Supergirl Forgot the Girl Part

I watched Supergirl recently and I had a lot of thoughts as a girl in college and who grew up with superheroes. I was incredibly disappointed, not because the movie was bad, but rather it had the potential to be a love letter to my demographic. Warning, there will be spoilers ahead.

Supergirl and Mental Health

At the end of James Gunn's Superman, everyone got the impression that Supergirl was gonna be a little messy, chaotic, but a whole lot of fun. Upon watching the movie it felt like she lacked fun and was fundamentally depressed. That logically makes sense given what happened to her and her planet, but it did not feel like she was masking anything with the partying. It more so felt like she is depressed and just so happens to be partying with Superman a.k.a. her family noticing her mental issues.

Image from Superman.

This would be fine if this was the core message of the film, granted they would still need to up her hiding her mental health issues through partying, but it isn't the message and it isn't portrayed accurately. Her place was messy, but not in the way a party girl, or depressed party girl would typically leave it. This more so aligns with someone just depressed. There was more emphasis on gross, seen through old food rather than messy with clothes on the floor. It is good and important to have mental health issues portrayed, especially the less "clean" parts, but it breaks what the viewer was originally presented with.

This film just did not seem to care about attracting women of this age group because a film on mental health in college to post-college age women is extremely important. We live in a time with social media addiction, plastic surgery, and AI with image altering/creating abilities making flawless and even physically impossible looking women. It is easier to be insecure now more than ever before, especially as a woman. But instead this film actually had an Ulta ad before it, at least in my theater, which felt incredibly tone death. As much as I love makeup, it is another industry that preys on the insecurities of women. Superman would never have an Ulta ad. Why do we need a Ulta ad, or beauty products for this new DC universe's first female Superhero film? It is incredibly capitalistic and misogynistic.

The Burden of Womanhood in Superhero Films

A major issue for female fronted superhero films has been this weird trend I have been noticing, is the female lead and young(er) girl/child: The Marvels, Black Widow, Birds of Prey, WandaVision, Fantastic Four, and now this film. (If you ignore the gender and age aspect you can potentially even count Thunderbolts* with Yelena acting as a caring role to Bob). This trope enables the idea of women having to mothers or caregivers, with WandaVision and Fantastic Four literally making them mothers. (I will cut WandaVision some slack because her children are important.)

` Admittedly, I do not know much about Supergirl, but this film stands out like a sore thumb in comparison with the rest. Supergirl is still finding herself. It would have been beautiful for her to be surrounded with similar aged women, at least as she is partying, but it would be better if she confided in women. Female friendships are a beautiful thing. Women are the first responders to notice, or realize something is wrong, from domestic abuse to mental health issues. Although it is another unfair burden, sometimes only women can notice when another woman is struggling.

Image from Black Widow.

Additionally, a trope I hate in female fronted media is that women often have to take on a villain as a means to express social commentary, specifically misogyny, instead of any other metaphor. Women can never just have a bad guy, it has to be a bad guy and misogyny. With Black Widow there was sex trafficking, in this film there was sex trafficking, and it just doesn't fit. The themes in this film with grief are so strong. I don't know why they were so afraid to tackle grief and mental health, but ultimately if they did it would have solved so many of the films issues.

Men get to have villains that are poetic with deeper meanings and thoughts to them. For example, in The Batman the Riddler represents Batman's fear on whether his identity is revenge or justice. Is he avenging his parents or is he acting out and causing more damage? In Superman, Lex Luthor represents the worst parts of humanity: colonialism, and greed masked behind fear. Superman represents your every man: working class, and immigrants.

But women we are stuck with exclusively dealing with gender-based problems. Yes, I want to see female superheroes take down sex traffickers and I do identify as a feminist, but these false-feminist films are actively hurting younger girls. It is much more anti-feminist to force women, fictional or not, to constantly have to deal with their abusers and institutions that keep them down. Why can't women represent humanity? Why can't the villain only represent grief, truth, or justice? Why does it always have to come back to misogyny? If we can imagine worlds where a superhero can shoot lasers out of their eyes, we can imagine a world without misogyny.

The Music

In addition to my other critiques, the music was just horrible and not age or character appropriate. They marketed the movie with important female figures in rock music with Blondie and Joan Jett (at least in the Ulta ad), but included none of their material in the film itself. They were mooching off the labor and the identities of these women in the cheapest way possible. Everyone online is talking about the horrible cover of "The Middle" in the film (no offense to the singer), but I'd argue all of them except "Le temps de l'amour" and "Cheek to Cheek" were horrible and horribly utilized.

Image from Supergirl.

Intentionally or not Supergirl's main outfit throughout the entire movie SCREAMS Kesha and the themes of partying also SCREAM Kesha. But no Kesha needle drop? Personally it is hard for me not to see the resemblance. It is once again mooching off of female labor without compensation.

Image of Kesha.

Here are some essential tracks I would include in my Supergirl lineup over what was chosen: "C U Next Tuesday" by Kesha, "Crazy Girls" by Paramore. I think a good song to overlay her "partying to escape the pain" could be "Circle the Drain" by Katy Perry or "Hella Good" by No Doubt. She is the college student that people always see go out, but no one checks on and also she overworks herself. The Ting Tings and Shampoo would have rocked! "Volcano Girls" by Veruca Salt could have been a good replacement for "The Middle" in my opinion. Just anything with more life and love.

If they made this film not only for the young girl audience in mind, but the college girls going through shit, who are way too stressed, that like to party, or that just graduated/about to graduated it could have been beautiful. It felt like they were catering aggressively to a male audience, especially with the inclusion of Lobo to make up for that fact that Supergirl is a girl. I also kept getting more and more pissed off when he came to rescue her. Supergirl is not a damsel in destress, emphasis on SUPER. The music is a good example of them not knowing their audience, that is why I am just so passionate about it.

I just felt like this movie could have been super cool and perfect for girls like me in particular for years to come, but they played it so safe that it wrapped back around to boring. I am incredibly disappointed in this film after the beauty of Superman. Maybe one day we will get a fun female Superhero film where she doesn't have to carry the burden of misogyny on her back, but can be fun like your Spidermans, or Supermans. But unfortunately that wasn't this go around. Maybe the music would be more suited to women and uplift women? Again, not this time. This isn't my normal content, but this movie upset me, but I had high expectations. I will end this by saying: hire more female directors and writers (myself included).