Supernatural and the Romantic (like Shelley and Blake and not, like, kissing)

Back in 2005 the then WB aired the pilot episode of a little show called Supernatural. Despite low ratings, eight years later, that show is still on the air. It probably has something to do with the absurdly loyal fans. (Be aware, I am one of them.)

(FYI, they moved it to Wednesdays)

For those of you who don't know, the show follows two brothers, Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) Winchester as they travel across the back roads of America in a black 1967 Chevy Impala and hunt all the things that go bump in the night - monsters, ghosts, and demons. The first three seasons dealt with pretty straightforward urban legends and the basic staples of the gothic horror genre - poltergeists, vampires, hookmen, witches, and curses. You know, the stuff that make up the campfire tales.

In season four angels and Lucifer himself were introduced and the Romantic foundations of the Gothic began to be apparent in this textbook American Gothic series - themes of anti-establishmentarianism, the preference of emotion over reason and the elevation of old folklore and practices among other things.

That's what I want to explore in a series in a series of posts - how Supernatural is a working example of the Romantic and Gothic thematic in the media of television and how they are ingested and absorbed into the new media created by online communities. Basically, I'm going to take themes and ideas from the Romantic movement and the Gothic genre and apply them to the show.

I plan on posting them on Wednesdays, hopefully before the show airs at 9/8c.

Warning

If you are not a fan of this show and my posts inspire you to start watching it, beware this is not a happy show. Seriously, there are no happy endings here. This show will anger and frustrate you and tear out your heart and set it on fire and like a crackhead you will just come back for more. 

In time, you will see that this is kind of the point of the show.