“How is that not rape-y?": Dean as anti-bella and feminism without women in supernatural

Abstract

In “Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Jo the Monster Killer: Supernatural’s Excluded Heroines,�? Mary Borsellino argues that Supernatural is less a philosophical heir to Buffy and more of a reaction to and refutation of Buffy’s challenge to gender paradigms, arguing that “Buffy gave the world a story in which the traditional roles of masculine hero figures were questioned, and Supernatural responded… by attempting to restore those pre-Buffy tropes�? (112). Borsellino reads Supernatural as a response to and a “refutation/backlash�? of the feminist reclamation of traditionally masculine hero tropes that Buffy represents and suggests that Supernatural privileges a “traditional form of American masculinity�? (110), one that she implies is inevitably tinged with misogyny. Borsellino ultimately positions the show as a text wherein women are effectively silenced.