"Dean Winchester has been a fascinating study in the deconstruction of conventional masculinity since Season 1, but that’s really come into its own in the last few seasons. It has nothing to do with his sexual orientation (volumes could and have been written about Dean’s sexuality in every direction, but I’m content to watch how the show plays out in that regard) and everything to do with watching the story of a man learning to dig out his authentic self beneath the years of Stockholm Syndrome and trauma that growing up with an abusive alcoholic ex-Marine father heaped upon him.

The reality is, as the show and Dean himself have made explicit at various times during its run, that John Winchester forced Dean to be a surrogate mother/spouse/feminized (in his view) caretaker role while simultaneously forcing him into as many hypermasculine tropes as he could think of and rewarding him only for being as much like him as possible. This would do a serious number on anyone’s head and I think the writers and the actor who plays Dean all realize this. Watching Dean face and resolve that harmful, abusive dichotomy over the years has been a unique experience for me as a viewer. The show has really benefited from having Jensen Ackles in the role, who has given him a level of nuance - and allowed the writers to plumb depths - that probably wouldn’t otherwise be there."