Supergirl soars onto the small screen

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Author: Frida Gurewitz


It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s … not Superman. Sorry if I disappointed you. But it is his cousin Kara Zor-El, more commonly known as Supergirl. Monday October 26, she and her red cape flew onto CBS. Since this is the first DC Comics show featuring a woman hero since “Birds of Prey” in 2003 and “Wonder Woman” in the 1970’s, I was pretty excited to hear about the development of the show back in 2014. And with the show finally out, I can say I’m not unsatisfied.

Melissa Benoist plays Kara Danvers — previously Kara Zor-El — a bumbling girl struggling to find normality despite her powers. Kara was originally sent to Earth from Krypton to protect Superman, but she arrived after him because her ship flew off course and into the Phantom Zone. When she finally arrives, 24 years later but still 13 years old, she is raised by a normal Earth family, the Danvers. Helen Slater from the 1984 movie “Supergirl” and Dean Cain from “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman” play her Earth parents.

Kara stumbles awkwardly through her job as an assistant to a knock-off version of Meryl Streep’s character in “The Devil Wears Prada,” played by Calista Flockhart. She stumbles just as accidentally into hero-ing when she must save the plane her sister is on.

The center of the show is Kara’s drive to fulfill her ultimate purpose on Earth: to help and protect. The show avoids the darkness that was gracelessly slapped onto “Man of Steel” in an attempt to make it edgy and popular like “The Dark Knight” and many other stories recently in the DC Universe. “Supergirl” stays true to the nature of the hero to protect while still keeping it modern and fresh. Though a large majority of the acting is overdramatic, I don’t mind it. It speaks to the characters’ situation and that the show is still developing. The show doesn’t try too hard to be something it’s not. It’s a story of a person coming into one’s self as a hero.

As a geek girl, it’s not very often you that feel represented or find positive role models in the media. Kara, however, is relatable. I can see little girls flocking in droves to support the show so they can see a girl soar through the skies and kick butt just as well as any boy. “Supergirl” is full of optimism. Though there are some kinks that need to be worked out, at its heart the show is bright, fun and full of the hope that powers the Superman mythos.

Frida Gurewitz is a junior English major. She can be reached at gurewitz@oxy.edu

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