Superpowers are super. That seems like a fairly straightforward moral for a superhero story. But those narratives, and especially superheroine narratives, often present superpowers as a source not of joy, but of angst and misery.
In Age of Ultron we learned that Black Widow’s super-ninja skills came at the cost of sterilization. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was constantly angst-ridden over her superpowers, with various characters (her boyfriend Riley and her friend Xander) insisting that her love life was a mess because she was too strong and self-sufficient. Faith, the vampire slayer who did enjoy her work, was presented as reckless, dangerous and ultimately murderous. On the television show Heroes, guys like Hiro and Peter Petrelli find their powers exhilarating and enjoyable (at least intermittently), while Claire Bennett and Niki Sanders mostly see them as burdens which turns them into freaks. In Ant-Man from this year, Hope Van Dyne is eager to be the Wasp and seems to think shrinking and saving people would be enjoyable … but because her dad is a worrywart, she doesn’t get to use her powers through the entire film.
There’s no shortage of guys with angst around their superpowers – the Hulk, the Thing, Spider-Man, Blade. But these are balanced out by heroes such as the Flash, Iron Man, Thor and Captain America, who are gleeful and or smug about their super-prowess. Power always has a downside if you’re trying to generate narratives with conflict, but women and power seem to make pop culture particularly nervous.
Supergirl at first seems like an exception. One of the most enjoyable things about the CBS series is that Kara/Supergirl (Melissa Benoist) doesn’t see her superpowers as monsterous or burdensome. She actually enjoys using them. In the pilot episode, when Kara saves a plummeting plane, she’s practically giddy with delight. “It’s incredible! I’m so excited!” she enthuses. Whether she’s moving an oil tanker or foiling a bank robbery, Benoist as Kara radiates surprise and delight in her abilities and general awesomeness. Flying is great; having bullets bounce off you is great. Empowerment, Supergirl assures its viewers, is a whole lot of fun.
Supergirl rejects angst – but it still has some uncertainties around powerful women. Supergirl loves her powers, but she’s not so great at using them. This might make sense if she just gained her abilities in the pilot episode. But she didn’t.
According to the backstory, Kara was sent from Krypton to Earth when she was 13; when the show starts, she’s been on Earth for 11 years. That’s plenty of time to get accustomed to all your superness, you’d think. Scott Lang in Ant-Man has a learning curve because he’s just gotten the shrinking suit. If he’d been wearing it for 11 years and never figured out how to shrink, he wouldn’t be a hero. He’d be a doofus.
Supergirl is that doofus. For reasons that are poorly explained and deeply unconvincing, Kara decided to stop using her powers for years. Not only hasn’t she been out there foiling crime and saving people (which would be reasonable enough) but she hasn’t flexed her abilities at all. As a result, she barely remembers how to fly and isn’t even sure how to use her super-breath. Somehow, despite a decade of being super, she still is so out of control that she causes an ecological disaster when she tries to use her superstrength to save that oil tanker.
“Guardian angel or wrecking ball?” a cynical news commenter asks in the pilot episode, referring to the mess Kara leaves after saving the first airplane. Kara’s foster sister Alex (Chyler Leigh), and the super-secret spy agency she works for, are skeptical too – and the series repeatedly cosigns that skepticism. Comparisons to Kara’s offscreen cousin Superman are repetitive and invidious. Superman knows how to use his powers; Superman is established and awesome. Supergirl is the enthusiastic but bumbling newbie.
Kara, with the help of Alex and other friends, always eventually overcomes the low expectations; she’s the hero after all. But for her to be the hero, sans angst, the series seems to feel it needs to set the bar very low to begin with. A woman can be powerful, and enjoy being powerful – but only if no one, including herself, expects her to be. If Supergirl likes using her abilities, then she must not be in full control of them.
It’s possible that the series will work some of this out over time, and allow Kara to gain in confidence and competence without abandoning her good cheer. Maybe even at some point she’ll grab Jimmy Olsen (Mehcad Brooks) and flip him on his head as an expression of mischievous super-powered enthusiasm. Probably not, though. Despite Wonder Woman’s example, pop culture today doesn’t seem able to imagine a super heroine that’s both powerful and content.
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