One of the strengths of the book is the juxtaposition of essays, which highlights the allegiance of the series to earlier Gothic conventions alongside a reworking of tradition. These categories also provide space to consider what Supernatural brings to our understanding of the Gothic, offering new perspectives on the genre, particularly in relation to its modernization and Americanization. Through these categories, the book positions Supernatural within the heritage of gothic that underpins much of the show’s storytelling, aesthetics and thematic concerns with history, legacy, transgression, and family. The book organises the essays within four broad categories of Gothic: Tropes and Traditions Narrative Gender and Monstrosity and Otherness. Within this collection, Edmundson has brought together a range of critical approaches that considers how Supernatural engages with established traditions within the Gothic. This is an ideal Gothic text for the twenty-first century. ![]() In the world of Supernatural, the past co-exists within the present, a never ending return of the repressed. This is a show that is haunted by a past that repeatedly comes bubbling to the surface through the cases that ghost hunters Sam and Dean Winchester investigate each week, as well as its classic rock score and 1970s aesthetics the hunters’ family legacy an underpinning of religious and American history and a plethora of characters who repeatedly return from the dead, including Sam and Dean. In her introduction, Edmundson provides an excellent overview of the existing scholarship on Supernatural and makes it clear why alongside these established critical approaches, it is important to consider it as a Gothic text. As such, Melissa Edmundson’s The Gothic Tradition in Supernatural: Essays on the Television Series is a welcome addition to the study of the show. While some discussion has considered the show’s place within a growing landscape of TV horror, little attention has been given to its debt and relationship to traditions of the Gothic. Over its lengthy broadcast run, the series has garnered much academic interest which has focused on a range of discourses and disciplines, including gender, theology, genre, music, postmodernism, and fandom. In contrast, Supernatural openly declared its association with Gothic tales of ghosts, demons and monsters, celebrating its allegiance to horror while also reimagining the genre through the lens of the American road movie. Horror was often subsumed within other genres such as science fiction, melodrama, family television, and teen drama in the form of The X-Files (1993-2002, 2016-), Twin Peaks (1990-91, 2017), The Munsters (1964-66), and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003). The Gothic’s history has largely manifested in televisual adaptations of the classics of Gothic Fiction, such as Dracula (1897), Frankenstein (1818), and Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), as well as anthology series such as Mystery and Imagination (1966-70) and Hammer’s House of Horror (1980). ![]() ![]() While Gothic and horror series are now a staple of broadcast television, online media, and video-on-demand services, when Supernatural (2005-) first came on the air in 2005 these genres had a very different relationship to TV. ![]() The Gothic Tradition in Supernatural: Essays on the Television Series
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