Magic and the Supernatural - Lancaster University

Margot McGovern
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Drawing from this, both Supernatural and True Blood can be viewed as
allegorical texts, employing the supernatural as a kind of necromancer, an
objectifying medium that puts viewers in touch with those aspects of themselves
and their culture that they typically deny. Though neither could be considered a
true Gothic text, in engaging the supernatural in this way they borrow heavily from
the American Gothic mode, which is largely built on confrontations between Self
and Other, as Gina Wisker states, postcolonial Gothic narratives involve:
That of Otherising, excluding, and destroying and recognising
the rich differences of an Other we construct in order to
somehow feel clearer and more secure about our own stable
identities, however individual or national. 19
Supernatural and True Blood engage with these aspects of the American
Gothic, with the supernatural acting as a perceived Other, and explore the
American cultural Self’s reaction to that Other.
In Supernatural’s meta-narrative Lucifer and his demons represent a foreign
threat to the national self, with the pending apocalypse paralleling the War on
Terror, as Kripke states,
We try to draw as many modern day parallels as possible because
the demons act in a very terrorist cell model…they’re hidden
amongst us…They’re among the towns in America and
they’re waiting to wreck as much havoc as possible. 20
Like real terrorists, the demons are almost impossible to recognise, possessing a
mortal host and, therefore, appearing human. As the hunters cannot easily identify
the enemy they, like us, begin to treat everyone as suspect.
By substituting terrorists for demons, Supernatural provides fans with an
objectifying fictional medium through which to view the real life horror of this
threat. Moreover, the series uses the apocalyptic allegory to explore the American
government’s reaction to this threat. Taking George Bush’s assertion early on in
the War on Terror that ‘God is on our side’, Supernatural has used angels and their
fight against Hell to represent the American government’s zero-tolerance policy
towards terrorism. These angels are amoral, set on their unflinching course to stop
Lucifer, committing violent acts in the name of God in order to further their
mission. Here Supernatural is subverting viewer expectations of how angels
should behave and in doing so, asks the viewer to similarly question the actions of
the American government, as Dean states: ‘There’s nothing more dangerous than
some A-hole who thinks he’s on a holy mission.’ 21
In True Blood, these ‘real life’ parallels are even more blatant. The series uses
vampires as allegorical figures to represent minorities within American culture,
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