'Supernatural' Season 15 Episode 18: Making 'Destiel' canon between Cas and Dean now is homophobic, here's why
For Destiel shippers, the latest episode of 'Supernatural' makes Destiel canon in the most homophobic way possible. When Castiel says, "I love you" to Dean, not hiding what he feels in the least, it was what fans shipping Castiel and Dean since Season 4 have waited for years. And right after that the writers of the show, invested in a heterosexual Dean, had Castiel get pulled into the Empty — essentially killing one half of the ship just when one of them had confessed his love.
It has to be mentioned that whether intentional or circumstantial, there has always been canonical evidence of Dean’s bisexuality. Even as he sleeps with women across the towns of America, his truly emotional and deep bonds have always been with men. Between Sam and Dean, it is always Dean who forms the connection with any male and non-family member who is around their age on the show — from best friend Benny Lafitte the vampire, to Ash, to Garth, Gordon Walker, prison inmate Tiny, to even demon Crowley.
There have been actual canonical instances of being Dean being attracted to men too — from his obvious crush on Doctor Sexy in "Changing Channels" to his interactions with Ranger Rick, to the fact that the Siren who turned into "whatever floats a guy's boat" became a man to "seduce" Dean. And yes, he seemed genuinely disappointed that he and Aaron Bass in 'Everybody Hates Hitler' did not "have a moment" or a "gay thing". So to get facts straight, Dean's subtext has always strongly portrayed him as bisexual till the writers made Dean's interactions with the men on the show more heterosexual with each passing season. Dean's "instances" of bisexuality have reduced to nothing, with Jensen Ackles making his discomfort known. But Misha Collins (much to the delight of shippers) continued to bring an ambiguous energy to Castiel's interactions with Dean.
As the Destiel ship grew in strength, writers took to queer-baiting them. They would toss shippers a bone or two with an emotional scene per season between Castiel and Dean. Queer-baiting kept shippers interested as viewers and helped ratings. But in the last few seasons, Dean and Cas didn't really have too many scenes together anymore. Cas has perpetually been on some mission or the other, or he is present in group scenes. So these sudden emotional moments felt unearned and were cynical bait to keep audiences invested. When there were practically no LGBTQ representations on TV, these scraps were all that was on offer.
However, now it is 2020 and queer relationships are exploding all over the TV landscape. No one really cared whether 'Supernatural' made Destiel canon anymore because there are so many good, great and complex relationships on offer that LGBTQ fans have turned to. But still, having the writers go from "queer-baiting" to "burying the gay" is a deep cut. It is also possibly the worst way to make Destiel canon. Worse, it isn't really canon because Dean is now so much the stereotypical het-male the writers wanted him to be that he can only see Castiel as a friend and nothing more.
So we have Castiel pouring his heart out as a gay angel and his object of love telling him, essentially, "well I guess this is goodbye then" before he dies. As soon as Castiel acknowledges he is gay, he is wiped out of the show forever — no mess no fuss — so that Dean doesn't have to deal with a "gay thing". And no amount of single man-tears Dean drops is going to make up for it.
'Supernatural' airs on Thursdays at 8/7c on The CW.