“Bitten,” an episode situated in season
eight of the television series Supernatural,
has proven to be one of the most controversial episodes in the show’s history
due to its unconventional exploration of the story of an ordinary trio of
friends. However, the brilliance of “Bitten” is undeniable, as it delegates the
show’s beloved main characters to minor roles and still convinces the viewer to
not only believe in and engage with unknown and rather insignificant
characters, but to develop a connection so deep that audiences empathize with the characters in the
span of only forty-four minutes. The episode’s uncharacteristic implementation
of specific music and cinematographic styles, much like the prolific epistolary
novels of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France, has the effect of creating
within the Winchesters and the audience empathy for the new characters and
serves as a reminder of their humanity, even as they transform into
supernatural beings. Consequently, a moral question that extends further than
the context of the show itself is posed: what, or where, is the line between
monstrosity and humanity? “Bitten” ultimately suggests that the beings commonly
referred to as monsters may still be worthy of empathy, compassion, and
humanity, regardless of their supernatural composition.
The episode’s uncommon use of music as a symbol
of the innocence of the relationship of Kate and Michael has the unexpected
effect of creating empathy for the characters and of reminding the Winchester
brothers and the audience of the couple’s humanity. Unlike the vast majority of
Supernatural’s “monster-of-the-week” episodes,
“Bitten” proves itself one of the exceptions to the show’s routine from the
first scene. The audience is exposed to a chilling but resigned opening
panorama: nearly every inch of the walls within an unknown household are coated
with blood, and a body, covered by a sheet, lies in the middle of the living
room. No sounds other than Milo Greene’s “What’s the Matter” are heard. The
song’s title and lyrical repetition of those same words not only encompasses a
melancholy and unresolved aura, but parallels Sam, Dean, and the viewers’ internal
questions as they attempt to make sense of the image before them. Intriguingly,
the song is not background music, but is instead playing from an iPod connected
to speakers inside the room. While Supernatural
often uses music to generate an emotional response, its selection of
compositions primarily appears in the background of scenes.
“What’s the Matter” is also referenced
multiple times throughout the episode, allowing it to achieve a greater
narrative role. The song becomes symbolic of Kate and Michael’s relationship,
as it is recognized as having played in the coffee shop when the couple first
met. This exposition of the song makes it a principal focus in the episode,
especially in the opening and closing scenes. When the Winchesters first enter
the house, Dean takes the iPod off the speakers, pausing the music. However,
after watching the home video of the three ill-fated friends through which they
tell their story, Dean replaces the iPod on its speakers while leaving the
house, allowing it to play to the empty room. By playing the song and letting
the house remain as it was when they first entered, he pays respect to the
trio’s lost innocence and further illuminates the association between the music
and the characters’ emotions. If the brothers who have made hunting
supernatural beings the central focus of their lives feel enough compassion
towards the trio so as to allow Kate, the surviving, newly-formed werewolf, to
go out into the world unharmed, certainly the viewers of the episode will connect
to the composition in a similar emotional fashion as well.
In tandem with the careful employment of
the music, the episode’s cinematography makes empathy for Kate, Michael, and
Brian almost mandatory by immersing the viewer in a story told only through
their personal perspectives and cameras. The irregular position of the cameras,
rarely implemented in the series, posits an episodic case study. Especially in
the first two-thirds of “Bitten,” the camera through which the viewer watches
the show is hand-held by one of the three friends. This positioning makes the
characters more personable and accessible to the audience. The unprofessional
quality of shaky hands and little-edited cinematography implies the innocence
and purity of the friends’ story. The viewer is level with the characters, as a
friend or fourth member of the group might be, which forces engagement. Generally,
the audience should automatically have the subconscious inclination to disassociate
with or resent the unknown, average characters because they have abnormally
usurped the series’ premise—the story of Sam and Dean Winchester. However, the
hand-held, amateur filming through which the characters’ story is told is
capable of breaking down the normal conventions of a one-off episode. Additionally,
the “humanness” of following the tale of three ordinary, young individuals who
take delight in filming themselves and their environment is made apparent.
This stylistic change challenges the
viewers to step outside their normal comfort zones regarding their connections
with and acceptance of characters—a theme that has proven prevalent throughout
history with the rise of varying forms of media, such as epistolary novels. Historian
Lynn Hunt details in her book, Inventing
Human Rights: A History, the manner in which the similar exposé of writing in
eighteenth-century France had upon its readership an impact so profound that it
altered the way in which its audiences viewed members of differing classes and
gender. Focusing upon Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s novel Julie and Richardson’s Pamela
and Clarissa, Hunt details the
sudden, sweeping, and emotive reactions that enveloped French readers. This
reaction was not a result of the novels’ plots, but was instead the product of an
intense emotional connection with their characters. Through their epistolary
style, the characters corresponding with one another are the novels’ own
authors. By only reading the novels through the perspectives of their
characters one at a time, their actions, experiences, and ideologies have no
visible author or outside character related to any one “authorial point of
view” (Hunt, 42). Consequently, the readers become unexpectedly engulfed in the
lives of the characters (Hunt, 33-45).
More revolutionary, however, was that the
“writers” of the letters that comprised these epistolary novels were not
members of the aristocracy, but rather women and members of the lower classes.
Hunt states that literary works such as Julie
“encouraged a highly charged identification with the characters and in
doing so enabled readers to empathize across class, sex, and national lines”
(Hunt, 38). “By its very form, then, the epistolary novel was able to
demonstrate that selfhood depended on qualities of “interiority” (having an
inner core), for the characters express their inner feelings in their letters”
(Hunt, 48). Similarly, Jason Mittell’s discussion on the relationship between
an audience and a work’s fictitious characters illustrates the power of
engagement and the manner in which individuals “extend its reach into their own
lives” (Mittell, 127). The impact of
this new-found compassion would greatly influence and contribute to the development
of the international debate concerning human rights in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries.
The youth in “Bitten” have effectually
created the same storytelling conditions as the epistolary novel by the manner
in which the camera is controlled and judged by no individual other than themselves.
Sam and Dean represent the episode’s viewers, all of whom are symbolic of the
eighteenth-century European readership. As with the readership of epistolary
novels, an unexpected compassion for Kate, Michael, and Brian is formed within
the episode’s audience. By taking viewers out of the common scope of “looking
in” upon an episode through the unseen lens of a camera that is intended to not
be noticed and instead placing them into a situation in which they are
cognizant of the ordinary human qualities that resonate within both the new
characters and the audience themselves, “Bitten” provokes an unmatched form of empathy
on behalf of the viewer for the individuals.
The human and empathetic qualities
that are developed through the abnormal, specific use of music and cinematography
posit a moral debate that extends even further than the context of the show
itself: what, or where, is the line between monstrosity and humanity? Much like
the philosophical themes that Mary Shelley explores in Frankenstein, which, unsurprisingly, is also an epistolary novel
published in 1818, the beings that members of certain societies have come to
identify as “monsters” may in fact not be monsters at all. In Dr. Victor
Frankenstein’s case, Shelley suggests that he, the human, is the “wretch” and
“miserable monster” rather than the living entity that he created (Shelley,
59). The lack of clear division between the meaning of “human” and “monster” is
made apparent. Conversely, from the first episode of Supernatural and throughout much of the series, the Winchesters,
the hunting community, and the audience take for granted an assumed, clear-cut
distinction between “good” and “bad.” “Bitten” proves to be one of the most
influential and formal episodes of the series’ expositions in which the
onlookers are forced to confront the notion that their prior ideologies and
sense of morality may not be as impeccable as may have been believed. Due to
the epistolary style of the episode, the Winchesters and the audience have
formed an emotional connection with the characters to the extent that they
empathize with them. As the plot progresses and Michael, Brian, and Kate are
slowly overwhelmed by the effects of Michael’s, and later on, Brian’s and
Kate’s, bites from a werewolf, all three become supernatural “monsters,” though
Kate becomes the only surviving individual of the trio. Dean and Sam decide to
act upon their new-found empathy toward the creature that they would normally,
unquestionably hunt by allowing Kate, as a breed of werewolf, to flee unpursued
in the hopes that she retains her humanity by not killing “ordinary” human
beings though she is now a “monster.” Because of the manner in which the
Winchester brothers symbolize the episode’s viewers, the audience is implored
to consider the question that haunts both parties: what does it truly mean to
be human, or monstrous? The episode suggests that the beings that are referred
to as monsters may still be worthy of empathy, compassion, and humanity.
Just as the disenfranchised classes and
gender were affected by new formats of writing in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century
France, “Bitten” convinces the viewer to not only believe in and engage with a
formerly unknown and seemingly insignificant group of friends, but to become so
emotionally connected with the characters that they empathize with them. The
episode’s uncharacteristic implementation of specific music and cinematographic
styles have the effect of creating within both the Winchesters and the
episode’s audience the feeling of empathy for the characters and serves as a
reminder of their humanity, even as they are turned into supernatural beings. “Bitten”
effectively challenges the conceptualization of the delineation between monsters
and humans. Ultimately, by harnessing the power of empathy, “Bitten” suggests that
the notion of monstrosity and humanity as being based upon a creature’s supernatural
composition is unjustified and reductive.
Works Cited:
“Bitten.”
Supernatural. CW. 24 Oct. 2012.
Television.
Hunt,
Lynn. Inventing Human Rights: A History.
New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007.
Print.
Mittell,
Jason. Complex TV: The Poetics of
Contemporary Television Storytelling. New York:
New York University Press, 2015. Print.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Revised. London: Penguin Group, 1992. P
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