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Supergirl, the rom-com and The Flash – sexism and superhero TV

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It’s fair to say that the online reaction to CBS Supergirl trailer – in actuality, it’s a cutdown of the pilot episode designed for advertisers, but let’s call it a trailer – has been mixed.

One of the internet’s main complaints seems to be that this female superhero has been given a rom-com makeover, and many have compared it, negatively, to Saturday Night Live’s recent parody, Black Widow: Age of Me.

You can see those comparisons laid out in full at websites such as io9 or MTV. I’ve read them, and in response, I think it’s apt to quote Calista Flockhart’s Cat Grant. “If you perceive Supergirl as anything less than excellent, isn’t the real problem you?”

Okay, that would be pushing it too far, especially as we haven’t actually seen an episode of Supergirl yet. We’ve seen six minutes, largely out of context, and it would be silly to declare it excellent. But, please, let’s not decide it definitely isn’t excellent. Not yet.

And can we stop with the Age of Me comparisons too? The whole point of SNL’s sketch was to joke that if Hollywood were to make a new female superhero movie, they’d probably focus on the romance and cut out the superhero stuff.

And that’s actually the opposite of what we see in the Supergirl trailer. We see Melissa Benoist’s Kara Zor-El in action frequently, and unless I’m missing something I didn’t see much that would pass for romance. I saw her interact with a couple of male characters, one of whom may be interested in her romantically. That’s it.

If we need a comparison for Supergirl, how about another superhero show from the same production company, and an incredible popular success? I think we should take a look at the trailer for The Flash and see how that stacks up against Supergirl.

Both trailers open with a flashback to childhood, reference another existing superhero, introduce a wider world of villains, feature the hero using their powers for the first time and show them taking down their first foe.

But those are all surface-level comparisons. It’s more important that this promo for The Flash contains the very tropes that Supergirl‘s trailer has been criticised for.

When we first meet Barry Allen, he’s looking frazzled because he’s late for work, and he clumsily bumps into someone in the street.


The first thing his boss says to him is, “Everyone you work with thinks you’re a weirdo.” Then the girl he’s secretly pining after tells him, “You’ve got to get yourself a girlfriend.”

Does either of these trailers really feature any more ‘romance’ than the other?

After Barry gets his powers there’s a close-up of his newly attained abs, and not long after this we see him try out a dorky, inappropriate prototype suit before settling on his more traditional duds.

The Flash did not come under fire for featuring these tropes last year. They were widely accepted as being relevant to the character and the show’s tone. Why not afford Supergirl the same courtesy?

The shows look to be very tonally similar, and featuring comparable material. But is The Flash being dismissed as ‘a romantic comedy’? There’s definitely some romance and some comedy. It’s also the best superhero show on network TV right now.

When it comes down to it, there’s romance in just about every single show on TV, and definitely all of the superhero shows, even the more serious and ‘darker’ ones like Arrow and Daredevil.

And what if Supergirl does turn out to be a full-on romantic comedy? Is that inherently a bad thing?

One of my favourite superhero shows of all time is Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. In case you don’t remember it, that was a superhero show that was also a screwball romantic comedy.

I found the dynamic between Teri Hatcher’s Lois Lane and Dean Cain’s Clark Kent to be electric, week in, week out. There was a lot of romance, there was a lot of comedy, and some lighthearted superhero action thrown in for good measure. I adored it.

And after seeing six minutes of Supergirl, I see a lot of the same appeal. I’m already taken with Melissa Benoist’s winsome – you could say Grant Gustin-esque – performance.

There should be more female-led superhero shows and movies, but they should also be allowed to play with the same material as the male-led ones. We should have lighter, cuter, funnier and more romantic takes on superheroes, and we should have darker and grittier ones too.

We get the light from The Flash and Supergirl, and the dark from Daredevil and AKA Jessica Jones. I don’t see the sense in closing off either style for characters of either gender.


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