Originally Posted by Kromm:
“I couldn't disagree more about the Pilot. It had minor issues, but only minor ones. It did have an aspect of talking about her gender, but her inexperience was keyed in on a lot more. And she can't be all powerful, because it makes for boring TV. Just like Clark on Smallville (note: not a woman) she has to NOT have a handle on her powers, or it's a waste of time making shows about her.”
I didn't say anything in my post about not having a handle on her powers being the issue. If they want to explore that element that's fine. She's never really used them which is the entire point of her "not exploring her full potential". That's not an issue for my whatsoever.
I'm saying that her journey should be focused on being an
alien immigrant having to adapt to life. It would have drawn parrallels to real life as many foreigners would be able to relate to having a 'second tongue' and being torn between two worlds. But she doesn't seem alien enough to me. She doesn't talk about her past life on Krypton. She doesn't seem to speak Kryptonian language. Exploring what it actually feels like to be an alien on Earth as opposed to what it actually feels like to be a "woman in this world" is more true to the character. You get Wonder Woman if you want to explore feminist themes.
Quote:
“And incidentally one of "the men who are writing" isn't a man at all. Ali Adler--one third of the writing team on the Pilot (and the first one credited in the actual screenplay)--is female.”
Yes, but 2/3 of the writers on the pilot are male and the way they approach Kara as a character reeks of how they approach all their other female characters on their other shows, especially Arrow. An example being her relationship with her sister Alex. It's important to show that women can and do get along; especially sisters. In Arrow you have two sisters willing to destroy each other over a
man whereas no sister who truly loved each other would do that.
In The Secret World of Alex Mack where you had the older scientist sister actively trying to help her younger sister from day one use her powers... and that was in the
90s. In the movie Frozen you have a sister trying to rescue her older sister from herself... and that's for children. I don't understand how the writers expect me to like or trust Alex after the pilot in 2015.
Additionally, the two most powerful of the show runners are Greg Berlanti and Andrew Kreisberg as it's their success with Arrow and The Flash that even got this project greenlit. They are calling all the shots, they're doing all the promotion, the interviews etc. Their fingerprints are all over this. Every interview that Greg Berlanti does he's talking about how Supergirl is going to inspire little girls the way Star Wars inspires little boys. It's as if they're
trying to turn off their male audience. Why is it that shows like Buffy and Smallville can attract both genders but Supergirl has to be all about the ladies? It's because shows like Smallville dn't go on and on about what it's like to be a man in this world.
This tends to be trend in Hollywood when writing shows with female leads. The male creators/producers come up with the concept (usually one that is all about the woman's gender) and then they hire a bunch of women writers (simply because they're women and feel they can "relate") to bring to life their vision so that people can't say it's sexist. But it's still a
man's vision. If it had been a woman who had come up with the concept that could have changed drastically how this show was written. Perhaps the whole feminist aspect would not even come into play. Hearing lines like: "She can't do this, she's just a girl" had me rolling my eyes.
Basically, Smallville did Kara Zor-El right (perhaps too right because she was more heroic and proactive than her useless cousin). Her journey was about trying to reconnect with the only family she had left and find a new life on a planet that is alien to her. It wasn't about "being a woman". Which actually leads me to my main problem with ths show: Supergirl without Superman is only one half of the character. I'm sorry, it's true. The character in itself has never been very interesting simply because she was created for purely marketability reasons and not because she had a good story to tell. The most interesting thing about Supergirl alongside her alien origins is her relationship with her cousin and how different they are due to their experiences. If you're not going to have Superman appear on the show then you shouldn't have him exist at all.
Throughout the pilot the theme seems to be "why do we need a Supergirl when we already have a Superman?" The showrunners' answer seems to be "because she's a girl version!" which isn't good enough and just makes me wish I was watching a Superman show instead.
