In most of S1 and S2 I felt I could say with some confidence that Dean likes and respects women.
Yeah. The only reason I'm not where you are now with regard to the show is that I can hold onto initial characterizations pretty tenaciously when I don't see the changes as being organic to the story. I've managed a whole season of "BZZT! Wrong! Dean wouldn't really say that!" and I can probably squeeze out another half a season before it really starts to wear me down and I start feeling compelled to integrate the crap into my view of his character.
The sexist antagonism directed toward Ruby and Bela, that I can kind of buy. Dean grew up with (as far as we know) no female influences in his life beyond his perfect dead mother, and as a very hot guy it's unfortunately true that a lot of the women he encounters are going to choose to sexualize their interactions with him even if Dean doesn't go there first. So I can see where he would both idealize women in that sort of courtly, old-fashioned sexist way, and be over-focused on their sexual availability. Neither of these are necessarily going to cause big problems when he's dealing with women he likes and respects, but they'll turn toxic with women who are Bad and Evil (in part because being "bad" is a betrayal of idealized womanhood).
So I can kind of live with that aspect of Season 3. What's really pissing me off are the casual slams against women that the writers have been adding in all sorts of unnecessary places. Like, would Dean go to Tijuana and try to pick up hot Mexican women using cheesy pick-up lines in bad high school Spanish? Totally. Would Dean go to Tijuana and get turned on by economically exploited Mexican women forced into bestiality in tourist-trade sex shows? NO. I don't even think he'd crack jokes about it. That is some bad, bad writing.
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Yeah. The only reason I'm not where you are now with regard to the show is that I can hold onto initial characterizations pretty tenaciously when I don't see the changes as being organic to the story. I've managed a whole season of "BZZT! Wrong! Dean wouldn't really say that!" and I can probably squeeze out another half a season before it really starts to wear me down and I start feeling compelled to integrate the crap into my view of his character.
The sexist antagonism directed toward Ruby and Bela, that I can kind of buy. Dean grew up with (as far as we know) no female influences in his life beyond his perfect dead mother, and as a very hot guy it's unfortunately true that a lot of the women he encounters are going to choose to sexualize their interactions with him even if Dean doesn't go there first. So I can see where he would both idealize women in that sort of courtly, old-fashioned sexist way, and be over-focused on their sexual availability. Neither of these are necessarily going to cause big problems when he's dealing with women he likes and respects, but they'll turn toxic with women who are Bad and Evil (in part because being "bad" is a betrayal of idealized womanhood).
So I can kind of live with that aspect of Season 3. What's really pissing me off are the casual slams against women that the writers have been adding in all sorts of unnecessary places. Like, would Dean go to Tijuana and try to pick up hot Mexican women using cheesy pick-up lines in bad high school Spanish? Totally. Would Dean go to Tijuana and get turned on by economically exploited Mexican women forced into bestiality in tourist-trade sex shows? NO. I don't even think he'd crack jokes about it. That is some bad, bad writing.