Incidentally
I have no idea what was/wasn’t said to upset my dash, but Mr. Ackles, if your intention is to play Dean as heterosexual, then you’re doing it wrong. Either you are the worst actor in the history of time or you are secretly in love with Misha Collins. Because if all those lingering glances and awkward bits of flirtation aren’t intentional? Then that really only leaves us with those two last options. You are welcome to decide which you prefer.
My problem is that I’m about 103% convinced Jensen Ackles is the best actor I’ve ever seen.
On a more serious note. I need to say this.
I do try my best to provide a positive place for people to go to when they visit my blog. That doesn’t mean I avoid constructive criticism, just that I try to see things in perspective and to find a reason for them that makes sense.
But I, too, am at a bit at a loss here. I honestly, honestly don’t know what Jensen Ackles’ problem is. I’m being dead serious here.
The things I’m sure of are:
- that for eight years Dean Winchester has been played as a man trying to live up to an impossible standard to masculinity
- that for eight years (and as implied/shown in After School Special, for all his life) he’s failed at this, partly because it’s an unreachable standard anyway (unless one is ready to lose their humanity) AND partly because for a series of circumstantial and innate reasons he doesn’t fit within that model, often being more comfortable in more traditionally neutral or even feminine roles/displaying more traditionally neutral or feminine qualities
- that for at least seven years (from Playthings on) he’s been portrayed as having an ambiguous sexuality, unresolved issues with his sexuality, iovercompensating for something (which in 8x13 was confirmed to be at least partly his sexuality when he told Sam how good looking the two girls at the bar he hadn’t paid attention to were) and displaying all the typical signs of being a repressed queer person, either: bisexual/biromantic, hetero-leaning bisexual homo-leaning biromantic, pansexual, or something along that line
- that very specific acting choices have been used (along with elements from the direction, the scripts, etc.) to give this kind of portrayal and to strongly suggest a queer interpretation of Dean’s character
Excluding Jensen being a bad actor completely, and considering that even if he was a bad actor, there is still no excuse for portraying a character like that “by mistake”
What I don’t fully understand is whether:
- Jensen is perfectly aware of the way he is portraying his character but, possibly because of a very severe case of social anxiety, he is unable to deal with the delicate subject in public, and for that same reason he is doing a terrible job at trying to handle it - meaning, his social anxiety is so bad that he has to pretend he has no idea where a queer interpretation comes from or what he’s doing in order to be able to handle the pressure in front of a thousand people who might appreciate what he has to say but might as well boo (ooh, don’t we know that), in a society where these kind of things are still often frowned upon, OR
- Jensen has such big personal issues with masculinity and sexuality (personal, as in that is something he is struggling with and it’s very difficult for him) that he pretends with himself he is not aware of the way he is portraying his character and what the writers are implying and is (again, while pretending with himself) making ALL those acting choices unconsciously, in this sort of freudian way
- if he maybe lives in Nonsenseland where “heterosexual” means “bisexual” and “manly” means “with a manly facade but actually not all that traditionally manly”, or perhaps there are in fact two Jensen’s, one being a well balanced man very consciously, cleverly and thoroughly portraying a character that is a pretty much complete subversion of the heterosexual macho stereotype, the other being a man who’s never watched Supernatural and only ever heard of Dean from the mouth of a dudebro in denial
What I noticed is:
- that he seems to have a fucked up idea of masculinity and gender roles, likely because of upbringing
- that he often puts special care into putting up a “manly” public persona and into making sure everybody knows how manly he is, despite: everybody knowing he’s a very shy person, having displayed flirtatious behaviour towards men, having a kind of flirty way of moving his body in general, getting easily moved when someone compliments him sincerely, having shown genuine affection towards cast members, having displayed various types of behaviour that wouldn’t be considered “manly”, being extremely contradictory because of that, with a wide gap between his declarations of manliness and the things he does, more or less unconsciously
- that he has repeatedly felt the need to stress how manly his character is, how much his character likes women, how much his character really likes women a lot and would totally enjoy a vaginafest, what a manly straightforward dude his character is, how much his character enjoys women, even when not asked slipping it in sublty, en passant, during causal comments
Finally, what I think, which is only speculation and assumptions and is not necessarily right, is:
- that it’s interesting to see how his colleagues, even only sticking to Jared and Misha, have never felt the need to reinforce any of those things so much
- that he’s probably attached some of his personal issues onto Dean and that’s why he feels like he has to defend his manliness and heterosexuality, DESPITE portraying something completely different, even the exact opposite
- that this is a kind of behaviour as old as the world and usually behind it there are pretty fucked up things like social pressure, feeling inadequate, feeling insecure, needing to live up to your dad’s expectations, knowing you can’t, especially knowing you can’t for specific reasons, repressing your spointaneity in favor of keeping a certain fake persona, etc.
- that there is denial in all this somewhere, though I won’t pretend I have the right to venture into speculating where
- that seriously, I have seen his (male) colleagues occasionally do problematic things, but even extending it of Rob, Richard, Sebastian, Matt, Jim, Mark, I have never seen any of them behaving like they have this extreme need to prove something to someone
- that once again, it’s good that Misha, as well as many wirters, have started taking the subject of Dean/Cas and Dean’s sexuality seriously, and for some reason Jensen is the only one who can’t
- goddammit, even Jared has made at least four comments (“what you were ALL waiting for”, “the goods and bads of being the straight character…”, encouraging the girl at njcon to go on with her question which I’m pretty positive he had understood and knew where was going, and “do tell us” when Jensen was about to talk of a ‘particularly emotional scene he’d recently done’, Jared having understood he was going to talk about the crypt scene), where was I, yes, even Jared has said things that make me believe he’s perfectly aware of what’s going on
I feel moderately bad for posting this and in another situation I would keep my thoughts and observations to myself, but while I realize that I’m talking about personal stuff here, I feel like at least I need to lay it out because this is affecting way too many people. So here you have it.
Sorry if I made anyone uncomfortable.