In fiction, mixtapes are a symbol of love. While true that they can serve as gestures of familial love—Guardians of the Galaxy is an obvious example—they are far more iconic for embodying romantic love, and you would certainly be hard-pressed to dig up an example of a mixtape being a platonic gift for a friend in any form of media.
That fact alone, however, isn’t proof that Dean’s gift was inherently romantic, so let’s delve deeper into this delightful rabbit hole, starting with two words: Led Zeppelin.
In season twelve itself, Dean recalls that the legendary rock band played a key part in Mary and John’s relationship: When they first met, they were able to bond over a shared passion and knowledge of the lyrics to Led Zeppelin songs.
This is no coincidence. Why draw a connection between John and Mary’s love using Led Zeppelin and then choose, of all the other rock bands Dean enjoys, Led Zeppelin as the sole content on Dean’s mixtape for Cas? It’s labeled with “Zepp Tra xx” so we know exactly what he put on it. That’s not something you can easily wave off as an accident.
Which is why it’s important to explore what purpose (if any) the mixtape serves if it doesn’t hold romantic connotations. I’ve seen arguments like the one below, and I just gotta tell you, they’re not deeply-rooted in much fact or awareness for how literary devices and cinematic techniques work:
In 9×18 “Meta Fiction”, Metatron provides Castiel with the knowledge of every piece of media he has ever consumed, which we know isa lot, so claiming that Castiel is still ignorant to pop culture is canonically untrue. Additionally, we know Dean doesn’t mind listening to Taylor Swift (10×12 “About a Boy”), so I don’t think it’s accurate to say he’d be horrified if Cas started rockin’ out to “Shake It Off”. You know, because…he did.
There’s a difference between sharing music in real life and sharing music in fictional media. In media, a story is being told and it’s safe to assume that things are being done very deliberately. We don’t see the exchange between Dean and Cas when the mixtape was initially given, so we are forced to derive the meaning of the gift from the single scene it’s presented to us.
What does the scene tell us? Not much. Cas places the tape on the desk. We see a close up of it that blatantly allows us to read what its titled (Cas even taps the label to further draw our attention to what it says). “Um, I just wanted to return this.” Dean picks it up and extends his arm. “It’s a gift. You keep those.” Cue close-up of their hands.
Why is this scene framed so intimately, placing such importance on the mixtape by emphasizing its existence in not one, but two close-ups? Because the mixtape is significant, and it’s more than just an excuse for Castiel to come into Dean’s room—ultimately—to steal the Colt. Something feels off, or missing, this entire scene, because it’s not just about Dean giving Cas a mixtape, yet at the same time we’re given little actual text on what it really isabout.
So what is it really about? Because let’s be honest, if this was about Dean giving his platonic dude bro Cas some proper tunes to rock to, we wouldn’t be getting close-ups of this thing, because we’d get a textual explanation on why it was created instead, something like: “Yeah, hey man, this is for you, so you don’t have to keep listening to televangelists when you’re on the road.”
The writers of the episode, and everyone involved with constructing the storyline of this whole season, made a conscious decision to omit so much as a mention of a mixtape outside of 12×19 “The Future”, so there was no build. No expectation. We were taken by collective surprise, regardless of whether we later interpreted it as a good thing or a bad thing. This was done on purpose.
Why? Why not give us the backstory? Because the backstory is supposed to be made clear by the mixtape itself. Remember, thought was poured into titling this tape. No one hurriedly scribbled “DeaNs top 13 Zepp TRA xx” on this prop. It was crafted to look that way. The spelling and lettering is significant. The curious half-space between TRA and xx is worth noting.
Pairs of Xs are recognized as kisses. Why decide to write “tracks” this way? Why decide to place the Xs further apart from the rest of the word, almost encouraging us to interpret them this way instead of dismissing them as simply shorthand. They are clearly lowercase Xs as well, and not capitalized like the rest of the word, further allowing us to think of them as separate.
In my opinion, this mixtape speaks for itself, and I believe it’s supposed to, which is why our focus is purposefully drawn to it and why we are allowed to read its label at all. If it was just a mixtape (ha! I laugh), it would be mystifying to present it to the audience in this particular way. No, this is definitely not just a mixtape. It represents something. It’s symbolic, and universally linked to love, specifically romantic love until explicitly identified as otherwise. Given that, it’s easy enough to read a lot into this scene, especially since the mixtape is never mentioned again, which is surprising for something that was made such a poetic fuss over.
(Dramatic much??)
Close-ups are an artistic decision. Professionally, they’re used with care. You show the audience the tape’s label for a reason, not just so it serves as a piece of trivia. Dean or Cas could have read us the label aloud, so it’s not as if they had no other way of giving us this information, therefore they chose to let us read it ourselves. They chose to let us take note of the spelling and the lettering, which are both things you are unable to display in dialogue, at least subtly and with tack. They did this so we could analyze the label on our own, because it’s important that we’re able to.
Likewise, you don’t show a close-up of Cas accepting the tape from Dean unless it actually means something. Again, we never see the tape after this, and when that’s coupled with the decision to treat it like a plot device anyway, you’re getting a suggestion once more that this is, quite simply, not just a mixtape and it never was intended to be.
All of this proves it’s not deluded to interpret this as a romantic scene, and to the contrary, evidence suggests it’s supposed to be one: Dean gives a mixtape to Cas. But we’ve established the mixtape isn’t a mixtape.
So what is it? Can I suggest love without sounding cheesy?
Yeah, yeah damn right I can.
Oh look mixtape meta that I’ve never seen before!!! Happy Monday everbuddy!!!
And again, if it was “just a tape,” the entire notion of Cas trying to RETURN it to Dean wouldn’t have been overlaid with this fraught, angsty emotional baggage. If it was just about Dean trying to educate Cas on good music, IT WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN THE EMOTIONAL FOCUS OF THIS ENTIRE SCENE.
If it was just a tape, it would’ve held absolutely zero narrative import. It could’ve been ANY object that would’ve given Cas an excuse to venture into Dean’s room for this emotionally charged conversation. He could’ve brought Dean a sandwich, or a drink, or just popped in to talk without having to give a reason at all. But no… this entire scene EXISTS. Because it lends context and emotional depth to everything Cas and Dean discuss out loud.
There is NO valid interpretation of the mixtape’s existence that isn’t rooted in this deep emotional context of SOME sort of love here… because attempting to frame it as “just a tape” invalidates the entire rest of the scene’s emotional weight. In context, there’s no way to reasonably suggest that this was “just a tape.”
I wonder what happened every time Castiel, since this clear introduction of “I’m addressing all of Dean’s core issues: faith, self worth and nihilism”, lost his own faith or died. I wonder what Dean’s reaction was. I wonder what this all means.
To start with, I’m not delusional. I’m fully aware that the studio and execs have settled into a comfortable pattern with Supernatural, and especially considering it’s heavily mixed demographic (interestingly, it was ranked a favorite among republicans and democrats in 2016) they’re unlikely to rock the ship with a canonically queer relationship between two of it’s main characters.
However, it’s important to understand exactly how much queerness is bubbling beneath the thick surface layer of “no homo:” from the orgies of male-on-male eyesex to the inspiration for most of its main characters, Supernatural is queer to its very core.
Here are five (blaring but stubbornly unacknowledged) reasons why:
1. Dean’s gratuitously bisexual inspiration.
Whenever someone claims a queer interpretation of Dean is baseless, I’m always happy to direct them straight to his flamingly bisexual source: Dean Moriarty, his namesake and direct inspiration, a la the novel On the Road.
Admittedly, I read On the Road and didn’t particularly enjoy it, as I found it to be a somewhat masturbatory reassertion of masculinity for its narrator, Sal Paradise. Sal idolizes and fixates the charismatic Dean and his promiscuous lifestyle, openly having sex with and impregnating multiple women, and is all around a heterosexual power figure…right up until the point at which Dean propositions a male prostitute.
Though he’s never shown doing anything gratuitous with male characters (since the book was published in the 1960s, it wouldn’t have been legal to) it’s clear that Dean is very much bisexual, not ashamed of it, and in terms of personality, very similar to Dean. There are a few key differences (Dean Moriarty, for example, legitimately gives zero fucks about anything, whereas Dean Winchester is secretly a little ball of anxiety with the weight of the world on his shoulders) but it’s clear where Eric Kripke got his inspiration from.
Moreover, Dean Moriarty was in turn based off of the real life bisexual counterculturist Neal Cassady, who among other things had a twenty-year sexual relationship with a male poet. Here, he is pictured in a Denver mugshot:
So next time someone tells you the homoerotic subtext of Supernatural exists only in the imagination of rabid fangirls, remember that Dean is the direct descendant of two ragingly bisexual icons.
2. Castiel (or at least his wardrobe) was also based off of a bisexual character.
For a show so aggressively devoted to a “no homo” interpretation, it has a real propensity to drawing inspiration from queer characters: everyone’s favorite baby in a trench coat, for example, was modeled after the demon-busting John Constantine from the Hellblazer comics. Yup, another bisexual.
Though in true assbutt fashion, his love of men is censored in movie and TV adaptions, Constantine unabashedly swings both ways in paper form – a.k.a. where Kripke found inspiration for Castiel’s look. Here, we see him platonically receiving a man-hug from one of his bros:
So I’m not saying the fact that two out of three main characters are modeled after canonically queer figures could have anything to do with Supernatural’s gratuitous queer subtext, but y’know. It might.
3. Cas himself is sexually complex (and literally cannot be straight.)
Dean has made reference to the fact that he “doesn’t swing that way” (ironically, both of which times he was literally in the midst of blatantly flirting with men.)
Cas, however, has no such reservations: he’s never indicated, vocally or otherwise, a preference towards either gender, so much as outright declaring that he doesn’t give a damn.
He reacts to male and female flirtation much the same way: just try and tell me his suspicious glower and Mick wasn’t similar to Mandy the waitress (and try and tell me they both weren’t acting like they’d like to eat him for dinner.)
Moreover, the only time we’ve seen him ever achieve some kind of intimacy with female characters is when they’re literally throwing themselves at him. Hey, he’s an aesthetically pleasing fellow – or rather, an aesthetically pleasing something.
Which brings me to my next point that he isn’t really a fellow at all: Cas not only gives zero fucks about sexual orientation, he also gives zero fucks about gender. Sure, he’ll spend seven years in the same ill-fitting trench coat, but he’ll also rock a petticoat like nobody’s business.
I’ve discovered that the writer for “Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets,” Steve Yockey, is a gay man, which honestly makes it all the more perfect: not only does it establish the Orlando-esque flexibility (or nonexistence) of Cas’s gender, but it eliminates the possibility of his straightness.
And I want Destiel to be canon as much as anybody, but am I opposed to Cas being a genderfluid lesbian? No. No, I am not.
4. Dean can textually be interpreted as bisexual (and probably should be.)
For anyone who questions whether Dean not being straight as an arrow, I’m happy to point out some very canon things that happened on the show:
And yes, when feeling threatened, he’s professed not to swing that way. But you know how many queer people I know who have at one point felt compelled to lie about our sexual orientation? Every single one. And I live in the bluest of blue states – Dean was raised in Bible Belt America and spends most of his time in the Southwest. Not to mention the fact that he was raised during the heat of the AIDS academic.
In other words, he has every logical reason to be wary at the prospect of coming out of the closet, or even acknowledging same sex attraction at all.
Moreover it’s been canonically established that Dean has a habit of lying about himself to protect his image of masculinity: according to Dean, he doesn’t do shorts, chick flicks, cucumber water, skinny jeans and sunglasses, and Taylor Swift music. You know how many of those things he loves? All of them.
Finally, not every member of the cast or crew might agree (though I know for a fact that some of them do) but their interpretations do not effect textuality. And Dean can textually be interpreted as bisexual.
5. Dean and Cas make a better couple than any of their love interests.
I’m going to state something I feel is obvious: Cas and Dean have more buildup, tension, chemistry, emotional connection, and romantic history than literally any of their other interests.
Take Lisa, for example: she’s Dean’s longest lasting introduced as female partner, and she’s introduced as the “bendiest weekend of his life.”
Furthermore, I’d argue that sexual attraction notwithstanding, Dean was never romantically in love with Lisa. To him, she epitomizes his desire for a mother figure, a home, and his lost childhood, as is best demonstrated in his fantasy from “Dream a Little Dream of Me:” Lisa isn’t a seductive or romantic figure here – she’s a maternal one.
Though since Dean has never had a long lasting relationship (or, to my belief, been completely in love with a girl) it’s easy to see how he’d misinterpret these feelings as romantic love.
Then we have Cas, who’s introduced by pulling Dean from the depths of hell, who makes most one-on-one scenes with Dean look like a soft core porno, and who recently (canonically!) declared his love for Dean.
I don’t dislike Lisa, but it’s easy to see which of the two relationships is more three-dimensional, more original, and more worthy of screentime.
OMG this. THIS. Is everything. Best explanation ever
"Technically, you killed him." 