Supergirl’s Responsibility When It Comes to Kara and Lena’s Friendship
|
It’s been a little over a year since the downright awful spring of 2016 that saw many queer female characters killed on shows across the television landscape. Strides have certainly been made since that time, as we’re seeing more and more fans, writers and showrunners educate themselves on harmful tropes and pledge to do better. There are shows like Supergirl delivering stories of positive queer representation and change is slowly happening. However, despite the beacon of light that has been Alex’s (Chyler Leigh) coming out story, Supergirl may be in danger of treading on some seriously shaky ground when it comes to the relationship between two of its other female characters.
Throughout the second season, Kara Danvers (Melissa Benoist) and Lena Luthor (Katie McGrath) have been getting closer and closer to each other, in the process building a very strong friendship. Kara is someone who sees and sticks up for the person Lena is trying to be, as she proves to the world that she’s so much more than her last name. Meanwhile, Lena fills a void in Kara’s life that cannot be matched by her relationship with her sister or friendships with the likes of James (Mechad Brooks) or Winn (Jeremy Jordan). The friendship between the two women is just another example of Supergirl delivering complex and intelligent female characters to our TV screen. The only problem is, Kara and Lena are way more than just friends and Supergirl knows it.
By definition queerbaiting is an attempt by writers and creators to attract queer fans, all the while having no intention of consummating the queer relationship on screen. Some classic examples of this include Jane (Angie Harmon) and Maura (Sasha Alexander) on Rizzoli & Isles and the highly debated sexual/romantic tension between Castiel (Misha Collins) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) on Supernatural. During many of these relationships, the line between friends and lovers is blurred, so fans in the queer community begin to watch the show in hopes that the relationship will be taken to the next level. Of course, the harsh reality of queerbaiting is that the relationship never ascends to anything more than just friends.
Now, more than a year removed from the huge debacle that was Lexa’s death on The 100, avoiding queerbaiting seems like it should be one of the major rules in the TV writers’ playbook. On Supergirl the writers have never established Kara or Lena as anything other than straight. Kara is currently in a relationship with Mon-El (Chris Wood) and Lena was recently visited by an ex-boyfriend (Rahul Kohli). So why then does the friendship between the two women have all the makings of a budding romance? What purpose does that serve if not to pull viewers in?

Perhaps the larger question here is whether or not a show with queer characters can still queerbait? As previously mentioned, Supergirl has delivered one of the most positive stories of queer representation on screen this season with Alex coming out and her subsequent relationship with Maggie (Floriana Lima). Sanvers is an established queer couple and the show has certainly proved to be an ally of the queer community, capable of treating stories with the love and respect they deserve.
The writers certainly seem to have done their homework and have taken great care in crafting Alex’s storyline this season. That same care, thoughtfulness and research should then translate into the writers’ responsibility to be upfront and not enter queerbaiting territory with Lena and Kara, AKA Supercorp. Due to the still-lacking representation of queer relationships on television, the LGBT+ community will always be looking for subtle hints in on-screen relationships. Kara and Lena not only have moments of gay subtext, but their scenes seem to shout it from the rooftops.
Now, one could certainly argue that the reason it’s easy to read into the friendship between the pair is that McGrath and Benoist just have insane chemistry together and that’s what is jumping out off the screen. After watching McGrath in several different projects it’s easy to dismiss and subscribe to the theory that “it’s just Katie McGrath and that woman has chemistry with everyone!” While valid, that does not explain the way Benoist’s Kara reacts to Lena in scenes. Chemistry also doesn’t remove blame from the show’s writers or directors that are putting the characters in questionable situations or seeing scenes played out in a manner that suggests deeper feelings could be had.
Whether it’s the flustered giggling that Kara did after Lena told her ex Jack that Kara is “one of the best reporters in National City” in “Ace Reporter,” or the longing look that Kara gave Lena after their lunch date in the recent “City of Lost Children,” it’s evident that Kara’s reactions are not typical for people that are “just friends.” In fact, one of the biggest problems I have with the way these scenes are played out is that if Lena were a man, everyone from fans, the media and the stars themselves would probably be touting the character as a love interest.

Instead, on more than one occasion, the show insists what good friends the two women are through blatant character remarks. However, Kara looks and acts with Lena in many of the same ways she did with James in Season 1 when he was indeed the object of her affection. These moments become even more perplexing when juxtaposed with the way Kara acts around Mon-El, her current boyfriend, with whom she never seems to be prone to fits of flustered, school girl giggles when he’s in her presence.
Part of this really pains me to write because I really do appreciate the fact that Supergirl is attempting to give us a fully fleshed out friendship between two female characters. We always need more of those on screen and in many ways this one in particular is important. Neither Kara nor Lena have close female friends in their lives and that’s a relationship that is very vital for any woman. These are also just scenes between women that we need on television as they routinely pass the Bechdel Test and give us women talking about not only their lives, but science and saving the world too, never with any mention of a man.
While I adore the Kara and Lena friendship and what the writers are attempting to deliver, there’s just something extra to their scenes that at this point the writers have to be aware of its implications. At first, even though I still quite believe it’d be impossible given everything with The 100 last year, the writers could be given a pass. You never know how scenes are going to play out until you get them in the actors’ hands, and I’m not certain anyone could’ve accounted for the chemistry oozing out of those Benoist and McGrath interactions. But once that was made clear, and the fact that many fans were starting to become invested in the pair as more than friends, that’s when the writers’ responsibility comes into play.
It’s no question that Supercorp has started to become a thing that many fans are hoping comes to fruition. Writers, if you have no intention on ever following through, then please realize the responsibility you now have. Knowing that fans are wishing for something more than just friendship between Kara and Lena, it’s up to Supergirl to not mislead or raise those hopes in an unrealistic manner. If they truly have no intention of having Kara and Lena’s relationship ever escalate beyond friendship then they need to start paying attention to the subtext happening in their scenes.

It’s not hard to find examples on TV today of female friendship done right. One of the cornerstone relationships on Orange is the New Black involves the friendship between Taystee (Danielle Brooks) and Poussey (Samira Wiley). The show delivers a complicated, sometimes strained, but unwavering bond that is never questioned or made out to be anything other than friendship. Even when Poussey, who is gay, wanted something more, Taystee quickly made it clear that was not going to happen. Elsewhere, Parks and Recreation’s Leslie (Amy Poehler) had Lena’s tendency to shower her best friend Ann (Rashida Jones) with compliments, but Ann never seemed to end up in the giggly fits that Kara is prone to breaking out in. Grey’s Anatomy even proved with Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) and Cristina (Sandra Oh) that friends can be your person, your soulmate, without giving off an added layer of romantic tension in the process.
So all I’m asking is take heed, Supergirl. You’re doing so many things right and you’re a show I love having on the air. You constantly prove that women are badass, intelligent, powerful creatures capable of rescuing themselves, that love is love no matter how it finds you and that sometimes your found family can be just as important and powerful as the one you were born into.
While you’re doing all those things right, please proceed with caution when it comes to Kara and Lena. There’s a huge portion of your fandom that has expectations about this relationship, and if not managed correctly you could cause a lot of pain in the end. Only you know what the future holds for this pair, so in the meantime all I ask is that you be considerate, take care and tread lightly. For it only takes a few small missteps to end up in queerbaiting territory and you really are so much better than that.
What do you think of Kara and Lena’s relationship? Add your thoughts in the comments below!
Supergirl airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on Showcase and The CW.
Oh my God thank you so much. You nailed it! What all of us are thinking. You wrote this beautifully.
God…. the delusions in this article are hilarious
Let me guess, a yawn-el stan?
I couldn’t agree more! Thanks for putting my thoughts into words.
Supercorp rise!
There is absolute something beyond friendship between Kara and Lena. The chemistry is amazing
Alex and Magige are lesbians not queer. And I don’t get the point of bringing up canon lesbian couple to ask the show whether it’s queerbaiting you all with kara and lena or not. For example, Kara and Lena drooled over boys and boybands in their brunch in the most recent episode but people selectively ignored that and called their brunch very gay. So even at this point, it’s more about selective hearing and eyesight and how you all subjectively choose to interpret things than show explicitly or even implicitly promising something and not delivering because most of their conversations center around talking about boys and boyfriends and friends trusting each other. Except for their physical acting which is deeply subjective in terms of interpretation. the dialogue itself comes across as two straight bffs not queerbaiting.
First and foremost, they weren’t “drooling” over men, they were discussing NSYNC’s music and whether or not Justin was holding up a reunion. That transcended in to discussing the relationship between he and Britney. Just because someone is a lesbian or bisexual for that matter, it doesn’t mean they can’t gush over a boy band or a straight pairing. That’s stupid logic you’ve got. I’ve witnessed plenty of my lesbian friends remark on the beauty of a man. Doesn’t make them any less lesbian and it doesn’t automatically invalidate their remarks because they’re lesbian. I’ll just chalk up your remarks to heterosexism and the belief that everything somehow has to be exclusively heterosexual.
Ask yourself this: if a male character filled a female character’s office with flowers, would you think ‘oh look at them, such cute friends’. Or if superman was explicitly shown to carry a female character in bridal style, would you say, ‘oh look at them being bffs, how adorable’. Or if there was a whole episode about the male character defending the female, even when all the evidence points the other direction, visibly being upset over not being able to help (to the point of destroying shit around him), and then literally flying to where a bomb was, to rescue said female character (that was literally done with James and Lucy btw), would you say “oh, look at the power of friendship’? I really doubt it. This is heteronormativity at it’s best. They were given a LOT of romantic subtext, especially after the winter hiatus, when btw Supercorp started to catch on. If Kara or Lena were male, nobody would ever question whether they are each other’s love interests or not
1) Kara said she is not a lesbian in s1. So people shouting heteronoromativity really confuse me me because sexuality doesn’t change on whim you are born with it. She is not gay and only has history of being attracted to and dating men that should suddenly change because you interpreted lena looking at her longingly?
2) Kara got lena out of jail and made supergirl save her from her mother when the whole world world turned again her, of course lena would be very thankful to her and would show a big gesture of her gratitude.
3) Kara stands up for lena because she projects her strong need to be seen separate from her fmaily name and as her own person in lena, she needs lena to be innocent and not be another luthor because again it parallels to her desperately wanting to break from superman’s shadow.
The real pity is SG want to mirror the smallvile’s clarke/lex dynamic where they were close friends for years (people shipped them hardcore too, they had the biggest straight girl fandom ) than lex turned on him and they were sworn enemies for life, that’s what they want to do with kara/lena but instead of developing years long friendship they are rushing it through ott bff exaggerations and making us think they have this deep friendship, it’s the usual tell not show problem with the writers.
katie’s interview let us know that writers know about sc, so the bridal style carrying is maybe the only thing i give you as writers jokingly nudge nudge wiknnig at shippers but that in itself doesn’t warrant a whole article either.
Queerbaiting doesnt happen in vacuum, people selectively see what they want to see. And i never understand why people who claim to recognize queerbaiting won’t stop being baited? If you think you are being queerbaited and still go along for it, then its as much on you as the writers especially when you ignore anything that contradicts your headcanon. And I meant general you.
I just had to respond to this comment, wow. Imma answer in points like you did.
1) Kara stated in the first episode that she wasn’t gay, thats true. I also stated that I wasn’t gay for the first 20 years of my life and look at me now sweetie. Yeah people are born gay but a lot of people don’t know they are until they maybe meet that one person who makes them start to question their sexuality. Some people figure it out early, but because of heteronormativity, a lot of people assume they’re straight until they realize otherwise. Another thing i hated that u said as well was that Kara has only ever been shown to be attracted to men and therefore she’s not gay. Lol, hello bi erasure. There is a thing called bisexual you know.
2) you cannot tell me that if Lena was a guy and she filled Kara’s office with flowers that you would be saying that it was out if “gratitude”. Please, if Lena was a dude all those Karamel shippers would be buying first class tickets to ride this train. There were so many other ways the writers could have gotten Lena to express her gratitude and they chose that one. You can’t tell me that a team of people who’ve been writing for years, who know about tropes, who know about queerbaiting, couldn’t find another way for Lena to show her “gratitude”.
3) anyways Kara feels strongly about getting other people to see what she sees in Lena because its the kind of person she is, I agree with u there. However, based on what you’re saying, I would assume that they would want Kara and Lena to have a more bff/sisterly relationship. Sweetie, look at how Kara interacts with Alex and then look at how she interacts with Lena, there’s nothing sisterly about it. Idk if its the actors doing it or the director or writers tell them to do it or what but you’d have to be blind to not see that. You are so headstrong in wanting to tell us that we’re wrong that none of you who always accuse us of being delusional never actually sit down and look at it from our perspective. Even Katie McGrath herself said that once she watch over her scenes with Melissa she saw where we were coming from. You all also love to tell us that we should just stop watching a show because there’s something in it that we don’t like or agree with. There’s barely any representation out there for us, we’re not gonna stop watching one of the only TV shows that represents us well to some point just cause of queerbaiting. Its like telling Americans to leave America if they dont like Trump. Yeah he’s doing shit but u still love ur country and its ur home. Yeah Supergirl queerbaits us sometimes but its still my favorite show and I still love it.
And stop saying the queerbaiting is our fault, you sound very ignorant. Queerbaiting is the fault if the writers who write it not the people who fall victim to it because they’re hopeful for representation.
1) lmao you literally forgot to add in Alex’s coming out story. She thought she was straight until she fell for Maggie. So more points for Carl.
3) We’re starving for representation, writers / producers know this that’s why they queer bait. Not our fault.
Tru dat
yep, very well said. I very much enjoy Kara and Lena scenes, but it is true that the writers are starting to play with fire. If they’re not careful they might get burned.
They’re gay Katie McGrath said it’s naive not to see the romantic side of supercorp. Supercorp endgame.
Those were not her words but ok
Woah honey no. Look i’m a lesbian, i think Mon-el is space garbage that needs to be thrown into the sun, and there is INSANE chemistry between Kara and Lena. But honey, Katie McGrath saying she can “see the romantic side” and them *being* gay are very VERY far away from each other. Ship your ship honey, that’s great, but adjust your expectations.
This is spot on
Kara and Lena are so cute together! Can’t wait for their first kiss
First, let me address the Daxamite in the room: My opinion has nothing to do with Mon-El. I’m not sure where I stand on him & Kara, but I liked her & James, & I got over them breaking up just fine. It’s not erotica, the relationship status of particular characters doesn’t make or break my interest in the show.
That said, if I can puzzle out the thesis buried among the verbosity, it seems to be “either make them gay or make them stop seeming gay to shippers.”Not possible, people would ship them no matter what, citing their “chemistry,” which is a completely unfalsifiable concept. Not that I disagree that Lena’s portrayal is hard to pin down, but who knows why that is unless we can ask the actress the reason behind her choices? Either way, Kara is pretty firmly established as straight by this point.
Besides, I don’t see why the writers have any kind of “responsibility” with these particular characters. I can see an argument for not stopping with Alex & Maggie being a token gay couple, but even so, wouldn’t it make more sense to forge into untapped territory? Perhaps gay men, for instance?
Even if there were “something more going on,” I don’t see how that should translate to a relationship. Firstly, Lena is significantly older & more powerful, which if you ask me, imbues the situation with uncomfortable pederastic undertones. But aside from that, what if Lena is gay but Kara is not? As I understand it, that’s a situation that a lot of people have to deal with, wouldn’t it add to, not detract from, representation to depict it?
At the end of the day, I’m not likely to stop watching regardless of what decision the writers make with these characters, it just doesn’t sit right with me that they can’t have a positive relationship outside of a romance, & that implication would bother me even more if Lena turned out to be gay. I also think it would be a really distracting coincidence if Kara “just happened” to have romantic feelings for the first female friend she had on screen & Lena “just happened” to make our main character realize she has hidden same sex feelings, when not even talking to her own sister about her coming out brought any of this to the surface. And on top of that, there’s no indication that Krypton is against homosexuality, so why would any of this be repressed to begin with? With Alex, there was some material to draw from, we knew her love life was complicated, but we weren’t sure why.
Your comment is spot on. Thank you!
Lena is “significantly older”? She’s 24 (flashback “20 years ago” when she was adopted at age 4). Kara is probably 25 now (came to earth at 12, just had her 13th earth birthday).
Okay, so I have one huge problem with your comment. ‘Kara is pretty firmly established as straight by this point.’ She is not? She has had males as love interests, true, but so did many other women on TV who have ended up dating women, and that is especially true in real life. Think about this: Kara, while it’s often ignored on the show, is an alien. An alien, that is far superior in intelligence to humans, whose race have actually doesn’t have their kids born ‘the traditional way’, but are genetically engineered for a purpose. Why would this alien being, be bound by human ideas of sexuality? Say she never met another alien (apart from Kal) in her life on Earth, why would she only look at Male humans, when they are just as alien for her as females. The whole ‘Kara is totally straight’ train of thought is very limited, and doesn’t make any sense, if you actually remember that Kara is very much not human.
Otherwise, I think you misunderstood the responsibility bit. The show’s responsibility, with these characters is not to make them gay, or their relationship romantic, it’s to treat that particular relationship right. I am assuming, you are not part of the LGBT community, if you are, sorry for the assumption, so i’m going to say that you probably never lived through being queerbaited, but believe me, it can be quite damaging, especially once you realise, after about 5 years of being invested in something, that they were never going to actually do it, they just used your hunger for stories ‘about you’ for ratings. It’s easy to say, ‘don’t get invested’, but when you are queer, and especially a queer teen, sometimes these stories can be like a lifeline. Anyway, the article is not about the show’s responsiblity about representation in general, but it’s responsibility regarding this specific relationship.
And thirdly, this is just a factual correction, Lena is actually 24. I think it was mentioned in one of the first episodes. Yes, it definitely is a bit curious, considering how while Katie McGrath is a very stunning woman, but she is also very obviously not 24 😀 My guess is that since they wanted Lena and Kara to relate to each other, and Kara is 25, they wanted Lena to be her age too.
100% agree with your comment
The way to stop a token couple being from token couple is to expand on them, flesh them out and give them more subtance and depth and integrate them in the main plot not to introduce another gay couple which they would treat in the same equal but separate token manner they treat the current lesbian couple, it would be even worse when it comes to physical affection if its a gay male couple. The show gave lesbians canon representation but it is still far away from giving them equal treatment compared to het couples when it comes to physical affection or substance. So you’d think people would want to champion that issue instead of demanding two straight friends either be gay or not “act” gay (whatever that means) because even if they became gay they would be treated in the same separate but equal tokenism manner where showrunenrs do everything to make the lesbian couple come across as two girl friends than an actual romantic couple.
The thing is at the end of the day all this is just a lot of noise to showrunners, which they just see as attention and buzz, so all these kind of article does is encourage writers to continue doing what they were doing or double down on “queerbating” because any interest is good interest, especially with steadily declining numbers. so articles like this jut plays into their end goal of more people talking about the show while they stick with their game plan of genderbent clarke from smallvile and turning lena into kara’s lex.
“The show gave lesbians canon representation but it is still far away from giving them equal treatment compared to het couples when it comes to physical affection or substance.”
Huh? I don’t see much heterosexual kissing or sex on the show, especially not the latter.
“Wouldn’t it make more sense to forge into untapped territory? Prehaps gay men, for instance?”
That’s one thing i don’t get, if a second LGBT couple is introduced, why does it HAVE to be a gay male couple? “Untapped territory” in this instance would ACTUALLY BE a 2nd wlw/lesbian couple.
“Lena is significantly older & more powerful, which if you ask me, imbues the situation with uncomfortable pederastic undertones.”
LOL, pederasty is a male-male thing. And it’s common for adult romantic partners to be 7 to 10 years older than each other. We certainly see this aspect very often when it comes to an older man and a younger woman.
I’m surprised at your article as I completely disagree with you. Katie had no clue and she always assumed her character was straight. There is no queer baiting. I’m a lesbian and I don’t see it at all. They are FRIENDS. Doesn’t Kara deserve a female friend for once? SMH Delusions run high here.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
You’re a lesbian? I don’t see it and I am a lesbian so… (yeah, I took a page from your book.)
An actual lesbian would see the baiting because it resonates with real feelings and experience (your first crush on a girl, probably a straight friend who’ll end up breaking your heart, ambiguous feelings/discussions, physical affection and things being said that would warrant an “are you guys together” if it were hetero, etc) and would certainly not use the usual anti-gay “delusional” card out of respect and empathy, partly because of the experience mentioned above. Try harder next time.
I also agree completely with this article.
But they aren’t crushing on each other at all. Lena recently got her heart broken by a guy and Kara’s been hung up on 3 within the past year.
Lesbian, you say? Somehow I think you’re just saying that you are to make your comment seem more valid.
Very good article! While I really hope that they do plan to make Kara and Lena more than friends (good female friendship is rare, but wlw couples, who’s entire story isn’t that they are queer, are a lot more rare), I do hope that if they aren’t, the show’s creators know what they are doing. I am pretty sure they are going to bait the living hell out of us, whether they plan on following through or not, but I guess one can hope.
I’ve never seen anything more than just friendship chemistry between Kara and Lena, in fact it reminds me of my very deep friendship with my best friend and I do not want to fuck her, trust me. I don’t think the writers are doing anything other than writing a normal female friendship. It’s the fans that queerbait themselves.
Probably because you think gay people think only in terms of “fucking” instead of falling in love.
I don’t want to “fuck” my female friends, including lesbians either. What do you know, it’s almost like we have standards and feelings!
Great article!
To all the commenters who think that there isn’t anything happening, because they just “don’t see it”, let me direct you to this line of the article:
“if Lena were a man, everyone from fans, the media and the stars themselves would probably be touting the character as a love interest”
Of course you all don’t see it. You are not conditioned to see it. The reason why queerbaiting is such a successful tactic is because you can go as far as you want with it, without most of your audience raising an eyebrow or perceiving it as anything other than “friendly”. Meanwhile you still get the brownie points and the vocal queer audience tuning in, hoping for their representation. You get to have your cake and eat it too!
And trust me. They’re DOING it here. Honestly, I can’t even get invested in the relationship because of the blatant signs, and the distinct smell of “we’re-never-actually-gonna-go-there”. It’s not about whether or not people are gonna ship it, because of course they will! Hell, I shipped Kara with Lucy last year. But while there were small moments that supported my shipping claims, I was fully aware that that was probably not the direction the show would ever go, and I was okay with that, because they didn’t try to make me believe otherwise. It was yet another example of presenting a complex relationship between two female characters without the queerbaiting. Because that’s possible, who knew?
Of course, it is puzzling on a show like Supergirl that this even happens, because you already HAVE a canon relationship between two lesbian women. It seems like there’s no reason for queerbaiting… except of course Kara is still your lead character. Naturally, she’s the one most of your audience will care the most about. And boy, did they all jump on the train with this ship. It’s honestly more popular in fandom spaces than the actual canon relationship between Alex and Maggie… and I’m not sure that that’s a good thing.
Kudos to the author by the way, but I’m not sure I would give so much credit to the writers/network/producers, etc. Because make no mistake, they KNOW EXACTLY WHAT THEY’RE DOING. And I would rather prefer if they stopped, because this is a tiresome tactic. TV has proved before that you can do both, make a complex relationship between two people of the same sex complex without the queerbaiting, or develop it into an actual romantic relationship. It’s 2017. You can’t use the same excuses as 20 years ago.
Okay like, I see your point, but I don’t really think you can just come barging in and say that people are ignorant of what they are seeing. I’m a gay lady, I look for gay relationships EVERYWHERE in media. I definitely saw potential in Alex being gay in the first season. I had a soft spot for cat/Kara. I just don’t see it in Kara/Lena. There is chemistry, sure, but I don’t see it as romantic chemistry, I see them as two people who have found a deep and trusting friendship for the first time in their lives (in Kara’s case excluding Alex ofc). I can kind of see Lena maybe having the hots for Kara but from Kara I’ve had nothing but platonic vibes. It is perfectly possible for people to read their relationship as platonic and it not be because they’re delusional or uninformed, and it’s insulting to suggest that they are.
Fwiw, I agree with the article that it is shaky ground, the writers should be making sure they aren’t queerbaiting, or dropping heavy hints that they’re into each other when they have no intention of hooking them up. But to my eyes, thus far they’ve been fine. They definitely do have a problem with queerbaiting, because that Valentine’s day episode that was advertised as Sanvers centric was an absolute trainwreck. But just screaming queerbaiting because a couple that you want to hook up isn’t? Nah.
I didn’t really… intend to barge in? And to be perfectly honest, like I said, I’m not really invested in the relationship. Partly because of the queerbaiting, partly for my own reasons. But whether someone sees chemistry between the two characters or not, it’s hard for me to believe that anyone who’s seen their fair share of queerbaiting, would look at certain scenes that were done between these two, and not see the overt subtext the writers are putting there. But maybe I’m wrong, and the overt shipping that’s going on between these two has absolutely no basis in how they’re being written, and the later isn’t being deliberately reinforced by the former. Sure, I guess that’s an option too.
THANK YOU.
The chemistry is undeniable, if you don’t see it, like Katie said, you are naive. SUPERCORP IS RASING
Supergirl isn’t gay so why would people even question or wonder if she was….a very confused author of this article. Women have close very friendships, very deep in emotion, that closeness doesn’t mean their gay.
Do you not know the concepts of bi and pansexuality?
And remarking to your sister on how nice someone smells sounds pretty gay to me and getting reduced to giggles when they compliment you or repeatedly saving s.o.’s live in a the manner SG did… yeah pretty gay.
If SG were a man and rescued a woman bridal style or Lena would be one and filled a woman’s office with flowers — no one would even blink and question the heteroattraction.
But you do question the homoattraction when quite a lot homoattracted people notice that… and that tells more about you then you’d like to admit.
Why must every thing be about SEX… Can’t two women have a very close BFF relationship without everyone wanting them to have sex together? Of course not, that’s the world we live in. One track mind. OMG
The fact that you took a look at this article, and deduced that since it’s about a supposed romantic relationship between two women it’s all about SEX, is actually part of a bigger issue, but I digress.
Great article, but I’d like to make two points of disagreement. First, I feel like your response in regards to Alex and Maggie are the exact reasons why I don’t agree with what you’ve said about the writers treating that relationship with respect or developing it in a way that should merit the kind of applause so much of the fandom give these writers. The way they promoted the Valentine’s Day episode as Sanvers-centric and teased the fans with those promo pics, only to give us under five minutes of screen time was not only disrespectful, but down-right mean. To see and hear the excitement from reaction videos at the beginning of the episode and then to see those faces as the show progressed was heartbreaking. And it wouldn’t have been if they wouldn’t have promoted it as Sanvers-centric. And, on top of that to add character development by using a tired trope of a fight between Maggie and Alex? They’re grown women. They can’t have moments of emotional intimacy over a normal conversation? Or possibly going through something together that would have bonded them even closer? No, they have to fight. Maggie had to be revealed as a cheater and that’s the only way we can have Alex tell her she has issues of sharing and opening up? Also, can we talk about how surface that relationship was before the “Alex” episode? You can say they’ve developed that relationship, but there’s not really been that much development between them, outside of that fight, the ex coming into town and then “Alex, ” which again the trope of almost dying, or losing someone in order to finally say the I love you. I say we deserve better than tropes. Don’t you? They haven’t really found a way to integrate Maggie into the team. Maggie started out as the badass cop and was reduced to the girlfriend. But, we are so desperate for representation that we’ll settle for these bread crumbs. We’ll be over the moon for the episode: “Alex.” And the writers can pat themselves on the back for giving us just enough, because that’s what they think we deserve and we have validated by our responses. It’s 2017 and there are many shows out there that show a better wlw relationship and also treat their fandoms with way more respect and regard.
My second point is do you really think that this season they have consistently proven women to be badass and intelligent? Because I would argue they have done the exact opposite and have went in the opposite direction of what made season one so great. They have gone away from their feminist empowerment writing and instead have turned Kara into the romantic interest. A supporting character in her own show. So much of the season has been about building up and telling the hero story-arc of yet another white male superhero that the show doesn’t even resemble season one. It’s so subversive this season. You basically have Supergirl/Kara silencing her own voice. Giving up her own power and identity. Putting her own character growth on hold in order to build up a man. To fix someone that should have fixed himself. To redeem a misogynistic/sexist bad boy. So, no I don’t think the writers deserve to be praised this season. I can only hope they fix a lot of what is wrong. And you can argue they changed because they were on the CW, but Buffy was on the WB and never did Joss Whedon stop pushing it as a feminist show. Never did he reduce Buffy to just a love interest. Buffy had a love life, but Buffy also had her friends and family. and none of it was sacrificed for a man. Can you really say the same for Supergirl?
I really object to the terms, queer and queerbaiting. They are disgusting words. And not only insult gay/lesbian people, but show the author is probably homophobic. I watch Supergirl and find is article repulsive.
I recommend you shut up about queer and queerbaiting and homophobia.
Because what you just said is offensive to me as a queer lesbian and basically bordering on homophobia.
And if you object to queer as a slur then DO NOT USE IT AS SLUR! End of story. I’ll use it as reclaimed self-descriptor… just as I use gay… but I don’t hear you objecting to gay or dyke as an insult even though it’s used so much more often as a slur… Weird, eh?
But your last sentence tells it all, right? You’re not actually interested in what quite a lot of LGBTQ people think about what is happening on screen. You just don’t want Supergirl to be queer or bi or pan or _any_ letter of the LGBTQIA+ alphabet soup. Because what? Showing a queer superhero with a lesbian sister is much more far-fetched than showing an alien superhero with superpowers and an alien cousin with the same superpowers fighting an alien invasion…?
And the important question is why? Do you fear to catch the gay cooties? Do you need to uphold your 100% straight image? Do you lack the empathy to enjoy queer stories?
this is so off its not even funny´
just shippers dreams