Episode 0 - Introduction

Welcome to Mensch of Letters, the first, best, and ONLY Jewish Supernatural recap/review podcast. This week: our premiere, which consists of an introduction to your two hosts, Jules and Iscah.

You can also find us on Twitter @menschofletters and on Tumblr at menschofletters.tumblr.com.

Our intro music is Fun Tashlikh and our outro music is Szarvaszo Stomp, both by Yid Vicious, who you can find at their website yidvicious.com, where their music is available for purchase.

Transcript

Iscah: Welcome to Mensch of Letters, the first, best and only Jewish Supernatural podcast. I'm Iscah, aka "the Werewolf Bat Mitzvah Girl".

Jules: I'm Jules, and I recently had an argument with my mother over whether angels are kosher.

Iscah: And we're here to make a bad TV show slightly better by making it more Jewish.

Jules: As so many things, really, could use, you know? But, god, especially this one.

Iscah: Absolutely.

Jules: Oh, boy, especially this one.

Iscah: It's got a lot of problems. Not all of them can be solved by making it Jewish, but rarely would things be made worse.

Jules: Yeah, you know, it's a good start, I feel like. It's a very good start.

Iscah: And, you know, once you just start scratching the surface of, like, all the Christian hegemony, it's like, oh, wow, literally all of the early showrunners were Jewish!

Jules: Yeah! Yeah. It's very interesting once you start watching it with that in mind. It's suddenly like, okay, actually this is quite a bit more Jewish than I had given it credit for at first glance.

Iscah: Mm-hm. Like, I am perfectly justified in just stealing this back and making it completely Jewish.

Jules: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I cannot wait until we get to the last few seasons in a couple of years and get to talk about how the problems are that it gets way too Christian.

Iscah: Absolutely. It just snowballs into more and more Christianity and, you know, amazingly, that coincides with the time that it snowballs into, just, worse everything.

Jules: You hate to see it.

Iscah: Truly hate to see it.

Jules: Truly hate to see it.

Jules: So, if I can ask, can you tell me a little more about what prompted you to decide to do this?

Iscah: Absolutely! Like a lot of teens in the, the early '10s —

Jules: Oh my gosh.

Iscah: I got very — [laughing]

Jules: [laughing] I feel so old, I'm sorry.

[both laughing]

Iscah: Yes. I, um — [laughing] in 2005, when Supernatural premiered, I was ten years old —

Jules: Oh my god. [laughing]

Iscah: — and it was not until I was about 14 or 15 when I made a Tumblr and I found people who were very into Supernatural. You know, I also got very into Supernatural, and so, you know, I watched it and I fangirled over it, and did all that stuff, and I continued to do that — well, sort of — after I moved out of my parents' house when I was 18, I did not want to pay for cable, so, you know, instead of watching —

Jules: Yes.

Iscah: — Supernatural I watched people liveblog it on my Tumblr dashboard. And, you know, people kind of fell away as the years went on. People got embarrassed by it, you know, it was cringe now —

Jules: [laughing]

Iscah: So I had, like, one person on my dash who still semi-regularly blogged about Supernatural, and I would like the posts and I would go read the fic that she posted or reblogged or whatever, but I never posted about Supernatural anymore. Like, heaven forbid.

Jules: No.

Iscah: So it wasn't until the notorious November 5th —

Jules: Hoooo.

Iscah: — that I got back into it. Um, and as it happens, I had not grown up Jewish. I was raised Catholic. But when I was about 20, you know, I started seeing, you know, more things that really interested me about Judaism, so I ended up converting. I finalized that in June of last year.

Jules: Oh, congratulations!

Iscah: So, you know, that was — that was very — a very big paradigm shift in my life, from very big things about, you know, ethics and the right way of acting, down to very small stuff, like watching the TV show Supernatural.

Jules: [laughing]

Iscah: You know, when it had the November 5th renaissance, I had a very different viewpoint, and I was seeing people post about, like, Jewish aspects of the show, which really interested me. So, you know, I found other Jewish Supernatural fans, and joined a Discord server. I cannot for the life of me remember what specifically prompted me to make a recap podcast, but, you know, once I had that idea, I didn't want to let go of it. I was very excited about the idea of going through the whole show and looking at it with the lens of, you know, where are the Jewish things that have been written in, either purposefully or unconsciously by the Jewish writers and showrunners? And what things could be made more Jewish about the show, and, just, also in general, what could make it better that's not necessarily Jewish?

Jules: Cool.

Iscah: So yeah!

Jules: Nice.

Iscah: I started working on that, put out a call for a cohost, and, you know, very thankfully for me, you responded! Would you — would you like to tell me about your journey with Supernatural and becoming a cohost of Mensch of Letters?

Jules: Starting back in the Dark Ages when [laughs] oh my gosh, I'm like, oh my gosh, that's the one thing about Tumblr fandom. I'm like oh, you're all infants, oh no. I say that as if I'm, you know, ancient myself, but I guess it's just relative to the rest of Tumblr. I was — the show premiered when I was in college, and I mostly was not interested in it at all, because it really didn't have enough — basically, it didn't have enough women. I was like —

Iscah: [laughs] True.

Jules: I was like, this is a lot of manpain, and I am not sure I have the energy for that. I am pretty sure I don't. And there wasn't really anything about it that interested me that much. Basically, my story about how I first watched the show...I had other people try to get me into it, I had multiple friends, it was, like, a mega-fandom almost immediately back in, you know, the ancient days of LiveJournal.

Iscah: [laughing]

Jules: And, um, a couple of friends were like, there's all this, sort of, American mythology, you'd like that, you love classic rock, you'd like that. They're like, oh, you know how all your favorite characters have oldest child issues? Well guess what? I'm like okay, but, again, there's just too much manpain. I just — I just can't deal with that.

Iscah: It is wall-to-wall manpain.

Jules: So much manpain. And I was just surrounded by it in fandom at the time, it was just — fandom has changed a lot, which has been really interesting to watch, and at the time it was just all white dudes all the time, and I was just like, that's — I have white dude fatigue. I can't. I can't. But then, I actually [laughs] first watched some episodes to write some spitefic about Mary. Because this was like back in season two or three, like, right after season two, maybe beginning of season three, and I thought you know what? Just to spite a couple of people I was like you know what? I'm gonna write a fic where she's the one who came from the hunting background, actually, I think that's what I'm gonna do.

Iscah: Oh!

Jules: And it was kind of a minor sensation in the fandom at the time, I think? A lot of people —

Iscah: Oh, good for you!

Jules: — were like "what an interesting take, what an unusual idea, that's so interesting." And I was like well, I don't know, I just get vibes from the few episodes I've watched that feature Mary, I get vibes from this. I dunno. I'm just gettin' these vibes. But also, primarily, it was spite, I'll be honest.

[Both laugh]

Iscah: Spite's a good...

Jules: You know?

Iscah: Spite is a perfectly valid way to interact with fandom.

Jules: Exactly, thank you.

Iscah: I have a whole, like, young adult urban fantasy novel that I started writing —

Jules: God, yes.

Iscah: — purely to spite both Supernatural and Twilight.

Jules: Nice.

Iscah: Which, I've been working on that since high school.

Jules: Nice. Hell yes.

Iscah: So, yeah, you can do a hell of a lot with spite.

Jules: Yeah! So I wrote this spitefic, and I watched a few episodes featuring Mary, but had almost no interest in watching more. And then, you know, I kind of paid attention vaguely to what people on my friendslist were saying about the show, but, again, season three was, like — did not do anything to dissuade me from the "wow, this show *really* hates women and I'm not sure I'm interested in watching" feeling.

Iscah: Mm-hm.

Jules: And then, in 2008, late 2008, I made a new friend, a friend who'd just moved to the area, and we were hanging out and talking a little about fandom and we were both kind of adjacent to Supernatural 'cause, again, it was everywhere, and I mentioned, you know, the funny story of me writing spitefic. And she said "Oh, so you must be feeling real good now, actually, after this time travel episode, right?"

And I was like "Huh? Come again?" I was like, "What are you talking about? I haven't heard anything about that."

She was like, "Oh! Well, yeah, you were right, apparently, so that's what they reveal. And also, I've heard there's this new angel character who's really interesting and is kind of shaking things up a lot."

And I was like, "All right. All right, against my better judgment, I'm going to try Supernatural again." And I got completely hyperfixated on it for a couple of years. At least a year, I was like, just super-obsessed with it. Then stopped watching after they killed Jo and Ellen, I was like, "All right, no, I should've listened to my initial instincts."

Iscah: Mm-hm.

Jules: And I was going through a lot of personal stuff at the time, and kind of — it was just, I think, aggravating a lot of stuff that I — that was going on for me emotionally at the time, and I was like, all right, I don't think I am able to engage with this show in a healthy way right now, so I'm gonna — between that and the, like, relentless misogyny, I'm gonna just walk away for a bit. And managed not to look back until, like you, November 5th, at which point I was like, "Oh my god. I — oh, okay. I am kind of curious. This is interesting, what I'm hearing." And a couple of friends who had never stopped being into it were like, talking a lot about what I had missed, and I was like, "Okay. They have to be exaggerating. This — this can't be what's actually happened on the show, right?" Some of what I was hearing. And I was like, "Okay, um. Apparently it is," as I started rewatching and picked it up again, I was like "Wow, they were right, okay." And yeah, my brain kind of melted, I think, at that point, and has not fully reformed since.

Iscah: Yeah, that's — that's definitely a sentiment that I've heard —

Jules: [laughs]

Iscah: — from a lot of people who were [laughs] — well, the brain-melting, certainly, but also he reaction of "this cannot possibly be what has really happened" from people who, like, never watched the show, or also dropped it a very long time ago.

Jules: Yeah.

Iscah: Specifically in regards to Dean and Cas's relationship.

Jules: Wild.

Iscah: That, you know, people thought it was a very extreme exaggeration of what actually happened

Jules: Yeah.

Iscah: And that, you know, it was, like, teenage girls reading into everything. And then they watch it and they're like —

Jules: Yeah!

Iscah: "Oh my god, you guys were queerbaited queerbaited!"

Jules: Yeah!

Iscah: Like, "this is the eighth time somebody has said that one or the other is in love with them," you know?

Jules: Yeah, it was wild, I was just like, you know, okay. Even at the time, I was kind of back in like season...four-ish? Yeah. When I was still watching live. I was kind — I friggin' — I was nuts about Castiel basically from the beginning, I will say right out. But even then, I was kind of skeptical of the ship, 'cause I was like — okay, you know, I had — what I had really liked about season three, actually, seasons two and three, I was one of the few people who kind of was super-into the minor Dean/Henriksen pairing —

Iscah: Ooh.

Jules: And I was like, mm-hmm. So now, suddenly, in season four, everyone's like, "Oh, thank god, there's a guy we can ship Dean with who he's not related to." And I was like —

Both: Mm-hmm.

Jules: Interesting. So, as soon as another white guy shows up everyone's nuts about this pairing, but, you know — yeah, so I was very skeptical and was very much, like, oh, it's fandom doing its thing where two white guys stand within six feet of each other, so clearly —

Iscah: [laughs]

Jules: — they're in love, but no!

Iscah: Mm-hm.

Jules: I was wrong. I was like, "Oh, wow, oh, wow, they're in love in love. Okay, wow." I hate being wrong, but I have to admit, I was wrong on that one.

Iscah: Mm-hm.

Jules: And then — yeah, I guess similar to you, in terms of Jupernatural specifically, I kind of, I don't know, somehow immediately started finding some of the Jupernatural takes on Tumblr. And I was so delighted to hear it, because I had started kind of catching up, and was like you know, this is interesting, this is not quite as, like, not quite as Christian hegemonic as I remembered. So this is interesting. And then I somehow — they may have just even been shitposts, to some extent, but god bless 'em, some of the posts about Jewish interepretations of Supernatural, and Jewish things on Supernatural, crossed my dash, and I was like, "oh! This is a whole thing! I love this!" And just sort of immediately was like, "yes, I want to know more about this and want to talk lots more about this." Yeah, and then I saw your post looking for a cohost, and I was like, "ooh, that sounds fun, actually." So, yeah! Who knows! I'm excited.

Iscah: Me too! This is, of course, just our introductory episode. You know, we figured it would be a good idea to just lay out who we are, and why we're doing this, and how we're going to be doing this, before we get into our actual recap and review and analysis of each episode.

For the regular episodes, we're going to be watching generally three episodes at a time. We're gonna go through a whole season, and in each episode we're going to summarize and recap the episodes, and just go over the things that we enjoy about it, the things that could be better, Jewish things, whether they're implicit or explicit, and things that we think could be made Jewisher. And then in between each season, you know, once we get to the end, we're going to do a whole-season recap, and just keep talking about it more. That's mostly what a podcast is, talking about things. And we're also hoping to do kind of special in-between-season episodes, things that have a particular theme — maybe we'll do a High Holy Days episode around the High Holy Days, just stuff like that. And we're going to be doing this every week, kinehora, assuming nothing goes wrong.

We've also got a couple different social media set up — places where you can follow us, see what we're doing behind the scenes, maybe send us questions, comments, other stuff that you noticed that you want us to talk about.

Jules: By all means, please.

Iscah: Yeah, About past or upcoming episodes. We are on Twitter at @menschofletters (M-E-N-S-C-H) of Letters; Tumblr menschofletters.tumblr.com, and we are hosted by buzzprout, that's menschofletters at buzzsprout.com. I'm hoping to also have transcripts of each episode, that's where they would go up, and of course, we're also going to post about it and link each episode as it goes up on Twitter and Tumblr.

Jules: It's a great name, by the way. I cannot get over what a good name it is.

Iscah: Thank you. Thank you. It was initially between that or The Family Yidness.

Jules: Nice. I like that too.

Iscah: But I think Mensch of Letters is, like, one letter shorter than that.

Jules: Nice.

Iscah: So it just barely fit into the character limit for a Twitter username.

Jules: Oh, nice. All right.

Iscah: [laughs] So, more midseasons — I guess, like a tiny bit of a spoiler, but also, who in the year of somebody else's lord 2021 is coming into Supernatural, like, completely unspoiled?

Jules: If you are...

Iscah: If you wanna be unspoiled, pick a different fifteen-year media franchise.

Jules: You're lucky. I envy you if you know nothing about Supernatural at this point in 2021.

Iscah: I believe that is all that we have for today. Thank you so much, everyone, for listening. We are going to be getting set up on Google Podcasts and iTunes and all those other things. We're on your favorite podcatcher, we are on your least favorite podcatcher. Please, spread the word! Retweet, reblog, tell everybody you know. Tell your friends, tell your mother, tell your mailman. Yeah! Thank you so much for listening, and have a lovely day. Bye!

Jules: Bye!

[end]