But before he went to USC, he was from middle-class (not sure if middle-middle or lower-middle) Ohio - he's talked a lot (or used to) about wanting the show to reflect the world he grew up in; that's why it was so important to him to have the music and the car as core parts of the show.

I feel like the series class views are confusingly coded

I strongly suspect this is 1) Kripke accomodating the network in order to keep the show on the air, 2) multiple writers with different class experiences, 3) the difficulty of realistically expressing class issue on TV in a society that can't really even acknowledge that we HAVE classes.

Did you ever watch Veronica Mars? That's another show that went from being really explicitly about class to making class issues completely invisible. I've no idea how much of that change was pushed by the CW vs. part of Rob Thomas's own fuckerwittery, but it's interesting that it happened there too.

Dean totally has googly eyes stuck onto his cellphone

I love him, jehnt. I really do.

1) Kripke accomodating the network in order to keep the show on the air, 2) multiple writers with different class experiences, 3) the difficulty of realistically expressing class issue on TV in a society that can't really even acknowledge that we HAVE classes.

I should have added a 4) here, which is that Kripke has changed classes himself (economically speaking), and of course that impacts how he views & experiences both classes. (I can't believe I forgot this, since class transition is a huge part of my own experience and I am completely fascinated with how other people go through it).

But I still think it's mostly #1 - the network keeping him down.

Yeah, I thought class transition could have been playing a part in it too. I don't know much about that though since, well, I just don't. Sounds fascinating though. (I actually think the reason I'm so crap at examining the class issues is because I'm firmly white upper-middle and don't know many people at all who aren't, which doesn't exactly give me a broad base of experience or understanding. Like... I've read books and newspaper articles about the lower classes, but a theoretical understanding =/= a practical one.)

Yeah, VM pushed class issues out in the later seasons but they also more or less pushed the lower class characters out too, so I didn't feel as confused about it as I do with SPN. (Which is not to say I thought it was okay... they marginalized my favorite characters. Totally lame, show, totally lame!)

And yeah, I've seen Kripke talk about how important it is to have that stuff represented, which is why I brought up breakaway sects of ironic hipsterism such as the new sincerity. idk, I like to think there's some thought going into their confusing class representations (especially since the confusingness really only seems to come from the Winchesters; everyone else mostly seems to be coded properly, and if it was issues like writing/network pressure, you'd think they would be equally all over the place). Blah trying to do meta on my first watching of a show really sucks because, like, I can't see the whole picture OR pick out little details yet because I'm still just trying to figure out the plot and such.

Dean Winchester is just a big lame squishy. THE GOOGLY EYES PROVED IT.