under the cut sicne so long. (Like this video is Bob's, what I write is mine and mine only.)
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My opinion stays roughly the same, in that Jared should have kept his mouth shut, the question was concerning Dean's thoughts, not Sam's, but what he said genuinely did hurt a lot of people. Do I feel Jensen should have stepped in, maybe but how could he have honestly. (Knowing he has live stage anxiety, and having anxiety disorder myself, I know that probably added to it, not an exscuse, but a reason) His answer before he had to kinda navigate around what Jared said, was very similiar to what Misha said the next day (in a question Creation staff tried to tell the person not to ask but Misha said they could) THAT ALL SAID, the people who are upset by BOTH are completely valid, the only people I'm mad at are the ones who are using that anger to mock and bully people. Being upset is fine, genuinely hating and threatening someone, the actors or other fans, is not and will NEVER be. Treating people who see logic or neutrality as if it's due to actor worship, is NOT okay. As far as Jensen, to me he is comfortable talking about the parts that won't get the CW pissed at him, like how he said if it would have been Cas, not Lucifer, at the door, Dean's reaction coming off what happened in 15x18 would have been a huge embrace. End of day though, humans fuck up bad, other humans stay silent when we wish they would or could have stopped someone from fucking up. But more importantly, Cas' confession is canonly romantic (confirmed in the past by plenty, including Misha, Jensen, Richard who directed the episode, and Berens who wrote it, along plenty of others.) and no weird unneeded rant by someone who wasn't even in the same COUNTRY when the confession was being filmed does NOT change that.
Could you please tell me where did Jensen confirm that cas's confession was romantic? Coz in everytime he spoke about it that i have seen he has tried to find away to make it not romantic or find another interpretation
@@HasnaaAlaa I apologize that I don't have links, sorry. But they all talked about it positively SO many times. He RECORDED THE FILMING OF IT on his own phone because of how big he knew it was. And talked about he and Misha sent videos back and forth of peopel reacting to it. All things said when NOT at a physically Creation Ent led convention. He's made it very clear he knows that's what it was about. Misha has even talked about how the two of them discussed how they would handle the scene because knowing how important it would be to people. If that's not enough proof, again I apologize as well those vids are all buried from almost a year ago.
@@KaylaChan90 yes i have seen what you mentioned & in nowhere in them does he say it was romantic, he said he wanted to keep that moment of saying goodbye to his best friend in his phone, yes he knows it was romantic, bobo had many conversations about it with both misha & jensen, yet still Jensen has never said that it's romantic in any interview or in public, everytime he was asked about it he tried to find other "interpretation" saying angel love isn't like human love & stuff like that!, He knows but he will keep denying it which makes it worse
@@HasnaaAlaa First and foremost, I'm not replying again, because I'm trying to NOT argue about it with anyone, so I'm going to explain why your reply is just something I don't personally agree with. Before Jared's butting in yesterday, he's always treated it as romantic, actually including when a fan asked him about it yesterday. And, because reasons Bob also mentioned in his video, has said Dean's side is interpretationable. THAT SAID! My comment literally says this is my opinion and my opinion is not blaming Jensen for what Jared said, or his blundwrs. Neither you now I need to put words in his mouth. He doesn't have to outright go "Yes, Cas was 1000% in love with Dean." for it not to be considered 'denial' ESPECIALLY, when Misha himself, WAS FORCED by Creation/CW/who the hell ever else/etc, to also say it was 'up for interpretation' the day after Jared's rant and Jensen's fumble, after telling the person asking him that the question WAS allowed even though conversation miss tried to stop it. They are not being allowed to say it, which yeah it's stupid and horrible and why I hate the CW as a company. Again I gave you my answer and this is why I disagree with yours, which was just 'he hasn't outright said it so he must be denying it'. Again my opinion is mine, yours is yours, but this is the deeper explanation of your first question I don't have the strength to explain right now but did anyway.
@@KaylaChan90 No, i am not saying he's denying it because he didn't say it's romantic, i am saying he's denying it because he has been coming up with alternative interpretation for cas's feelings unprompted, he's actively making up strange different reads like angel love isn't human & can't be compared hence we don't know, he's been saying that even before this con
thank you so much for speaking about this and addressing it! Couldn't have said this better 👏
Thank you for this, Bob. Well done. Sad to see that some people are once again willfully missing the point.
Thank you for making this video, truly. I wish people would take this approach than just vitriol hate. I watched the video of the Gold Panel and didn’t see anything wrong. But I didn’t want to reject it out of hand without understanding. And when I asked, I was literally screamed at when I said I didn’t understand why some people were upset.
Thanks to your video, I understand why people would feel hurt by Jared’s statement regardless of his intention. I’m not excusing what Jared said, but I can see how it would be an easy mistake to make. Mistakes can be hurtful - so please don’t read this as “he made an oopsies”. If I’m being honest, I could see myself making the same type of mistake. That’s why I appreciate these kinds of videos so I can learn to be a better ally.
It will be interesting to see what happens in NC in two weeks.
I just knew they eventually would have problem with all of this. The authors gained from this development but they lost their hold on their own characters to please the watchers and they still cannot accept it. They should have the guts to stand on the position of the characters as they developed.
As the only person I follow that even talks about SPN, I thank you for the time and effort you put into discussing SPN, its cast, crew and its fandom.
I am very glad I haven't been a part of the SPN fandom for seven years because if this had happened then, I would not have reacted well since I was pretty deep into a toxic parasocial headspace and SPN was my only coping mechanism.
I've since outgrown it and seeing so many of my "favorite" books, TV series, movies, comics, video games, absolutely blunder through embracing diversity and modern thinking has made me more realistic with my expectations for cast, crew and creators. (Y'all remember when Eric Kripke said Sam and Dean would vote for Drumpf).
I stopped having high hopes long for any of the folks on SPN except maybe Felicia Day and Osric Chau. SPN will always have a place in my heart but it'll never just only be SPN that holds that place. It was the fanfic and the fanart, the theorists, video creators, the excitement about Big Bangs, and new episodes etc.
Again thank you for keeping SPN content in my life and reminding me that I can still be nostalgic and realistic about my perspective on SPN now and then.
I totally understand what you're saying. My only problem is that Jensen was actually taking his time to verbally think it through, not stumbling. He was calling Cas' love a heavenly, otherworldly thing, and if Jared had left his two cents out rather than not letting Jensen speak....lile 100 other times, Jensen was on his way to explaining the beauty. Jared made it weird, and he wasn't even in that scene!
I got the impression based on what he was able to say and other answers he’s given that Jensen is trying to get at the idea that what Dean and Cas have is such a massive thing that you genuinely can’t put it in one neat box like “romance” or whatever, and to do so lessens it - not because gay romance is bad, but because calling it just romance is like saying the visible part of an iceberg is the whole thing? Because let’s be real, that is not any kind of “normal” scale love there - Dean and Cas’s feelings for each other are on an epic, universal scale. And Dean was denied an opportunity to explore what Cas’s confession would mean for how they expressed things to each other because the writer’s/network/etc. suck.
Thank you so much for this! I've been so unbelievably hurt and upset about Jared's rant and feel like I haven't been able to completely explain why. You've explained BEAUTIFULLY what the issues actually are and I can't thank you enough for it ❤️
At least it looked like Jensen was thinking about the question seriously and by the end was making Cas' love into a beautiful thing....and then Jared happened. Even Jensen didn't seem right with him after that.
This is a wonderful explanation of the issue.
I am also now wondering if the people who advise J2 on how to handle this, are actually aware of the canonical topics that revolve around angels having human desires and emotions. I feel like there is heavy disconnect - what they think and what is canon. We know that the actors themselves don't watch the show (at least not fully). Which is one of the reasons having actors as a resource of canon analysis is not the best way to go. They just don't know the full story as the fans do.
I don't think either of them is intentionally homophobic either, but they are clearly cluless on the nuances of the matter and the canon story which they tried to deal with here.
Like the answer Jensen gave is very similar to the one he gave to someone at a 1on1 m&g last year. Thou back then he explained it through Dean's understanding of Cas' feeling, not from Cas' perspective. Which made a lot more sense. Dean thinking of Cas as someone whos emotions are heavenly is different then Jensen trying to explain Cas' feelings as heavenly. The first one does not argue against Cas having romantic feelings, but the second one does. His first sentence makes sense in that context "not until the end". I am thinking that he was trying to put the already learned consept/answer to the context of this question and it failed badly. Like you said.
I honestly gave up with having a direct answer whether dean reciprocated and loved cas back or not. I know that the cw is just gonna put them in the middle ground and they will NEVER confirm or deny, and they are just gonna keep saying "it's up for interpretation". At this point I'd be really surprised if we ever got a different answer. Idk if the fans will corner and keep asking about it to the point where the cw and actors will give up and finally give an answer just to make it stop, but I think the fans should just stop trying to hint at destiel questions to hopefully get an answer bcs every time the actors are gonna screw up and say some awful disregarding thing like they did at this panel
As I expected you did a fabulous job in breaking down the topic. Thanks for responding so quickly to what happened.
What an unnecessary event in the first place. It really didn't expect that by this question.
I was really confused after it and how abrupt/ not normal the penal then ended. I mean, noone came to guide them off stage. Or a "last question" singing introduced by Rob and Jensen.
Some time ago, I did get the feeling that when something doesn't go well, they start nice talking like "hey brother, I missed you ". Like Jensen then did. Now I always get a bad feeling if they start that because I asume something may did go wrong and they try to cover it up.
It felt like Jensen decided to end the penal before it even had to.
(I believe there is much more happening behind the curtains, then we'll never know about. I stopped seeing them with pink glasses like they try to present the show. More like a real family, with many issues. )
I've been off tumblr for a while so i completely missed this, dear lord
Thank you! Very well thought-out, logical, & articulated response!
I watched your video an hour after it came out and for two years always thought about it and just how well said everything was. Because two years later and i am still thinking about this panel. it still makes me sad and angry at the same time. I don’t think i felt the same way about J2 after this and also wasn’t as comfortable watching their stuff after what they said. I am also grateful for misha that he is ,still to this day, making sure we are feeling validated with our „interpretation“ of destiel and aren’t just annoying people for wanting more.
Thank you for this, Bob.
Love this response. Thank you for explaining why J2s answers were damaging to us
Thank you so much for making this! I have been feeling so many mixed emotions about this and I think your video walked me though them and helped me understand why. I don't believe they intented any harm to anyone but it really ran away from them and hurt a lot of people, myself included. I'm really interested to see what will happen at the next convention (will do my best to keep my expectations in check this time though 😅)
Wow, this was an excellent video. 👏 Thank you for explaining it all so clearly and with so much fairness. I'm pansexual, but in a long-term het-cis relationship so I will never know how much it hurt some people in the community, but I was flinching and wincing throughout, esp Jared's response. If anyone else is still looking for the clip, it's the 2021 Denver Con on GayledIt's channel. Not to justify either of their responses (because there is no justification), but Jared esp seemed visibly nervous - almost to the point of social anxiety? First con after covid and all that...? Also, of these two, he's always struck me as a bit more rainbow-ish (Jaredina, anyone? licking and kissing male co-stars, anyone? campy dances, hair flips...), and as a Texan of a certain generation who is also super sensitive, it seems like that might cause insecurity about his masculinity and sexuality. Apropos the weirdly vehement "fuck no" response to whether he's a vegan on Rob & Rich's podcast, when it'd be a reasonable assumption given the Padaleckis' love of animals and environment. Add to that being overprotective of Jensen in the light of that small but vocal and agro corner of the fandom... I can see my way to forgiving him. All that being said, please excuse me while I go cry into my pillow for a while. 😢
You know why I was upset. I felt they were really digging their heels in plus what Jared said was creepy. I love that they want to save each other, but it really didn't work out this time. I nearly burned everything Supernatural that I own and luckily I slept on it and rewatched the next day. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought, in regards to how it effects my screenplay, but yeah it should be super embarrassing for them, especially Jared.
excellent explanation of what many have been trying to say, thank you so much for sharing this!!!
This was really good. Thank you for this.
Jared’s answer was confusing, incoherent, and eventually boring. Jensen didn’t complete his answer. What were they thinking? They weren’t. Sometimes I think the actors should just refer some questions to studio management rather than make a complete mess of them.
Yeah....they should have had answers ready for this vein of questions....
Jared shoulda just kept quiet to be honest 😂 soon as he said "I think the point is that" shit went left
@mack Stewart909 couldn't have said it better
@mack Stewart909 If you watched the video Jared asked Jensen if he wanted to answer or let him answer. Like on god, yall just love to hate✋🙄
@mack Stewart909 He's human, he's obviously gonna make mistakes, and talking to a room full of people wont help. Even Jensens not perfect there are probably conventions where he might've went off script.
Like they're human beings and as strangers why should we have the right to judge them when we dont even know them.
Thank you for this, I really needed a rational and calm discussion about this because tumblr is giving whiplash...
I started watching this show when I was about 10 back in 05, so subtext was something I was oblivious to over the years, it wasn’t something I focused on because there was so much going on with the mythology, that I didn’t have the awareness to think about the nuisances of character relationships. I didn’t have access to the fandom or meta, so I had no idea about shipping, about romantic trope parallels or anything destiel related. I was blank slate.
So when castiels confession aired, I felt like what I imagined Dean to feel in that scenario, like he’d been hit with a moving train. In the sense of, how could I possibly have missed that, how could I have been so oblivious, is this really happening or is this a dream. And with that I was replaying every scene they’ve ever had together and livid at myself for being oblivious to the purest form of love and devotion I’d ever seen on any show. Castiel had just expressed a ROMANTIC declaration of love. This was iconic, and I had to see how others had reacted, cos what I was wrong, what if I completely misunderstood what I had seen.
The reason I’m saying this is I had no expectations or awareness of destiel before 15x18, so after wading through a lot of hurtful comments and opinions, we got confirmation from ppl involved directly with the scene that this indeed was romantic.
I bring this up because during this panel, and specifically this question, I feel that what Jensen was trying to say, was along those lines of, dean being caught completely off guard by castiels confession, and subsequent death. Like that of being hit by a moving train. I think what he wanted to say before he was interrupted was an answer he’d rehearsed, that dean was not aware of Cas’s feelings, not that he didn’t reciprocate them (I think this is the answer he’s worked on for over a year). The reason I came to that conclusion was 2 things, in an earlier solo panel, a question regarding lucifer’s call in 15x19 and what deans response would have been had it really have been Cas. And although he stumbled and went off on a tangent, his response was along the lines of “well it’s kind of obvious what with how fast dean was running up those stairs”. And the 2nd instance of trying to bring up that question during the j2 panel and have Jared kind of make joke noises you make when you want someone to shut up. So even tho Jensen came off as unintentionally homophobic, and engaged in stand by like behaviour, I don’t believe that he was trying to erase the narrative, but rather used to dealing with the overwhelming dudebrofrat energy from Jared that he just retreated until it was over. I do agree wholeheartedly that for some ungodly reason that they are not allowed to talk about it, either because of the legacy it leaves spn in or the future of their own careers, but what I still cannot fathom, is why if it was huge issue to begin with why it was written in, especially knowing full well they were never ever going mention both the confession, and castiel again, both in the finale episodes and outside in the real world?
I cannot fathom why a show wants to cater to an audience that thinks it’s okay when they use queer arcs, characters and situations to make fun at how uncomfortable it makes the characters. And why they would want to work for ppl who continue to perpetuate those ideals. I do understand that is the nature of Hollywood.
All I can say is, supernatural has taught me some very important things over the past year. Like what gaslighting and queer baiting is, but more importantly how much the words, queer/gay have been used throughout the shows and movies I used to enjoy as derogatory forms of “comedy”. If the best thing to come out of the sh*storm that is s16 of supernatural, it is the awareness of how harmful even being oblivious to these harmful tropes can be, I’m okay with that. It makes me as a person want to do better.
So thank you for elaborating on different forms of homophobia, it really helped to calm the unsettling feeling I get when I think about supernatural.
Forgot to say (because I'm just so pissed off and not done venting, sorry) that you explained this wonderfully and really broke down why J2's headcanon and "all interpretations are valid" just don't work and are more than Just Their Opinion.
No one would say "it's open to interpretation" about a heterosexual love confession.
@@ultravioletpisces3666 eh they kind of did that a lot with bellarke from the 100. always making the relationship between Bellamy, a man, and clear, a woman, very ambiguous in terms of their feelings about each other. it definitely doesn't happen nearly as much with straight couples as it does with gay couples.
There had already been consequences of Jared's and Jensen's remarks. After the ramble, Misha was more than likely apprised of the situation. So, the following day, Misha took a more neutral and moderate position on the topic that did not sit well with some.
This could have lasting effects on conventions and conversations in the future.
Was that from the con or did the CW/WB get involved again? I thought he’d already said he’s been told he has to watch what he says, by the network?
@@TrappedinSLC Now I don't know.
@@TrappedinSLC from the con, i think. The next day Misha did have a more natural answer due to where he was and avoiding more division in the fandom. But in his answer he says "i know how I played it"(meaning romantic). It was later said at an M&G that Misha said to a fan "we don't always agree" meaning he and his fellow actors don't always agree on interpretations of the show, meaning Cas' confession. And notice after that Misha stoped being nutrual with his answer, especially at non-creation panels. The Germancon and con in Portugal.
I really appreciate you for addressing this
*Bob makes a video* me: lets hit like
Oof. This whole weekend has been a thing.
This seems extremely overblown.
Great take as ever. As for the aftermath, I may be old and cynical but I don't think anything is going to come of this. It is after all possible that J2 will be advised to pretend the whole thing never happened, counting on the fact that people on social media apps have a very short attention span - not to mention the possibility that many fans wanting to ask Destiel-related questions will be more hesitant to do so in the future, for fear of a repeat. I do hope I am proven wrong, though. Keep it up!
its like they thought the question was "when did you find out cas wanted to have gay sex with Dean?"
Thank you for this incredibly thoughtful response.
Jesus, how can these two be so bad at answering these types of questions after all these years? And like you said, it's 2021. They could have easily informed themselves a lot better by listening to queer people with knowledge of the community and it's issues to not give homophobes unintentionally ammunition.
Because they're obviously not good at even repeating rehearsed answers. And frankly the fact that keeping the ambiguity of certain issues has a way bigger priority for the cw than not being homophobic (intentional or not) is saying a lot.
If they're not going to even try to do this better without doing damage they just should stop talking about it imo.
Seriously though, they should have had coaching to help them answer coherently. Especially if they were nervous coming out of a long absence from public appearances like this.
I think Jensen has genuine anxiety issues that sometimes get in the way of what he has in his brain being what he actually says.
Jared, I got no excuses for.
@@TrappedinSLC I recall reading something about Jensen having stage fright (introverted, other verb). My issue with that is that he can utilize therapy, medication, and public speaking coaches to work on this issue.
I had a professor who had a Xanax prescription that she used to manage her stage fright when it was needed. She knew when she would need some extra help to get past her anxiety to do her job properly.
@@RachelAnnPotter Cons are actually not his primary job, though, and not everyone wants to take meds for stuff, for various reasons. And even if he has had a coach, etc, in the past, he’s only human. Anxiety can be worse some days than others. Or with some people - he seems much more comfortable on stage with Misha, for example, I think because Misha can kind of ‘rescue’ him when needed better than Jared.
@@TrappedinSLC wasn't it also Jared that was actually against making destiel cannon? I don't remember where I've read that but if he was so against it his aggressive (and tbh weird af) denial/retconning of previously stated facts does explain it. But agreed, absolutely no excuse for what he said regardless.
Let's be honest, it was bad writing plain and simple (Cas' speech needed to be romantic in order to make sense, but I don't think they've realized it: they just stole the whole "one moment of happiness" from Buffy/Angel and then acted all surprised Pikachu face when people thought Dean being Cas' true happiness was romantic the way Angel/Buffy was). They thought 2 people could friendly love each other the way Frodo and Sam from the Lord of the Rings love each other, but they accidentally wrote romantic love between Cas/Dean (and Dean/Sam, gross) because they're not Tolkien; they are very Bad (and sexist) writers, as proved by that ending. Cas was clearly in love with Dean. At some point Dean was in love (toxic and unhealthy) with Sam: by season 9, you know Dean doesn't love Sam, he just needs him (like Romeo needs Juliet to go on with his life). In short, it was Never brotherly love between Cas and Dean: Cas fell in love with Dean since the beginning, literally realizing what love was because of Dean and everything else Cas said in his 15x18 speech. The SPN authors just can't tell what romantic love is because they're misogynists who think women exist just for the sake of sex and having a male child (who you can call after your brother/father/male friend).
I've only recently gotten into the fandom myself, though for me I really only watched it at the very beginning at season 1 all those years ago, but halfway through it other things in my life at the time pulled me away from TV in general. So actually all these years I never even knew the show had still been going on until this year when I found out about the "destiel" fandom. And for past couple months have been trying to learn more about the show. I have to say it really pulled me in too the more I learned about the story of Dean and Castiel. I've been binge watching your videos that break down episodes season by season with Castiel, as I don't really care about spoilers since i don't really want to spend money to watch everything I was missing.^^ Also, I was reading your fanfic on AO3, the rewrite of season 9 and 10, and really am enjoying it and looking forward to the next chapters of your season 10! :)
You have a fanfic, what's it called, I'd love to read it.
@@MasterOfTheElements Yes, he is Bob Weiss on Ao3, and he has multiple Supernatural fics, but probably his longest series? is "Only Human". :)
@@Plantsandtoyhorses ok
Most of what Jared said in his answer was upsetting to hear. What really threw me off the most though was the "junkless" comment he first made when cutting into the conversation. It really felt out of no where and was just honestly shocking to hear someone say in 2021. And then the (probably) unintentional implication of that statement, that someone who can't (won't) have sex, can't experience fulfilling romantic attraction/love? As someone who identifies as asexual, that was honestly devastating to hear.
I hope Jared realizes the kind of damage statements like that can do, and addresses it in the future.
Thank you for this thorogh and very well explained analysis, Bob! :) Agreeing with everything in there.
Oh my gosh, this is giving me such Bizarre, weird and twisted vibes. I quit watching Supernatural so I never knew about a lot of these behind the scene happenings. With how detailed this is I wish you were a part of the Teen Wolf fandom so I could hear your take on Sterek, the Teen Wolf fandom and the Powers That Be (and Jeff Davis). I have a feeling the whole deal would drive you crazy.
I think Jensen started giving a good answer but did not get to finish! If a dear friend of mine suddenly started telling me that their feelings were more romantic, I would be in shock! Dean’s character would have been the same! I saw his reaction and thought it fit. Dean never had any characteristics to indicate he was or would be in a gay relationship. I think asking a loaded question usually means they already know the answer they want and will jump on when disappointed. Also Jensen tried to bring up that angelic love is impossible for a human to reciprocate or possibly ever understand! Didn’t get to finish! Sad we are even discussing!
This was hard to listen to, even ten days after the fact. :(
I wish I believed that "pr" or whoever would actually make either of the J's to think about what they had and how it was profoundly hurtful, damaging, and (in my case at least) borderline triggering. They'll never even hint at some rebuke or change of heart, especially not Jared, whose fan base straight up applauded his homophobic rant as validation for all the ugly, hurtful, homophobic things they themselves believe and have been yelling at destiel fans since at least season 5. His new walker fan base for sure would support this kind of reading. 😫
Anyway. Thank you for this calm thoughtful response. I just wish that anything would ever change with this subject, j2, and the fandom, but I expect things will only get worse before we all give up wanting any answers from either of them. I'd be happy if the word cas never crossed Jared's lips again. (Jensen's a lost cause too imo. I hate seeing fandom continue to get hurt by bashing their heads against that particular glass wall...)
You did teach me something imortant which im grateful for. People can have romantic love without having sexual attraction. As an ok boomer ive never been taught this and its an extremely foreign concept for me. I appreciate the lesson.
It didn't even cross my mind but it makes a lot of sense that both Jared and Jensen expected a very different question and just started answering that instead of what was actually asked. I understand that Jensen is not allowed to go into any detail on Dean's feelings but it would be better if he (and especially Jared) don't try to talk about Cas' feelings at all. Misha is always very clear in that he only talks about Cas and what he felt in a moment and that he can't talk about Dean because he didn't play him. It would be an easy out for both Js to just say "I didn't play it so I can't say anything about it".
One big problem with this rant is also that apparently the backlash lead to CE to be more strict about questions and how they're answered since apparently they tried to censor someone asking Misha about the confession on sunday. Misha did answer the question but he was suddenly way more vague about it than he had been before. So the answer to an actor going on a homophobic rant, no matter if intentional or not, is to censor questions about a canon romantic scene just because it's queer. It's not a good look.
I saw that video and it is so annoying, a while ago misha spoke about how certain questions were censored, in that panel she said that castiel was in denial about his feelings about dean because the production was in denial, The scriptwriters played a large part in the story , but others denied the story. When I talk about it I thought it was something from the past but apparently not, since again wanting to censor questions, the girl asks misha if she can not and misha says she can. Obviously for misha it is easier to break the rule since he does not have projects with CW, unlike jared and jensen but after a year they should know how to handle this, the girl who asked them did not expect all that stumbling of words, she expected something cute, they go and ruin it especially jared, like another thing that i didn't like what happened was on misha's panel the last girl asked her something extremely important to her i think she lost someone and she was almost crying, misha was in In the middle of that, jared and jensen entered to interrupt because the three of them could have to take pictures, ok it is understood that there is a time and everything but at least wait for Misha to finish answering. some said that later Misha sought out the girl to give her a copy of her book. I wouldn't be surprised if over time misha limits himself even more to conventions, it's no secret how cw has treated him over the years. If it weren't for the fact that it has a strong audience, they would eliminate it entirely.
@@andNvargas Oh yeah that woman's answer being interrupted was very unfortunate. Though there is no way that was intentional - I don't think Jared and Jensen even heard the question in the first place. Also as much as I feel for that woman (I'm glad Misha found her after and fans crowdfunded a cameo for her) her question was one of those that actually should not have been asked, at least not in the way it was. That topic has come up multiple times over the years that the actors are no therapists and it's very unfair on them (and the 100 or so people in the room who are just there to have fun) to put something so heavy like death of a loved one or mental health problems on them out of the blue.
Obviously Jared's rant is the big bad takeaway from this con but it was also a reminder that cons are a two-way street. The actors need to find a way to talk (or not talk) about the confession in a not shitty way and fans need to remember that the actors are people too and that bringing very heavy subjects to them or asking them to dance for you like some circus monkey is not cool either.
I agree almost completely with what you say. But you forgive Ackles too much. His "yeah" to Jared implies that on the general concept they agree.
Exactly this, also he always tries to find other "interpretations" for cas's love unprompted & unnecessarily