Saturday, November 13, 2021

Kayla Laguerre-Lewis: ‘Queerbaiting in “Supergirl”: More than just missed chances’

 


From The Good Five-Cent Cigar:

“Of all the friends I have ever had, you have pushed me the most, challenged me the most. You’ve made me a better person. Thank you,” Kara Danvers tearfully told Lena Luthor towards the end of the Supergirl series finale, which aired on Tuesday, Nov. 9.

With this line, the writers sealed the fate of not only [Kara and Lena’s] relationship but also a huge part of how the show will be remembered. After six seasons, 126 episodes, one network change, a spinoff and more, the legacy of Supergirl will always be tied to queerbaiting....

[Q]ueerbaiting is not just when two same-sex actors play characters that have chemistry with romantic potential and the writers ignore it. The problem isn’t that fans don’t want to accept Supercorp as a female friendship because that’s all they were written to be. No, the problem with Supergirl is that the writers saw the chemistry and leaned into it, all while insisting that there was nothing but platonic feelings between them. 

From making their friendship the focal relationship in season five to constant visual and screenwriting parallels between them and other canon relationships (most notably, Clark and Lois in all of their different iterations, or the fact that Iris and Barry’s wedding vows on The Flash were taken directly from an early Supercorp scene) to single Kara’s constant pleas and assertion that she wants to find a romantic partner, followed by scenes of her intimate friendship with Lena, the queerbaiting on Supergirl was next level.

 

Read the full story.

No comments:

Post a Comment