I suppose I feel it would be unrealistic for Dean to talk like he's had queer theory in college (which he didn't go to) and that if the writers chose only language that aca-fans would like, he wouldn't come off as working-class at all.
I suppose I think the reason I feel the writers are (mostly) doing okay--there've been a few recent episodes where Dean felt "off"--is because the people who object to what Dean says are people who do not seem to come from his background. The fans I know whose backgrounds are closer to Dean's generally feel that he rings true and doesn't come off misogynist. If there are people from Southern or lower Midwestern working-class backgrounds who think Dean's talking like a misogynist, I don't know who they are.
One of the things about classism is that it often manifests itself as a standard of polite discourse that you can't possibly hope to meet if you don't have that kind of education, you know? This is similar to the "tone" criticism often levelled at people of colour in which your argument is not addressed, only the way you went about making it.
I think part of the reason I am having a hard time quantifying these nuances is that I have to switch registers to do it. There's the language I used when I was getting my master's degree, the language I use when I talk to my friends back home in West Virginia and Kentucky and Maryland, and the language I use to talk to friends here in California. They're not exactly the same and while the English words have all the same dictionary meanings, they're definitely taken in different ways by different groups of people and class is a factor there. There are things that I would be very offended by if a man said them to me at the university where I work, but not if a man said them to me at a barbecue in a relative's back yard, because they would just feel so different.
Of course, part of my understanding of the world is that different groups of people use the same language differently and that there's a fair amount of miscommunication that happens as a result of this. I have to admit that I've always, academic-wise, been a lot more interested in theories of communication and linguistics and dialects than I have been in race/gender theory, so that's the lens I'm looking through. There's body language that goes along with what Dean says that lets you know how seriously to take what he says. Jensen Ackles is very Southern, so even though Dean's supposed to be from Kansas he reads Southern to me sometimes.
There probably is some truth on both sides of this argument. There usually is. But I want to defend Dean because I empathise with his confusion about how to talk to people who aren't from the world he comes from and don't know the whole code for what he means--especially lately in fandom.
no subject
I suppose I think the reason I feel the writers are (mostly) doing okay--there've been a few recent episodes where Dean felt "off"--is because the people who object to what Dean says are people who do not seem to come from his background. The fans I know whose backgrounds are closer to Dean's generally feel that he rings true and doesn't come off misogynist. If there are people from Southern or lower Midwestern working-class backgrounds who think Dean's talking like a misogynist, I don't know who they are.
One of the things about classism is that it often manifests itself as a standard of polite discourse that you can't possibly hope to meet if you don't have that kind of education, you know? This is similar to the "tone" criticism often levelled at people of colour in which your argument is not addressed, only the way you went about making it.
I think part of the reason I am having a hard time quantifying these nuances is that I have to switch registers to do it. There's the language I used when I was getting my master's degree, the language I use when I talk to my friends back home in West Virginia and Kentucky and Maryland, and the language I use to talk to friends here in California. They're not exactly the same and while the English words have all the same dictionary meanings, they're definitely taken in different ways by different groups of people and class is a factor there. There are things that I would be very offended by if a man said them to me at the university where I work, but not if a man said them to me at a barbecue in a relative's back yard, because they would just feel so different.
Of course, part of my understanding of the world is that different groups of people use the same language differently and that there's a fair amount of miscommunication that happens as a result of this. I have to admit that I've always, academic-wise, been a lot more interested in theories of communication and linguistics and dialects than I have been in race/gender theory, so that's the lens I'm looking through. There's body language that goes along with what Dean says that lets you know how seriously to take what he says. Jensen Ackles is very Southern, so even though Dean's supposed to be from Kansas he reads Southern to me sometimes.
There probably is some truth on both sides of this argument. There usually is. But I want to defend Dean because I empathise with his confusion about how to talk to people who aren't from the world he comes from and don't know the whole code for what he means--especially lately in fandom.