Supergirl is a Metaphor for Being a Modern Woman

@26/ChocolateRob: I’m sure that the kryptonite-dart attack on Kara was at Henshaw’s orders, not Alex’s. She works for him, not the other way around. Alex was the one who released Kara from the shackles that Henshaw put her in.

I like the complexity of Alex and Kara’s relationship. In the scene where they were talking through the doorway, Alex could have chosen to defend her actions by saying that she encouraged Kara to stay hidden in order to protect her from the Fort Rozz inmates who wanted to kill her. That was a legitimate part of the reason for her actions, and she could’ve focused on that. Instead, she admitted that part of her motivation was jealousy and ego, and she set that aside and chose to support and encourage Kara at last. That was a brave thing to do.

@35/_FDS: But “queer” itself started out as an insult against gay people (it means strange or unnatural) but was then co-opted by the LGBT community and turned into a positive. So was “gay,” for that matter. It originally meant carefree and uninhibited, and was formerly used to refer to people who were heterosexually promiscuous, libertine, and unconcerned with sexual morality, later coming to be used as a code word for people who were transgressive of sexual norms in another way (i.e. same-sex). So as a self-described “gay guy who was a member of Queer Nation,” you’re already taking two terms that were originally used to demean and judge people like yourself and co-opting them into terms of pride and positivity. How is it any different for Cat to take “girl” and co-opt it into a term of pride?

As for Cat’s fashion commentary, she is the head of a media company rather than an attorney, so I can understand her being more concerned with appearance and presentation. Still, who says that her behavior is “encouraging” anything? She’s clearly being set up as a workplace antagonist for Kara, like countless other mean bosses in TV history.

On Kara’s comment about pain, she wouldn’t have felt pain since she left Krypton a dozen years earlier. That’s long enough that it could feel like a different lifetime, that she could’ve forgotten what it felt like. Her statement was clearly an exaggeration, but it’s the kind of exaggeration I can believe she would actually use. It’s actually quite common for people to use “never” and “always” in exaggerated ways — e.g. saying “We’ve always been friends” about someone you met in the 8th grade.

And we have no reason to assume that Fort Rozz was in “the same general area” as Kara’s pod. On interstellar scales, Earth would qualify as “the same general area.” They could’ve easily come down thousands of kilometers apart.

@38/StrongDreams: Actually producer Andrew Kreisberg has made a point in interviews of saying that they aren’t going to ride too heavily on kryptonite as a threat. For instance:

“There’s a collective mistake that Kryptonite is the only thing that can hurt a Kryptonian. In the comic books and in other adaptations, specifically the Superman animated series, Superman can be hurt by a lot more than Kryptonite. On the show, we’ve shown that fighting certain aliens [can hurt her]. She fights Livewire, who has electrical powers and enough electricity to stop Supergirl’s heart. There are other things on this show that are beyond Kryptonite. We always want to feel like our hero is in jeopardy.”

A lot of versions of Superman have made the character more vulnerable. In the Fleischer cartoons, it often seemed plausible that he might, if not be killed, at least fail to save the day because he was overpowered by an attack or an obstacle like a volcanic eruption or electrocution. One clever thing the ’40s radio series did was to have Superman’s super-hearing leave him extra-vulnerable to a villain with a destructively loud voice. A Lois and Clark episode had him be susceptible to ordinary hypnosis. And of course Superman has always been vulnerable to magic. Then there’s the classic ’50s episode “Panic in the Sky” — remade for both the ’88 Superboy and Lois and Clark — where he tried to deflect an asteroid and the force of the impact gave him amnesia. There was another ’50s episode where he was radioactively contaminated and had to stay far away from people, rendering him useless to fight crime.

And of course there’s always the dodge that aliens can be assumed to have superpowers of their own and thus be able to pose a threat to a Kryptonian. Kreisberg cited S:TAS, which used that trope a lot (Lobo, Kalibak, Darkseid, Maxima, etc.), and we’ve already seen it here with Vartox and his axe. Then there are villains like the Parasite, who can drain Superman’s powers and pose an extra threat by draining his memories and learning his secret identity. There are plenty of possibilities other than kryptonite. Past TV adaptations like L&C have tended to ride too heavily on kryptonite because they relied mainly on Earthbound threats, but this show is going all-out with alien bad guys from the word go.

I think Kreisberg has also said that Kara’s inexperience at using her powers and fighting bad guys will also be a source of vulnerability for her.

@45/lordmagnusen & 46/StrongDreams: Alex wanted Kara to keep a low profile so as not to attract the attention of the Fort Rozz escapees. Perhaps Superman wanted the same thing, for her to keep herself hidden until she was ready to take care of herself. So he may have avoided her as a way to keep attention from being drawn to her. He didn’t want to force the escapees’ attentions onto her before she was ready.

As for the DEO’s kryptonite paraphernalia, Henshaw made it pretty clear that he doesn’t trust Superman or any alien. We’ve seen a number of government or military characters who saw Superman as a threat, such as Trask in Lois and Clark and General Hardcastle and Amanda Waller in Superman: TAS and Justice League Unlimited. There’s certainly precedent for the idea of the government readying kryptonite weapons just in case Superman should ever go rogue. And Superman would probably approve of such precautions, since he wouldn’t want to hurt anyone if he ever fell prey to mind control or something.

@50/PowerfistJenny: Kind of strange to call it a “fad” when the character of Supergirl was created in 1959.

Hold on… look at the fifth picture in the column. Supergirl has earrings. How the heck did Kara pierce her ears? Heat vision? A kryptonite needle? For that matter, why don’t the piercings instantly heal up after being made?

Come to think of it, there was a Superman radio episode in the ’40s where Superman had to give Jimmy a blood transfusion to heal him from a fatal injury or something, and when the doctor couldn’t get a needle through Superman’s skin, Superman took the needle and forced it in himself. I always found that a bit sketchy, though, since the needle should’ve broken either way.

@61/crzydroid: The shot of her in the skimpy outfit wasn’t meant to titillate, but to mock the very idea of her fighting crime in something so male gaze-oriented (and note that it was similar to what the comics’ Supergirl actually did wear in the ’90s and ’00s). So there’s no conflict with the feminist bent.

As for the darts, Kara’s just starting out. Superman is probably seasoned enough to avoid them.

And as for the name, reportedly we will be hearing “Superman” said aloud more often in the future.

@62/Aeryl: Yes, Benoist’s enthusiasm and charm are great. I’m also really impressed with the costume. People like to make fun of superhero capes and tights, but I think she looks really classy in her costume. The cape has a rather elegant cut to it.

@73/lordmagnusen: Indeed. The image and symbolism of Superman is very important to me, I realize, even if I haven’t always been crazy about how he’s been portrayed onscreen. I hear people talking about how silly his costume and red trunks are and all that, and I just can’t see it. To me, it’s not silly-looking at all, because it’s Superman’s costume, and that makes it a symbol of truth, justice, and the neverending battle against corruption and prejudice.

Granted, some attempts to realize it in live action have been better than others. (I’ve just gotten to the second season of Lois & Clark on my rewatch, and not only is Superman’s chest symbol huge there, but they just changed it to some material that looks almost fluorescent on camera. Way too garish.) But when they get it right — as the Reeve movies did and as Supergirl now does — it looks to me like something that should be worn with pride.

Admittedly, I’m not entirely sold on the basketball-skin texture of Supergirl’s costume or the lack of yellow on the chest shield. But on the whole, it looks really good.

@85/_FDS: When Superman started out in 1938, he was much more of an anti-establishment figure, a vigilante champion of the common people crusading against corruption among the powerful — with acts ranging from removing warmongering leaders from power to saving a wife from her abusive husband. He became more of an authority figure in the WWII years and after, but so did Batman. (In the ’43 serial, Batman was an agent of the US government, and in the ’66 series, Batman and Robin were “duly deputized officers” of the Gotham City Police.) It’s only in recent decades that they’ve diverged, with Superman remaining more aligned with authority while Batman became more of a rebel. I think it was The Dark Knight Returns that codified that view, taking it to a satirical extreme by portraying Superman as an unquestioning enforcer for a corrupt, warmongering US government. TDKR was meant as a revisionist, grotesque satire, but it’s been disproportionately influential on subsequent portrayals of the DC Universe.

@86/_FDS: I don’t think anyone male is qualified to judge the impact of the “girl” label or decide whether women should embrace or reject it. Men, gay or hetero, don’t get to tell women how they should define themselves. If Ali Adler was okay with writing the “girl” speech and Calista Flockhart was okay with delivering it, then neither you nor I has any business mansplaining to them why we know better.

As for Fort Rozz, I’d guess that Superman was aware of the crash, but he would’ve seen to Kara’s safety first, and that would’ve given the inmates time to go to ground before Superman could arrive at the fort.

And I don’t see a problem with the concept. Every superhero show needs villains of the week, and we’ve had too many shows in the past about Superman vs. bank robbers and gangsters. Supergirl needs some source of powerful foes, and a crashed alien prison is a more logical one than “Kryptonite suddenly has the power to create human mutants.” Smallville‘s use of kryptonite was incredibly stupid. The stuff positively littered Smallville; logically it would’ve contaminated the soil and the water, and Clark would be dying of super-leukemia by now. This is a more elegant solution. And the creativity comes from what characters they create as inmates. (Although these days comic-based shows seem reluctant to create characters rather than drawing them from the comics — probably because the comics companies don’t want to pay royalties to the creators of original characters.)

As for General Aunt Astra, nobody said she was in the prison. You’re just jumping to that conclusion. Naturally the writers have a backstory in mind for her that they haven’t revealed yet.

@88/lordmagnusen: I suppose there’s the precedent of Jax-Ur in Superman: The Animated Series, who didn’t regrow his eye on Earth. Still, that doesn’t apply to body piercings, because those do heal up like any ordinary skin/tissue injury unless they’re kept open by being regularly used.