Rachel's 3 Thoughts on Supergirl (1984)
I'm limiting myself to three because it's been a busy couple of weeks, and I could go on for a WHILE with this one.
This film seems obsessed with the "girl" in Supergirl. She's naive and winsome, bounding around her new terrain like a Disney princess. If you want to know at what point in the movie Supergirl plays with woodland creatures (a bunny) a la Snow White, it's at minute 28.
But beyond that, it's as if the designers made a conscious decision to remind us of the feminine at every turn. Check out this early image of Kara, where she seems to be birthing a weird dragonfly while holding a phallus and an egg.
Yes, bring that wand and omegahedron together and they create life. Or an imitation of life, as Peter O'Toole points out.
Everything that can be shaped like an egg or a breast is . . . the omegahedron, the pod that carries Kara to earth, the cages Selena keeps people in.
Selena's layer is full of womanly womanness. And let's not forget she's a wicked witch, the quintessential female villain.
When Kara's learning about life on earth, she tries on a freaking bra over her clothes:
Peter O'Toole is swallowed by a giant vagina.
Even the Shadow Beast has a certain feminine shape to it, no?
The Shadow Beast is a vagina with teeth. I mean, you'll tell me if I'm stretching, right?
And remember that weird creature container where Faye Dunaway stores the omegahedron?
That's right. The omegahedron holder GROWS BOOBS!
I don't know that I'm complaining about all of the above. It's not so different from Batman driving a penis car.
But in both cases, there's an uncomfortable kind of reduction happening, and in Supergirl's case, because all this yonic power is used for (as Victoria put it) such LAME ends, the symbolism feels patronizing.
2. Boyfriends of superheroes can be just as boring and one-note as girlfriends of superheroes
I have a feeling that as this blog progresses, I'll be doing a lot more complaining about the treatment of women in superhero movies. So I found it interesting to watch what happens to the non-superheroic male in this film.
We're constantly reminded of his "maleness," and he has little character outside of it. Every five seconds, he's being rescued from something "manly" like heavy machinery or football player bumper cars.
When put under a love spell, he spouts pseudo-sonnets, because that's funny? Or because he has nothing interesting of his own to say?
His role in the plot and his victimhood consist only of sex and romance. He falls in instalove with Supergirl, a love that is deep and true, surviving the wear-off of the love spell even though the two hardly know each other, and his fate if not rescued by Supergirl is to become a sex slave to Selena.
Yes, Selena is way into bondage. Much like Wonder Woman, I'm told.
Ethan is totally useless, way more pathetic and one-note than Lois Lane or Vicki Vale.
So I guess what I'm saying is, when men are treated like nothing more than romantic accessories, things are just as bad as they often are for women, and everybody loses. If all men in superhero movies got the treatment that Ethan gets here, no men would want to see them.
The table-turning of Ethan as an object in need of rescue only makes this movie lamer.
3. Supergirl's sense of humor, or lack thereof
So if Ethan's so lame, Supergirl must be awesome, right?
Unlike Christopher Reeve, Helen Slater gets no endearing Clark Kentishness (unless you count the bit with the bra--I don't). While Superman's always in on the Clark Kent schtick, Supergirl is the joke. She's too naive and alien to be self-aware.
She's the kind of earnest, goody two-shoes no one likes. The kind that makes you root for the villain. Which is a shame because Helen Slater looks like she could be funny, doesn't she?
Tai mentioned the godawful attempted rape scene. In that situation, Buffy Summers would have had a snappy comeback. All Supergirl can manage is a guileless, "Why are you doing this?"
It's not enough to make a girl the heroine of her own film. She's gotta have, you know, a personality.
For more on the mind-numbing sexism of this film, check out Super Suited's super in-depth post: "It's Just the Way We Are: Supergirl (1984)"
