Meta: The Aliens in Cardiff Trope in Supernatural

[partly]

tvrealm had a challenge where we were to explore TV Tropes either by show or by trope. They foolishly allowed meta, so I am doing that! Since Supernatural is tending to occupy my wheelhouse lately, I'm meta-ing about tropes found on the show.

Aliens in Cardiff

Looking for a place to set the disaster of the week/alien invasion/supervillain's base/origin of the bad guys etc? . . . Have the center of the plot be in an actual place, but some relatively harmless semi-known non-exotic location which makes you ask "Why THERE, of all places?" Or in the case of Supernatural, have it take place in some completely unknown non-exotic location... for example, Gleason, WI.

I've always joked with my friends that if the end of the world should come, they should just come up and live with me because nothing ever happens up here. I live in northern Wisconsin and we don't even qualify as "flyover country" because we are too far north to even consider flying over. The disasters and nasty occurrences that happen in TV and movies all take place in the well-known and heavily populated areas far from this neck of the woods.

Except, of course, for in Supernatural. As if just to prove me wrong, the newest, big-bad of the series is setting up shop at coordinates latitude (45.4) and longitude (-89.5), which isn't more than 15 miles from where I live (see reference to Gleason, above). But that's standard for the show. Supernatural excels at recognizing that most of the US isn't large cities; area-wise the US is mostly small towns and rural settings. Sure the show has been to LA and Chicago and the like, but most of the episodes takes place in towns that you will only get to see if you stay off the four-lanes and drive the roads marked 55 MPH.

Part of that is function, I suppose. Filming in Canada it's easier to mimic small town America than the big cities. But most of it is design. The show was intended to be a modern day Route 66, combined with an exploration of the myths, stories and legends that are unique to the US. You can't do that of you’re stuck in a city or even multiple cities. More than that, there is a different feel to the world when you move out of the city. Despite the trope that the woods are always full of psychopathic serial killers or other monsters, small town America is usually viewed as being safe, uninteresting and mostly harmless, in other words it’s Everytown America. Putting the evil of the supernatural in this Rockwellian setting makes the supernatural all the much more “otherly”.

The thing I like best about how Supernatural handles this trope, though, is that they handle it straight. They don’t do it just for the irony or juxtaposition or laughs – although that is in most of the episodes in one way or another. No, they do it right with a healthy dose of respect for the setting they are in and, more importantly, characters that exist in those settings. Case in point: they subvert the Working Class People Are Morons trope so the people they meet and the towns they go to feel real. That’s the key to one of the main reasons I love this show: The places they go to and the people they meet are (for the most part) like places and people I know. Two lane highways with waysides that overlook scenic landscape? Stopped there. Small towns with just one greasy-spoon diner that serves awesome pie? I’ve eaten there. Local motels that survive by offering kitschy rooms at cut-rate prices? Stayed in some. (I harbor a secret desire for all the hotels the boys stay at to be real and for me to be able to stay at them, too.) Small towns where everyone knows everyone else’s business? I live there.

As with all fictional writing, things are tweaked for dramatic/comedic/plot purposes, but the show gets more things right then it gets wrong when it comes to presenting their world. Of all the shows out there right now, Supernatural is the one that I most trust to do a good job when claiming be hanging around my little unknown part of the world.

Comments

[kitap.livejournal.com]

They even get it right with Dean and Sam: they are firmly Blue Collar and it shows. How they talk, the tools they use (no fancy-schmancy high-tech tools for them), where they yes, eat and drink, and what they wear.

Add to that they they rightly have Sam a little more White Collar- he was at Stanford for college, after all, and was consciously running from his past- and the more stressed out Dean is the more it shows in his vocabulary (I've noticed "ain't" creeps in more when he is stressed) more - and they are about perfectly written that way.

But yeah, I could have run into them in Wausau (or where you live) and they would have blended in seemlessly.

[partly.livejournal.com]

I was reading a comment someplace that Jensen and Jared are "letting their southern accents slip in" more as the show goes on. I thought this was an odd comment if only because both of them are Texan and the Texas drawl is not southern, not really.

But your comment abut Dean's Blue Collar vocabulary has got me thinking about it on a different level: what if this person heard this tendency in Dean's language and just classified it as "Southern". You know, using the popular trope that "southern accent = stupid". If that seems a bit harsh, perhaps it's just "southern accent = uneducated". They just didn't have another description to cover the "common man" usage of language.

[kitap.livejournal.com]

I don't really hear it myself- the "accent slipping through more" bit (I don't have a good ear for that sort of thing)- and I know the recapper at TWoP once complained about Jensen's dropping "g"s and thought it was recent until someone pointed out Dean has always done that.

They certainly could be thinking "southern=stupid" but they'd be sadly mistaked. Dean is uneducated, which is not the same thing.

[kitap.livejournal.com]

I've also got to- as someone who works in the industry- bring up why they stay at those small hotels and motels: nowadays most hotels and motels require either a credit card to check in or a hefty deposit. I suspect, if they are using credit cards, at this point it is mainly for hotels. If they pay cash these mom and pop places are about the only ones left who won't look at you odd and demand a huge deposit.

Granted I work at a 4-star resort, but our cash deposit is hefty and it is mailed back to you (assuming no damages/theft) in the form of a check.

I will also say that were I them and wanted to really really hide, I'd be choosing a high-end resort. They are much more likely to protect the privacy of the guests and are much less likely to automatically think that there is something odd going on because you want these big spenders to return and because hotel employees often think "well, they wouldn't do anything odd at this fancy resort."

[borgmama1of5.livejournal.com]

Intriguing analysis--as a big city girl, it is very interesting to read how it looks 'from the other side,' so to speak, and you explained it very well!

[cookiemom6067.livejournal.com]

I remember when I was very FIRST watching the show and found out that Dean's cell phone had my area code I was so - astonished and delighted! I live about 20 miles from Lawrence - I drive through there every day.

I find myself nitpicking when any show is set in my area, though - "Heroes" and "Stargate SG-1" have set episodes in my neck of the woods. One of the recaps of SPN 7.14 described Wichita as a "small town." Ummm...no.

[futbol16-4.livejournal.com]

The biggest city that can actually be classified as "Western Kansas"!
...Still more central Kansas, though. It's ok, the general consensus in Olathe and Kansas City seems to be that western Kansas starts at Lawrence.

And the show didn't play up the rural aspect in Wichita, so I wasn't bothered. :)

[cookiemom6067.livejournal.com]

the general consensus in Olathe and Kansas City seems to be that western Kansas starts at Lawrence.

ahahahahahaha!!!!

So true!

[kitap.livejournal.com]

In Season 1 of Supernatural they have the boys investigae a Shtrga in Fitchburg, Wisconsin. Which is basically, these days, a suburb of Madison. Those kids would have been, I would guess, at the University Hospital in Madison as it is a world-class facility and thus where puzlzing cases like that would go, I would think.

[partly.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Fitchburg doesn't have a hospital. Even up here where our small town has a hospital, they would probably have sent the kids down to the specialty/bigger hospitals in Wausau or Marshfield.

That said, I never sweat the geographic/setting details when a show is in WI, as long as they capture the spirit of the place and Supernatural does that.

[riotgrrlhotel.livejournal.com]

The 'southern'/'Texan' could be an international misunderstanding. Speaking as a non-American, yes, there's a vast tonal difference between, say, a John Wayne-type drawl and a full-on, True Blood style accent but both come across as 'rural' (and less sophisticated, for want of a better word.) It's a bit like a "Joisy" accent which seems to be used as shorthand for either blue-collar or gangster. I've never met anyone in person who speaks like that but it seems to be accepted as a trope. When either Jared or Jensen speak in their 'normal' voices they sound not just less gravelly, but the odd word here and there sounds what a non-American might call "Southern"; 'tired' sounds like 'tarred' to me.

[partly.livejournal.com]

You're probably right about this. I know that it's part of the problem I have when watching British shows. A lot of character information is conveyed in the accents the characters have but I have no concept of what the accents mean.

It's something of a social convention (here in the US) that people who have a southern accent -- people who are obviously less sophisticated and less educated -- are by default less intelligent. Well, the same thing goes for the "Joisy" accent, too, I guess, but at least they get a nod for being "urban stupid" rather than "rural stupid".

I admit this is a bit of a sore spot with me.

[kitap.livejournal.com]

Rural in general in the US tends to get a "well they're just stupid hicks" treatment. Southerners are stupid all around, Midwesterners are naive and only Big City Folk are cool and smart and what you should aspire to be.

Technically speaking Texans aren't Southerners- they're Western.