But see, there are plenty of shows at least as successful as SPN that are way less sexist/racist. People want to see good entertainment and mostly don't care or even notice sexism/racism, so if it's excised... no one's gonna miss it (it's just that it takes awareness to do). I don't think any of the racism/sexism on SPN (or in most entertainment) is being done on purpose -- I actually think that at least in the first season of SPN they tried to deal with some of those issues... just in a kind of lame way. Like, my favorite guest girl other than Jo was Kat, the girl from "Asylum" who almost shot Dean in the face. She was AWESOME. I read on the SPN wiki that they'd written her as the strong character and her boyfriend as the shrieking, fainting mess purposefully to subvert gender stereotypes often found in the horror genre, so obviously they've been thinking about it some (and there's also the racist monster truck episode, which had the AWESOME moment of Dean Not Getting Racism and the other characters giving him these "wtf are you even smoking?" looks, which made me CRACK UP omg). But the reason that entertainment is important is that SO MANY people take their social cues from it. It's what happens when you get to the post-modern and post-post-modern world, that whole, and god I think I'm quoting song lyrics here, "tv imitates life and life imitates tv" thing, where entertainment has become so important to our culture that it is the arbiter of social standards. It's not the real world that's important; it's what's on tv. AT LEAST THAT'S WHAT I LEARN IN SCHOOL ANYWAY. I would flesh this comment out and engage in more discussion but it is nearly bedtime as soon as I stop LJing and finish this Supernatural episode.

And Jo, yeah, the not listening was annoying... but I figured she was supposed to be like, idk, 17 or something. But then she saved Dean in BUaBS! I think they could have developed her character in really awesome ways, so it's sad that they didn't. I don't know much of anything about Bela and Ruby (other than a lot of people hate them) but I was sad to hear that they were gone because I'd like to have a constant female character on the show.

I actually always kind of laughed at the fact that the father was called John Bender, like the character from The Breakfast Club.

AHAHHAHA THAT IS SO GREAT. Man, I need to watch that movie again.