To draw a somewhat strained parallel, Picasso's Massacre in Korea doesn't show the Americans being punished for what they're doing, but it couldn't be said to be pro-American.
I don't know the painting, but if I may assume it's in the vague vein of Guernica - and I just checked Wikipedia and they made an explicit comparison. OK. If Picasso's painting is a good example of this "neutral camera", I think neutral camera is a bit of a misnomer. The painting is highly critical of the Americans, by portraying through art the horror of what they're doing. The camera may be neutral, but the work of art is not. However, in the case of Supernatural, I thik the camera is neutral and the work is too. Picasso is performing a specific criticism of americans. SPN is not performing any kind of criticism of Dean (except occasionally that he's a bit uncouth and/or nobly suicidal.)
Additionally, shows that are called "gritty" or "realistic" can get away with this kind of criticism - often it's the raison d'etre of that kind of show. SPN is not a realistic show: it's not realistic about relationships, portrayal of women, portrayal of men.... I don't buy that SPN, as it is now, is capable of performing these criticisms. (Maybe in Season 1 it might have.) It's like a sitcom portraying yet another gorgeous woman ending up with yet another average or downright unattractive man. Yup, that kind of thing can and does happen in real life regularly, but portraying it doesn't help to criticise it: it helps to perpetuate it.
After all, many of the people who say that feminism was useful once but is obsolete now say so because they feel that essentially everything's fine, or that nothing's so bad that it's not within the power of individual women to deal with. To show blatant sexism in action is a powerful challenge to this hypothesis.
I agree and think that that can be very fine work (but tricky work, too, especially if you're putting it in the mouths of your heroes.) However, I don't think it's work that SPN is doing.
no subject
I don't know the painting, but if I may assume it's in the vague vein of Guernica - and I just checked Wikipedia and they made an explicit comparison. OK. If Picasso's painting is a good example of this "neutral camera", I think neutral camera is a bit of a misnomer. The painting is highly critical of the Americans, by portraying through art the horror of what they're doing. The camera may be neutral, but the work of art is not. However, in the case of Supernatural, I thik the camera is neutral and the work is too. Picasso is performing a specific criticism of americans. SPN is not performing any kind of criticism of Dean (except occasionally that he's a bit uncouth and/or nobly suicidal.)
Additionally, shows that are called "gritty" or "realistic" can get away with this kind of criticism - often it's the raison d'etre of that kind of show. SPN is not a realistic show: it's not realistic about relationships, portrayal of women, portrayal of men.... I don't buy that SPN, as it is now, is capable of performing these criticisms. (Maybe in Season 1 it might have.) It's like a sitcom portraying yet another gorgeous woman ending up with yet another average or downright unattractive man. Yup, that kind of thing can and does happen in real life regularly, but portraying it doesn't help to criticise it: it helps to perpetuate it.
After all, many of the people who say that feminism was useful once but is obsolete now say so because they feel that essentially everything's fine, or that nothing's so bad that it's not within the power of individual women to deal with. To show blatant sexism in action is a powerful challenge to this hypothesis.
I agree and think that that can be very fine work (but tricky work, too, especially if you're putting it in the mouths of your heroes.) However, I don't think it's work that SPN is doing.