Bloody Fangirls

In her essay on female horror fandom, writer and filmmaker Alessia Galatini writes about Supernatural, Charmed and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I went to San Diego Comic-Con last summer, primarily because the Supernatural (2005-2020) cast was hosting its goodbye panel in the lead-up to the show’s fifteenth and final season. It was just as intense as stories had made it out to be. I had heard legends about the endless queue of Hall H, so, as a convention veteran, I was prepared to give up several hours of sleep to make the first row. I showed up at 4am the day before, exactly twenty-seven hours before the panel was due to start, and there were already about forty people ahead of me - of the some 6,500 fans that would eventually make it into the room. I spent a full day and night queueing (and sleeping rough under a marquee). Was it worth it? Absolutely. 

Welcome to the world of fandom.

My passion for TV shows began in childhood, when I maniacally stocked up on VHS of Charmed (1998-2006) reruns. I have actually rewatched it during quarantine in order for my girlfriend to see it too, as it felt like not knowing the show meant not knowing a huge part of me. With its early 2000s’ humour, it definitely cheered up lonely lockdown evenings. As one of three sisters, whose names also all begin with the same letter, the show always resonated with me. It taught me a lot about power and family, and I think of it as  first steps into the world of very white, pop feminism. Years later, when I moved to London for university, I binged through Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003), with its depiction of young adulthood through monster-slaying metaphors, which came at the exact right time for a young bisexual woman who had suddenly moved to a radically different place and was beginning to navigate both her sexuality and relationships.

As a Creative Writing student, I spent a lot of my time in the library. And I remember very well the moment I stumbled into a section dedicated to fandom studies. There was an actual academic interest in the phenomenon, which validated many of the theories that I usually saw on Tumblr posts. In some cases, it was those same members of fandom that were taking these social media posts into their dissertations and studies.

For example, in her 2015 essay, “De-Mystifying Fandom: An Ethnography of the World of Supernatural Fangirls”, Shellie McCurdy compares fandom to religion. She says that, “While the mystic sends prayers, meditations, blood, or tears to their god, the fan sends fic [fiction], art, songs, videos, anything to the internet. I imagine fandom as a carousel, or a merry-go-round… it is not just the fans, spinning the carousel; it is not just the source material, the carousel sitting alone. Fandom needs both parts to be fandom.” 

This mutually beneficial dynamic can take an unexpected turn when shows give life to passionate and diverse fandoms that go against the target audience or authorial intent. It’s no coincidence that the aforementioned shows share so many fans, given that, at the core, they are all epic stories about the supernatural but, what is striking, is that many of these fandom studies highlighted, via questionnaires and polls on slash and fanfiction, how the above are predominantly made of LGBTQ+ women. While Buffy and Charmed owe their feminist following to female lead characters, Supernatural is more baffling, as the lead characters are cis white men navigating a traditionally ‘masculine’ environment (some of the show’s iconic elements include the open road, guns, violence and vintage cars). And yet, according to McCurdy's 2015 poll, 97% of the Supernatural fandom identifies as female or non-binary, leaving the male audience to a mere 3%. Of the individuals that took part, 43% identified as bisexual and 93% as feminist.

When all three shows are run (and created, in the case of Buffy and Supernatural) by cis, straight white men, how does the story shift when seen through a queer female gaze? And who, ultimately, has the final word on the show’s legacy? 

There’s something about identity that tends to attract LGBTQ+ audiences to the supernatural themes of these shows. In her essay, “Dry”, in She Found it at the Movies: Women Writers on Sex, Desire and Cinema, transgender writer Willow Maclay compares her experience of gender identity to that of alien and monstrous characters in film and TV, as they were often the only ones deprived of binary gender norms. The author recognized, in these creatures, the very same internal alienation she had lived. 

Dealing with the supernatural, often meaning the ‘non-human’, opens the door for metaphors about the Other; someone who is different from the perceived norm and often considered scary because of it. So, by watching these groups of complicated humans learning the ethics and meaning of “fighting monsters” - when de facto monsters in these shows often become allies or romantic partners - we explore our own relationships with others (let’s not forget that Tara and Willow’s first dates in Buffy were passed off as witchcraft lessons). 

Regardless of the author’s intent, the supernatural horror genre is the best modern equivalent of ancient mythology: fertile ground to explore what’s foreign and uncomfortable, but in a less direct way owing to its fantasy lens. Having said that, creators are aware of the resonances: Buffy’s sacrifices are a metaphor for the painful process of coming of age; the Charmed Ones’ struggle between witch and family duties are the key to exploring the many roles women are required to assume in the social and domestic spheres, and Supernatural’s tale of two dysfunctional brothers avenging their mother’s death is a reflection on trauma and personal agency. Still, the audience is welcome to immerse themselves in the story and craft a meaning that suits their own experience. Since the world-building of these shows is so vast, fans can’t really be blamed for picking up on deeper subtext than intended. So many factors contribute to the final impact - everything from actors’ chemistry to set design. Where there is a story, there will inevitably be fans ready to expand on it. Writing for The Atlantic, Shannon Chamberlain points to the history of fan fiction, a part of the Anglophone world since the 18th century,  “[Almost] as soon as people started writing modern novels, readers began to find ways to continue the adventures of their favourite characters and share those stories with other enthusiasts.” 

Where Buffy, Charmed and Supernatural are concerned, the fans’ life experiences and world views differ significantly from those of the shows’ creators, which invites questions of the power dynamics at play. Despite their feminist followings, all three shows or their creators have received accusations of misogyny. Charmed’s showrunner, Brad Kern, has been accused of sexual misconduct and is rumoured to have driven away the show’s creator Constance M. Burge; Supernatural doesn’t have the best track record of longevity for its women characters and has often dismissed LGBTQ+ narratives as either subtext or jokes; even Joss Whedon, who self-proclaims as a feminist, hasn’t practiced what he preaches. 

This juxtaposition becomes particularly tricky when the show executives decide to take advantage of the fandom’s demands for diversity to promote the show (which often yield excellent results). Tara and Willow’s lesbian relationship still allows Buffy to place well in the LGBTQ+ TV panorama. Dean and Castiel, Supernatural’s most shipped yet not-officially-canon couple, have won the show several awards and press articles As well as consistently remained AO3(Archive of Our Own, the world’s most prolific fanfiction database) most popular pairing.

The problem is when these executive fail to acknowledge those same fans when they misstep. Despite being set in San Francisco, Charmed only has one lesbian character over eight season and she dies after one scene. In Buffy, Tara’s murder and the outraged public reaction to it is eerily similar to that of Charlie’s death in Supernatural, thirteen years later, especially after her introduction earned the show a GLAAD Award nomination. The fandoms accused these plot twists of playing heavily on the “bury your gays” trope and of annihilating the agency of LGBTQ+ characters. To this, the creators replied that it was simply what was best for the story, choosing not to address this problematic history. It was also only in its latest season that Supernatural allowed a redemption arc for Becky, a character originally introduced to represent “fangirls” in a less than positive way, to the point of depicting her as a sexual harasser. In my opinion, it’s moments like these that clearly highlight the inherent differences and priorities of each side. By making fun of fandom or dismissing complaints for better representation as “fan service”, these creators expose their privileged detachment from the stories they tell. And here’s the question: is it inherently misogynistic to support these shows, or is fandom’s interpretation a feminist reclamation? 

It’s thanks to fandom that certain shows remain iconic years after they’ve ended, through conventions, fan merchandise and online content. Fans become second-hand narrators: we recommend the shows because of what we see it in them, and anyone who joins in that fandom has greater chances of sharing their thoughts with a fellow viewer than with the showrunners. 

Women, and teenage girls in particular, have always been at the forefront of fandom work. Being part of these show’s fandom has been a way for many women, myself included, to approach the world of feminism. At the same time, writing fan fiction or being part of a fandom can often be associated with shame. In “Fandom At The Crossroad”, the authors discuss how the term “fangirl” still carries negative connotations of obsession and hysteria. I experienced first-hand the awkwardness of having to explain “real life” friends that I spent my free time online discussing how a certain character could be read as queer. This is another symptom of the societal oppression that prevents women from voicing, let alone putting into practice, their own desires. In her essay “Teenage girls know something we don’t”, Sheila O’Malley argues that, “When women launch into public fantasies like these, it means they are not solely focused on the men in their lives. This brings on a sense of inadequacy in the men who don’t get it.” 

Therefore, such interest is often reduced to desperate women lusting over attractive actors, when, in fact, this explanation fails to cover the plot-related world of fan fiction and fan conventions. Fandom’s power extends well beyond analyzing the show - Supernatural’s cast has raised millions of dollars for mental health aid and disaster reliefthanks to the mobilization of its worldwide fandom. McCurdy writes, “When asked what was the most important aspect of fandom both personally and in general, why they participate, and why they feel that fandom is important, users overwhelmingly stressed the connections they had found in the community.” Fandom is, for many, the first opportunity to be part of an extensive community and confront complex topics through fictional metaphors. It celebrates and equalises diversity through communal love for a story. 

After AO3 won the Hugo Award in 2019, the work of fans has been reappraised and assigned new value from critics. When we look at the legacy of these shows today, we look at a cultural phenomenon able to bring several generations together, online and in person. We also look at one of the few environments where feminist and LGBTQ+ spaces get to exist undisturbed. To dismiss such power as a superficial obsession is not only unfair but reveals a clear bias as to whose voices we deem worthy of being listened to, both in film criticism and in real life. My hope is that the queer female gaze is taken more into account in the years to come, given the cultural and societal impact it has had, especially where these three shows are concerned. 

Beyond this, I think it’s worth noting how much worse our mental health could be affected if it weren’t for films, TV shows and books to keep us entertained and occupied during times like Covid-19 lockdown. I’m not the first to speak about cinema therapy, but it’s something I think more people have become aware of during this self-isolation. I have been there before. It felt familiar, to some of the most anxious times of my life, when I didn’t have the energy for much else other than putting on an episode that I knew all the lines of. These characters compensated for the family that I couldn’t physically visit. It reminded me that I had my first coming out within fandom. I’ve met most of my friends through conventions and I’m used to having them scattered across the world. Fandom has, to me, been a therapist, a sibling, and a mirror, to look within myself. Fandom has always been my way out of isolation.

Alessia Galatini is a London-based writer and filmmaker. After graduating with a BA in Creative Writing and an MA in Screenwriting, Alessia went on to direct, write and/or produce short films and music videos. She runs the Film & TV section of UK magazine The F Word. Her short stories have appeared on international magazines such as Luna Station Quarterly and Rabbit Hole Magazine.

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