Thursday, May 14, 2015

Super(Girl) News!

You guys, how did I not know there was a new Supergirl series coming out until CBS released the trailer yesterday?? I have failed as a geek girl.

Anyhoo, if you haven't seen it yet, check it out:


Yep, color me excited.

Even better than watching the trailer for myself was seeing John's reactions as he watched it for the first time. I think there was an actual cheer at one point.

In a way I'm glad we saw this in a vacuum, with no fan critiques to color our first impressions. Because, yes, now that I've read some reviews, I guess there are some areas for concern. The bumbling assistant to the Devil Wears Prada-esque boss is pretty cliché - and it *does* smack uncomfortably close to the recent SNL Black Widow sketch

But I'm only gonna let the fan communities rain on this parade so far, you guys, 'cuz let's face it: more female supers on the screen is an amazing thing.

I like to focus on the positive over here, so let's just take a moment to bask in the hope that this will be an amazing show, shall we? One that will inspire and empower a new generation of geek girls, and remind parents that superheroes aren't just "for boys." And hey, maybe it'll even convince toy manufacturers that female supers should get their own actions figures, dangit. (Harumph.)

I did notice a lot of folks calling out the "girly power ballad," which, ok, I actually liked. (WHAT.)  However, John found a fan's re-cut version scored with "real superhero music," and I gotta admit: VERY cool. Take a look - since you know you wanna watch those action sequences again anyway - and see what you think:


1:20 is where the chills start. AW YISS.

Plus, c'mon:

It's not a plane.
It's not a man.
It's Supergirl.

= ALL THE CHEERS.

37 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness! I'm not really in to superheros all that much, or TV to be honest, but I might need to watch this. This looks so amazing, and I love the feminist takeover.

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  2. Good golly, Miss Molly that looks AMAZING. I can't wait to watch it.

    If you need an erudite rebuttal of the killjoys, check out Dorothy Sayers' "Are Women Human" (Short answer: Darn straight.

    If you're going to have a story with LOTS of women, you're going to have (surprise!) lots of different people: capitalist corporate shmucks, kindly parental types, giddy silly people, serious heroes.... you name it. And that, IMHO, is a good thing.

    Why is "girl" a dirty word anyway? Why shouldn't a "girly power ballad" rock like a rocking chair on the San Andreas fault. It's not just that "the perfect is the enemy of the good", it's that who died and made them the arbiter of "perfect"?

    Nolite nothis permittere te terere.

    I hope this is as good as The Flash! (Or Agent Carter) It sure is a good time to be a geek :-)

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    1. Oh man, thank you SO MUCH for posting the link to "Are Women Human?" I just read the entire thing, and it was spectacular.

      Also, tua sententia latina mihi placet!

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  3. I've been wanting a superhero show that is more comedy than gritty realism for SO LONG and I'm so effing excited. I don't caaaaare if the assistant-bossy boss thing is cliché because if this was a Spider-man trailer everyone would be all over that, but now we're thinking Devil Wears Prada and then it's girly and bad?

    Naah, I'm frelling thrilled with this and I can't wait to see it. I haven't been catching up with any of the superhero shows (but I am soon getting to Agent Carter and SHIELD at least), but this is one I will watch as soon as it airs. It looks like a lot of fun and most of all I think it can have potential to be something really, really awesome. There are ofc valid criticism (where are the women of color? What's up with that weird speech from the boss about girl being better than woman?), but hey, it's a trailer, who knows what's in store?

    E X C I T E D

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    1. I may or may not have squeed when I saw you said, "frelling."

      Well... I lied. Totally grinning like an idiot - yay for Farscape! :D

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    2. If you are looking for another superhero show that is more comedy you should check out the Flash.

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    3. Agreed! I was going to suggest The Flash too. So nice to have something a little more lighthearted.

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  4. OMG! Thank you for posting this! I had no idea that this was being made either and it looks awesome!!!!! And I love that her costume is more realistic (no comic boob bust!) ☺ and her character seems so approcable. Can't wait to schedule this on the DVR!

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  5. Greg Berlanti is producer (see Arrow and Flash on CW for his work). I'm excited about this show as well because of that. I hope that it falls somewhere closer to the Flash, less serious than Arrow, more serious than the Flash can be at times. I say more serious because the trailer I saw looked awesome yet a bit Rom-com, which is defeating the purpose of a great girl super heroine. That said, I could be projecting some of Melissa Benoist's Glee character into this and it could be skewing my view. Either way I'll be watching to get the real feel of the show.

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    1. I don't really see how making her traditionally girly defeats the purpose of having a female super hero. In fact, I would argue that a lot of the time making our female heroes conform to traditional masculinity can be destructive to their status as a female hero. I for one am absolutely THRILLED that we're finally getting a girly hero who can prove that femininity and strength aren't mutually exclusive and that one doesn't have to storm into the boys club of superhero-dom with guns blazing to be taken seriously as a hero.

      I'd say it's a lot more harmful to suggest that her femininity is detrimental to her characterization as this seems to suggest that femininity is inherantly negative or somehow lesser than traditional male qualities. I'm looking forward to a show with a female character who DOES conform to traditional femininity but doesn't let that change the fact that she still kicks all the butt.

      The current female archetype in superhero films is the badass who has proven she "deserves" a place with the boys because she's one of them. It's very refreshing to see a character with the same abilities who retains her feminine qualities. Not saying there aren't merits to the standard badass, but suggesting that this is the only kind of woman who deserves a place in superhero films and television is just as detrimental as suggesting that women don't belong at all.

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    2. I am not implying that being female is a bad quality, but I saw a character that was saccharine sweet, klutzy and not at all what I would expect to see in Kara. I'm hoping that she's more like Felicity on Arrow, because that is a true badass female. She knows how to be soft and vunerable, yet she's also capable of holding her own and standing up to anyone that gets in the way of her beliefs and values. THAT is what I want to see from this character and knowing Berlanti is backing this, I have great hope. As I stated, I've seen Melissa Benoist as a super feminine character that I couldn't connect with on Glee, and I may be projecting some of that character into what I saw from the trailer.

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    3. I am not entirely steeped in superhero history, but isn't Clark Kent a sweet, bumbling guy?

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  6. I'm pretty excited about this as well. I'm kinda hoping there may be some Arrow/Flash crossover happening. Speaking of which, CW is also doing another spin off of Arrow/Flash called Legends of Tomorrow. Caity Lotz, Brandon Routh, Arthur Darvil, Victor Garber and Wentworth Miller are supposed to be on it. I'm guessing it will be on midseason sometime.

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  7. Jen - I love it! I have to share, though - I had a bad experience yesterday, when my husband showed it to me after saying "Here's a terrible trailer." He's a nice and fairly enlightened guy but he was really focused on all the things that were (potentially) wrong with the trailer/movie. He was able to understand my point of view but it's nice to come here to a girl-power-safe place.

    I know that it's not perfect, but it's so great to have a female superhero movie! I thought the trailer was very empowering. A lot of the criticism didn't seem to understand what was actually going on - o9 in particular had some comments like "Hot best friend who is in love with the main character, but the main character doesn’t pick up on this for inexplicable reasons." and "Main character is deemed plain because she wears a PONY TAIL AND GLASSES. " I just figured she didn't want to go out with the guy, so she was ignoring it when he asked her out, and the glasses are an OBVIOUS SUPERMAN REFERENCE.
    I really love that they address the "girl vs. woman" issue and blame it on a character who thinks and refers to herself as a girl (lots of us do).
    Again, thanks for being a safe place of girl-and-woman power in an internet full of trolls.

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  8. My husband showed me the CBS trailer last night and he was sooooo excited about it. I found it very cutesy and yes - it's almost exactly like the Black Widow SNL trailer. Yikes. But I'm honestly not this show's target audience. Superheroes and comics in general are just not my thing. I'm glad that my husband is excited for this show and, as he pointed out to me, it looks like a great show to watch with our daughters, 8 and 5.

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  9. Can anyone else see a Wonder Woman movie starring Jenna Dewan-Tatum? How do we make this happen?

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    1. She'd fit the part physically, I guess, but I'm not sure her acting would be up to the job. I watched her in The Witches of East End, and she was easily the weakest among the female leads. I'd like to see someone whose fame is a little less centered around her husband's career take the lead for something like that. I think it would be awesome to see someone older, like Zeta-Jones or someone take on the part. There's enough youth-worship in Hollywood already. I'd definitely be more interested in something about Wonder WOMAN than Super GIRL, though.

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  10. Ok, I'll be honest--the first look made me teary! I kind of love the girly music, because if this can appeal to girls raised in the princess culture we've got going on these days, what's not to like? There's a (dare I say it? very male) pomposity to the traditional superhero music which, while effective, is pretty funny in its own way.

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  11. I hadn't seen this until now and am going to catch it on DVR. I'm not much for comics either but loved the Superman movies growing up in the 80s and am really excited now for this.

    I do kind of get the woman vs. girl, and for me it's an age thing - not a female thing. (I'm 36 and still get called "girl." At what point do I graduate to "lady" or "woman?") But I'm all for girl power and see where her boss's speech is coming from.

    I also love the friendship with her sister (at least how it's shown in the trailer - I hope they keep with that). A positive portrayal of female relationships is a big plus!

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  12. It's not a bird.
    It's not a plane.
    It's not a man.
    It a gril!

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    1. Ha! Wrecky minion in da hoooouse!

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    2. Thought you'd like it, Jen! I'm just surprised nobody else got there first. (Apart from you, of course.)

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  13. Can't stop watching the trailer. Can't wait. Don't even watch TV. And yet TOTALLY excited!!!

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  14. I have to admit, I'm SUPER skeptical about this. (See what I did there? Ha.) For real, though. I saw this in a vacuum, too, and I just saw Incredibly Beautiful Girl Who Runs Into Things and Thinks She's Boring (IBGWRITaTSB? No. Let's just call her the Clumsy Beauty). Clumsy Beauty ignores Trope Best Friend Guy in favor of Super Hot/Semi Famous Dude, and in the process discovers her Calling. Also, there's a sister she loves who questions her life choices and a really bitchy female boss to overcome (these appear to be the only conflicts). No villian. No real obstacles except her own self-doubt. She's apple pie sweet, too, because morally complicated female heroes have to be avenging the death of children (or their own ability to have children), and Supergirl is a GIRL so she can't have babies. Scandalous! Yeah... I think the Supergirl franchise is pretty flawed, in general, from a feminist perspective but I'll watch the show anyway. Because... you know. Fandom.

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    1. That's certainly one way of looking at it, but I propose an alternate reading. What I saw was "Clumsy Beauty" (which, agreed) ignores the clearly unwanted advances of Trope Best Friend Guy who later turns out to be Trope Kinda Skeezy Guy, then runs into Super Hot/Semi Famous guy who she also quite clearly does not get with, and who also turns out to be kinda skeezy. Then she finds her calling when her sister (whom she has a legitimate discussion with regarding her own future and whom she goes to for advice as one is wont to do with a sister whom one shares a close relationship with) is put into danger. She then has a conversation with her boss covering two varied views of feminism, which personally didn't seem either conflict-based or like something to be overcome, in my opinion. She overcomes her own self-doubt which is huge in a society that continuously tells women that they can never be enough regardless of who they are or what they do, and comes into herself as a hero.

      No argument that the Supergirl fandom has definitely had its issues with sexism, or that there are certainly issues with the trailer (for instance its lack of women of colour and it's drive-by homophobia) but I definitely think that there's an argument to be made for a feminist reading of the trailer that I for one am fairly optimistic about.

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    2. Wow. I think you saw a lot of stuff that did not happen on screen. I saw a sisterly discussion that, while reasonable in theory, is actally her sister reprimanding Kara for the actions which saved her own life. I saw a boss blatently disrespect her at the start and then treat her like an idiot, cutting off a legitimate concern later on. And let's not forget-- this is Kara's name. Admittedly, her boss does not know it's Kara, but her wishes are disregarded for her own moniker. I don't think it is at all obvious that she doesn't get with James Olsen. Based on the trailer, I think she probably will. I don't see the skeeze in either of the guys, but I guess it's all up for interpretation. And while I'm not disregarding self-doubt as a conflict, I don't think it's enough to carry a hero's whole epic saga. Like I said, I'll watch. I am happy to be wrong. But I have doubts.

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  15. Ok, so, I am going by the Super Girl movie that was made a long time ago... but they changed her entire back story. I remember her coming from the bottle city of Candor, and she left to save the city and all of it's citizens from some disaster. (now I can't help but think that her parents didn't shrink down their city either, and just used the escape pod on her)
    Huh, I just had to select pictures of burritos to verify that I am not a robot.....weird.
    Oh well, that won't stop me from watching it. I just have to learn the new back story.

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    1. Now I want to write extra replies just so I can see a burrito captcha!

      ...but I just got boring numbers. :(

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  16. I am so excited for this, it looks so cool. I know nothing of the back story for either superman r super girl, so I am coming in with a fresh perspective, and I've got to say I love her already.
    - Sarah
    Oh So Kawaii

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  17. I'm so, so excited about this. I'm really not a DC person at all these days, but I will definitely be watching this. Thanks for posting the trailer! I, too, hadn't heard about it at all until it came out.

    It does have some real similarities to the Black Widow sketch. But I don't really think that's a problem, to be honest. The reason that one was funny (and I thought it was hilarious) is because that's not at all Natasha's character. It's not at all what any fan of hers wants for *her* movie, because it's not her, which is why it was a nicely cutting parody about making "girly" movies.

    But that doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with a more traditionally girly superhero piece, if that's the character. I think that this has the potential to be a really, really good show (and I really hope that it manages to hit the diversity pieces that have been lacking in some, like Agent Carter). Maybe, just maybe, we're finally getting enough women as major characters in superhero movies/shows that we can start to have this kind of range in characterization, from Peggy Carter to Natasha to Kara.

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  18. The trailer did what it's supposed to do - make me want to tune into the show. I like the levity so far and the fact that she's not totally pulled together. Who is at that age ~ 19-25? Presumably she will mature over the season(s). Don't know how long it'll last, but I'm definitely in from the start. BTW, the alternative music is so much better. The original reminds me of some anime Sailor Moon character - really incongruent. Thanks for putting this up.

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  19. I didn't know about this either, and now I really hope I can get CBS on Hulu here in Korea. I haven't watched anything except a couple of ABC or netflix dramas for a long time, so this looks awesome! I love stories about the backstories of superheroes, male and female. I think Buffy and Smallville are two of my favorite shows of all time because they were funny, exciting, and humanizing (even if Buffy was objectively 10 times more interesting and unexpected). I'm excited to see this show!

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  20. So many feels!! I can always hope for a more feminist everything, but if as a feminist I don't support what I've been begging for, more women super heros, then where is the hope that I'll ever get that at all?! So I'm SUPER excited! *hah!*

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  21. I saw this with no other influences and I was so sad. I *want* to like this show. I *want* it to be awesome. But I was so let down. The first thing we see her do is run to a man to define her, down to what she wears and what she should do. AHHH! Why?! :(

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  22. I saw a tumblr post that actually shows how the trailer for The Flash almost exactly mirrors this one, which made me feel slightly better about the Black Widow parody connection since it predates and is the same universe... let's see if i can find it...

    http://boundtosoil.tumblr.com/post/119048460674/mamatheangels-darevdevil-the-flash-trailer

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  23. i thought the snl black widow parody was hilarious in a "of course they would handle the movie this way because they literally don't know any other way to treat a woman superhero".

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  24. Ok, I'm excited about this show.

    But am I the only one who wants to know where Callista Flockhart's eyebrows went?? :)

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