puts on devil's advocate hat

While I absolutely and really and truly get what everyone is saying, and do see the problems with Supernatural, and wish like hell SHOW did better on both race and gender issues, I'm not sure I see them as much with Uriel specifically.

Assuming that the casting people had at least some idea that the character was going to turn evil and die, (and lets face it, how many recurring minor characters on the show don't do one or both), isn't their option to casting a person of color saying "whites only for this role"?

Also, if they had cast a white person in the role, given that the character was racist (or maybe speciesist, given that it was mankind as a whole he hated), and this did play a part in his motivation, wouldn't it have been worse if they had cast a white actor?

Don't know why it would be worse to have the Angel who hates the human race wear a white body. And for that matter they could have made idealistic Castiel the one working for Lucifer, and killing the Angels. And Uriel the one who reluctantly takes him down, and reluctantly allies himself with Ana. Make the unpleasant hater the one who sticks to his duty, and the sympathetic idealist the one turns traitor. And if not that something else. If you are conscious of the problem then you go to some trouble to avoid, which might have met writing the characters differently.

Here is the problem. A lot of white people think that if you pay no attention to race that is enough to avoid being racist. They "don't see color". But the problem is there are so many racist things built into the system that not having dragged a Black person behind a truck is not enough to avoid racism. You have to pay attention, and actually make an effort to avoid racism.

And the genre they are writing in doesn't make that nay easier. Black people dying disproportionately is enough of a problem in horror for it to be a cliche, and a common joke in horror spoofs. If you create a universe that takes EC comic, and horror movies as the basis of your universe then you will be misogynist and racist and bunch of awful things unless you are aware of the problem and make an effort to avoid this.

And in spite of its problems, I really do love the show. I keep watching, and I could easily stop. But just because I live with the problems don't stop them being real.

Don't know why it would be worse to have the Angel who hates the human race wear a white body. And for that matter they could have made idealistic Castiel the one working for Lucifer, and killing the Angels. And Uriel the one who reluctantly takes him down, and reluctantly allies himself with Ana. Make the unpleasant hater the one who sticks to his duty, and the sympathetic idealist the one turns traitor. And if not that something else. If you are conscious of the problem then you go to some trouble to avoid, which might have met writing the characters differently.

Because the character (and I think rightly so) is seen as being racist, which would have taken on a whole different tone if it were a white actor saying the same words. Writing the character differently would have avoided that, of course, but Uriel's disdain for mankind was one of his main motivations to join Lucifer.

It's not that I don't think there are issues that I would like them to address, but I'm not sure this is the place to start, because I think the changes you are suggesting would radically change the story being told, and I kind of dig the story being told, warts and all.

in this instanmce it didn't bother me as much.

No single given instance is the problem, though: it's the pattern that's the problem. Three times is not a coincidence, it's a pattern the showrunners are apparently blind to, and it's making them look like racist fucks. Which I'm sure they're not, but it sure as hell looks bad.

No single given instance is the problem, though: it's the pattern that's the problem. Three times is not a coincidence, it's a pattern the showrunners are apparently blind to, and it's making them look like racist fucks. Which I'm sure they're not, but it sure as hell looks bad.

Obviously. I'm not saying that there isn't a pattern, or not trying to. I'm saying that for me this didn't fall as cleanly into the pattern as everything else, because I think the character as written is necessary for the progression of the story, and I think it would possibly have been more problematic to have a white actor portraying the character as written.

Assuming that the casting people had at least some idea that the character was going to turn evil and die, (and lets face it, how many recurring minor characters on the show don't do one or both), isn't their option to casting a person of color saying "whites only for this role"?

I hear what you're saying, but the reality is that they chose to give us a physically imposing badass character ("Black people are scary!") and then make him be actively evil, rather than keeping him an unpleasant and curmudgeonly good guy a la Snape. And, although embarrassingly I was not initially pinged by Uriel being black, and indeed thought about it much as you're expressing yourself here, during the course of Race!Fail I started to be more conscious of SPN's Season 3's problems, but was congratulating Season 4 on being much better, and thinking of Uriel as an example of this. Then I read an FoC's gloomy comment on how putting racist diatribes in the mouth of a black actor was pretty painfully ham-fisted, and the more I thought about it, the more uncomfortable I felt. Because as attempts at irony go, it's the kind of thing you might think was clever and effective as a 15 year old writer. In reality? Not so much with the clever irony.

Also, if they had cast a white person in the role, given that the character was racist (or maybe speciesist, given that it was mankind as a whole he hated), and this did play a part in his motivation, wouldn't it have been worse if they had cast a white actor?

I honestly think it would have been less offensive, myself. The racism is right there in the whole 'mud monkeys' stuff - putting that into the mouth of a black actor doesn't ameliorate it any; in fact I think it exascerbates it. I wouldn't have been offended at having a white man playing a racist, because, you know - racists (with the power to have an impact) are generally white people. Yes, it might have been a bit more shocking, but I don't think it would have been more offensive.

And, yes, much as I adore the hell out of Castiel, I have to agree that having the bitter, racist, unpleasant, ruthless, misanthropic angel be the good guy and Castiel turn out to be the killer would have been more satisfying storytelling. (But that would interfere with my rabid Castiel/Dean 4Evah111!!!11! 'shippiness, so, um, I'm good with it not having happened.) Or Anna - I think Anna would have been a GREAT call, all pissed off with the forces of Heaven and taking revenge on them for not letting her reascend, or whatever.

Meanwhile, I am really tickled by this theory; I love the notion that the powers that be may have consciously brought in the Big Gay Blasphemous Love Interest to try to make the fandom less depraved.

Oh, fandom!

I appreciate the discussion here because I just saw the episode. I watch it kind of late or am always late to discussion here.

At the end of the episode I just shook me head and said "man, not again." And guess what, you all are discussing it here too!

I have to concur with the general sentiment, recently discussed by Fay, but I would like to add this:

I enjoy watching the show, no doubt. Full stop. But, I am bothered by the general portrayal of Black characters AND how they are beating up women (killing them, blinding them and killing them) all the time. This show seems so squarely from the point of view of young, White men that it is kind of scary.

I suspect the end will be brother against brother - just how we all thought it would be - but it might be nice to expand what we mean by family and for the writers (and brothers) to understand that they need true, sincere help from a variety of people to save the world.

At the beginning of Death Takes a Holiday, I remember being ruefully surprised that the person who was knifed at the beginning of the episode was not the black man. You know things have gotten to a bad point in a show when I see two characters--one of whom is black--and wonder how the show is going to screw it up this time.

Aside from here, I mostly drift along the edges of online SPN fandom. Has there ever been any talk about having people write in en masse between now and the time they start working on next season to say how and why the treatment of race and gender has been bothersome? Not as a protest, but more along the lines of an intervention?

On a totally different note, who else besides Dean referred to Castiel as "Cas?" I think I recall Anna doing so, but did Uriel? Sam?

Sam called him "Cas" in Heaven and Hell, and has since then as well.

I did not intent to rhyme.

Many thanks!