Who is this movie for?
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I realize that’s a presumptuous question. It presumes that the studio that made “Supergirl”, despite spending billyuns on market research or whatever, had no idea what they were doing and, if they had a target audience, they had no clue how to connect with it. It also presumes that I am a cinematic genius, and know EXACTLY the target audience and how it *should* have gone, but didn’t. Well... It would seem that, like Washington DC, Hollywood is composed of idiots that are more eager to bootlick their way to climbing the industry ladder more than actually providing a decent product that people want to support. Not always true (well, it *is* always true of Washington DC), but frequently the case. It’s also true that I’m a cinematic genius, despite never having been involved in a movie production. You know what they say, those who can’t do, geniusify.
Based on the title alone, I am going to go ahead and propose that the target audience for “Supergirl” is girls. Based on the box office results, where it is possibly the biggest bomb of the year, I am going to propose that it didn’t land with its target audience, or any audience. I’m not shocked it didn’t land with men, because the film treats all men as obstacles for women to overcome in order to manifest their innate awesomeness. I mean, I get it. Men are dicks. Spoiler alert: Women are *also* dicks, proving that you don’t need one to be one.
But to examine why “Supergirl” is such a miss for girls, I will examine three franchises that were big hits with them. “Twilight”, “Harry Potter”, and “Frozen”. What do those three franchises have in common? Well, they all feature young women that have an attitude or trait that society views as a flaw, so they’re kind of social pariahs that are off doing their own thing. Bella is mopey and introverted, Hermione is more interested in math (”Maths” in Britain) and science than dolls and tea parties, and Elsa is a divine being with godlike power in a world that apparently doesn’t have any of those other than her.
As it happens, all three of those women would end up finding a community that not only accepts their idiosyncrasies, but values them. Vampires are notoriously mopey, so they welcome Bella with open arms. Wizards need maths to figure out spells and stuff, and Elsa literally just uses her power to create her own community from scratch, because she is capable of manifesting sentient life with a thought. Plus, she chills out with her sister. The point is, these communities don’t just accept differences, they nurture them. That’s a pretty powerful positive, not just for girls but for anybody. But especially girls. Especially considering that the idea that *everybody is fucked up* in some way is a Movieshyte thesis.
So this brings me to Kara. Supergirl. Like those other heroines, Kara is also “different”. She’s living on a red sun planet that strips her of her powers so that she can get drunk every night. She’s angry, short with people, and generally unpleasant. She’s not just depressed... She seems actually broken. She’s incredibly unlikeable, but all you have to do is read anything by Joe Abercrombie to realize that you don’t have to actually like characters in order to be intensely interested in what they do.
We learn over the course of the movie *why* Kara is like this. It’s survivor’s guilt. Unlike her cousin Kal, aka Superman, she wasn’t a baby when her father shot her from a dying world to earth. She was a teenager. To give a quick plot summary, Kara’s home planet Krypton blew up, but her dad, Zor-El, knew it was going to happen and built this energy field that took her home city and detached it from the planet and sent it into space. Krypton is gone, and these Kryptonians are now floating aimlessly in a city they call Argo because they’re big Ben Affleck fans. Well, history does nothing if not repeat itself, and Argo *also* starts to die as the people get sick from kryptonite exposure. Zor-El finds his brother Jor-El’s plans for the earthbound spaceship, and builds a ship for his teenage daughter Kara to escape the dying Argo and flee to Earth. Now, you might ask, why doesn’t Zor-El build spaceships for *everybody* on Argo? When asked, Zor-El responds “It’s not our place to become gods”.
Say what!?! Did you put that up to a vote, my man? Did everybody on Argo vote to stay and die of poisoning rather than go to Earth and acquire superpowers from the yellow sun? I’m going to go ahead and say no. This is what you get with autocracy. When a society is governed by a small number of “great leaders” and the common people just have to abide by their decisions... Your great leaders decide that it’s unethical for everybody *except their own fucking daughter* to become superpowered and doom your entire civilization. Again. Merry christmas, Kryptonians. Enjoy your philosopher king. Except you can’t, because your civilization was wiped out twice.
Kara is a TEENAGER when all this goes down. She understands that her crazy cult leader asshole dad is dooming her friends and neighbors while saving *her*. You think that might fuck somebody up? You think that might lead to somebody REJECTING the godlike power her friends were never allowed in the first place? We are watching a broken young woman, we are given her story, and I can completely empathize with Kara’s plight and be invested in her grappling with it, even if I’m not a huge fan of how she acts.
Here’s where the movie completely fails where those earlier franchises succeed. We’re given the backstory of Kara’s trauma... But it’s completely ignored. Does Kara find a community that understands this terrible ordeal she’s gone through and embraces her for it? Nope. Does she... Come to terms with it? Nope. Does she... Continue to act like a jerk while following a “Raiders of the Lost Ark” story progression that only cares about taking her from location A to location B to location C for the next special effects setpiece? Yup.
Me and my cinematic genius don’t get it. You have a character I can empathize with right there. But instead of rooting for her or being uplifted as she learns to process her trauma, I get to watch her punch people and do random stuff and encounter horrible man after horrible man. Even Lobo, the intergalactic bounty hunter, who is presumably a hero, is an asshat. Kara never comes to terms with the fact that the *MOST* horrible man is her father, who saved her while killing her friends because of ethical dogma.
On top of all that... Kara changes at the end. She stops drinking and decides to embrace her powers, put on the mini skirt and hooker boots and kick ass for the lord. Tangent: When I say “hooker boots”, I say it with affection. Those boots are awesome. I remember seeing the “Pretty Woman” poster for the first time, where Julia Roberts is wearing classic hooker boots, and it was probably the most erotic experience I’d had up to that point. I want to say I was 28 at the time.
Despite the fact that Kara’s shiny red boots are tight... It’s a shame that she puts them on. Why? Unlike Bella, Hermione, and Elsa, who are accepted for being different, Kara does THE EXACT OPPOSITE. She conforms to EXACTLY what society wants her to be: A sex symbol and a super hero. For no reason other than the script decided it for her. She works through nothing. The big climax of the movie is when she tells the girl she’s been escorting NOT to take revenge, because revenge will “rot your soul”. How does she know? She’s 23! What on earth does she know about revenge? What does revenge have to do with *her* story? Her dad already got revenge on himself by dying with everybody else on Argo. It makes no sense. Then, when Kara’s speech works and the girl walks away... Kara goes up to the bad guy, says “This is for my dog”, and kills him, even though HER DOG IS STILL ALIVE. Is this the action of somebody that has dealt with trauma? Or is it the action of either a complete psychopath or someone that has spiraled into such despair that morality now means nothing to her?
Yet this person returns to Earth, quits drinking or being mopey, dons the costume and becomes the hero everybody wants. Well, everybody except her. It’s grotesque.
There’s a ton of other minor flaws. I’ll talk about a couple that stood out to me. The group of evil men go by the name “The Brigands”. Really? “The Brigands”? Was “The Bad Folks” taken? Come on, people. What happened to real gang names? Like... For instance... Murder Incorporated. In the first scene, the leader of the brigands goes into a couple’s house. He’s looking for something, and he’s going to find out where it is from this poor couple using Hans Landa intensity. Except, his first words after he sits down are “Is that PIE??”. Well done, writers. Best introductory villain lines ever. “What’s the most you’ve ever lost on a coin toss?”, “You are part of the rebel alliance, and a traitor”, “Is that PIE??”. The movie is so earth coded it makes me angry. We’re supposed to be in space, yet aliens are singing songs. In a prison cell, we see a two headed mouse. Really? That’s your alien creature? A mouse with another head? It probably wasn’t even a special effect, it was probably imported from Wuhan.
What upsets me isn’t that “Supergirl” was a bad movie. It’s that the interesting movie was right there. They gave you the setup, they gave you the backstory, they gave you the reason to genuinely empathize with a traumatized young woman... Then they ignored it. I’m not saying that finding a community like those other heroines I mentioned earlier would have saved “Supergirl” at the box office. Maybe girls just don’t like comic book movies and it was doomed from the start. But it *could* have saved it from being blasted to ribbons by Movieshyte.
Wait... Is that pie?!?!?!?!?!?
10/10