eSupergirl debuted this week and i read this really retard article on forbes about how women had no superheroes on tv to look up to in the last 40 years. Now this maybe be true for live action adaptions but how many male super hero shows were present during this time that were not completely awful. We had The Incredible Hulk(1977-1982), Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman(1993-1997) and Smallville(2001-2011). There are a few other shows that have had main male heroes but few of them lasted more than a season.
Of course if we want to look at animated TV shows that have had ensemble casts and how many strong female characters existed in them we might have another story/perspective entirely. X-Men:TAS had multiple strong females as heroes and villains as did Teen Titans, Justice League, Star Wars: The Clone wars. Hell one of the most beloved cartoons of all time is Powerpuff Girls a show that was despite its cute outer appearance had diverse gender roles and strong female leads. But hey cartoons are for boys right?
But let's get to the meat of why this actually pisses me off. Supergirl is TERRIBLE. It is a flat insult to the character and frankly women in general. But because it is a show about a female comic book character everyone loves it.
The show starts with a hey the audience is retarded let's drop an infodump trope on them for 6 minutes. The world they constructed for this character makes as little sense as they can get away with. They immediately throw the character in the shadow of her can't say his name for some reason brother. Even her motivation for becoming a hero is terrible as it seems she only cares about her sister and not actually about the plane full of people about to crash. Then they use the same terrible you can't help people because they will find out about you shit they pulled in Man of Steel. Seriously a character that is for all intents and purposes a god has to worry about people finding out who they are? We then play dress up with no real explanation of how she acquires these magic near indestructible costumes and of course her platonic friend happens to be a hacker so instead of using her super hearing they h@c|< teh gibson. Our inept hero gets captured and shackled foreshadowing Hank Henshaw being an evil dick. The first villain she meets of course has to be extra misogynistic because girl power show right? and inexplicably runs from rockets which clearly wouldn't be a threat if he could take a punch from Supergirl. Being a ruthless villain who would take death over dishonor wouldn't he have held her hostage and or just killed her even if it meant his death. According to half of the characters in the show the only other hero is "the big guy" so wouldn't his self sacrifice mean they would have an easier time with their plot? This wouldn't be too far from what he shows at the end of the episode. More implied misogyny cuz Hank is a bad man and gurlz rule. Despite being a young, intrepid and supposedly intelligent woman she could not figure out eye laser the axe or the guy wielding it. I get that she needs a support group a "team" like every other hero show out there now but can't we let the character be smart why does she always have to be saved. Naturally we end the way we begin with the infodump trope because it wasn't enough to say niece once we have to imply their relation 4 times in 30 seconds.
I almost feel like this character represents Pre-Crisis Supergirl from the comic(which it does draw several references from). That is to say a character if only slightly interesting b/c she is loosely tied to Superman. A character so bland because she had no defining attributes it took her dying to become relevant. Even post crisis her backstory and her place in the world(even time) were rewritten several times. Despite thinking this is a happy go lucky character Kara Zor-El is probably one of the more tragic characters in the DC universe, most of the people she meets and befriends end up dying. Even her New52 counterpart which i find to be the best incarnation of her is a very sad girl in an overbearing world a fish out of water with no place. Despite or maybe because of her hardships she ends up being a plucky go getter not just finding her way on a strange world in almost to her a strange body but creating her own place. You know like an allegory for a teenage girl coming of age.
I think another character would have been better suited for an upbeat girl power show. But i also assume that those characters are either too obscure (Stargirl/Mary Marvel/Arisia), too dark(Zatanna/Donna Troy/Barda) or reserved for other TV shows and or movies(Catwoman/Starfire/Black Canary). So they settled on something bland that that could mold into something more generic because only nerds care about the relation to the original source material. Most importantly the superhero boom is in full force and you gotta make dem ducats.
-Get fucked internets, I'm out
Z
Of course if we want to look at animated TV shows that have had ensemble casts and how many strong female characters existed in them we might have another story/perspective entirely. X-Men:TAS had multiple strong females as heroes and villains as did Teen Titans, Justice League, Star Wars: The Clone wars. Hell one of the most beloved cartoons of all time is Powerpuff Girls a show that was despite its cute outer appearance had diverse gender roles and strong female leads. But hey cartoons are for boys right?
But let's get to the meat of why this actually pisses me off. Supergirl is TERRIBLE. It is a flat insult to the character and frankly women in general. But because it is a show about a female comic book character everyone loves it.
The show starts with a hey the audience is retarded let's drop an infodump trope on them for 6 minutes. The world they constructed for this character makes as little sense as they can get away with. They immediately throw the character in the shadow of her can't say his name for some reason brother. Even her motivation for becoming a hero is terrible as it seems she only cares about her sister and not actually about the plane full of people about to crash. Then they use the same terrible you can't help people because they will find out about you shit they pulled in Man of Steel. Seriously a character that is for all intents and purposes a god has to worry about people finding out who they are? We then play dress up with no real explanation of how she acquires these magic near indestructible costumes and of course her platonic friend happens to be a hacker so instead of using her super hearing they h@c|< teh gibson. Our inept hero gets captured and shackled foreshadowing Hank Henshaw being an evil dick. The first villain she meets of course has to be extra misogynistic because girl power show right? and inexplicably runs from rockets which clearly wouldn't be a threat if he could take a punch from Supergirl. Being a ruthless villain who would take death over dishonor wouldn't he have held her hostage and or just killed her even if it meant his death. According to half of the characters in the show the only other hero is "the big guy" so wouldn't his self sacrifice mean they would have an easier time with their plot? This wouldn't be too far from what he shows at the end of the episode. More implied misogyny cuz Hank is a bad man and gurlz rule. Despite being a young, intrepid and supposedly intelligent woman she could not figure out eye laser the axe or the guy wielding it. I get that she needs a support group a "team" like every other hero show out there now but can't we let the character be smart why does she always have to be saved. Naturally we end the way we begin with the infodump trope because it wasn't enough to say niece once we have to imply their relation 4 times in 30 seconds.
I almost feel like this character represents Pre-Crisis Supergirl from the comic(which it does draw several references from). That is to say a character if only slightly interesting b/c she is loosely tied to Superman. A character so bland because she had no defining attributes it took her dying to become relevant. Even post crisis her backstory and her place in the world(even time) were rewritten several times. Despite thinking this is a happy go lucky character Kara Zor-El is probably one of the more tragic characters in the DC universe, most of the people she meets and befriends end up dying. Even her New52 counterpart which i find to be the best incarnation of her is a very sad girl in an overbearing world a fish out of water with no place. Despite or maybe because of her hardships she ends up being a plucky go getter not just finding her way on a strange world in almost to her a strange body but creating her own place. You know like an allegory for a teenage girl coming of age.
I think another character would have been better suited for an upbeat girl power show. But i also assume that those characters are either too obscure (Stargirl/Mary Marvel/Arisia), too dark(Zatanna/Donna Troy/Barda) or reserved for other TV shows and or movies(Catwoman/Starfire/Black Canary). So they settled on something bland that that could mold into something more generic because only nerds care about the relation to the original source material. Most importantly the superhero boom is in full force and you gotta make dem ducats.
-Get fucked internets, I'm out
Z