Link to the audio version of this post is HERE
I know that if you were here for the last post, you’re expecting a back to school special. Unfortunately, some things got in the way and resulted in a few weeks off. But don’t worry, that’s still coming; kids are going to be in school for pretty much the whole year, I think we can kick the can on that for another week. Because Supergirl recently hit HBO Max and I’ve got to talk about it again. This isn’t a Lone Wolf and Stub, so there will be some minor spoilers for the early story and discussion of themes. If you want to keep it completely spoiler-free, you can check that post out here. In that post, I addressed the undeserved critical and social media backlash, so I won’t go into again because this movie is still great and misogyny is still stupid. And those are all the column inches needed for that. Let’s get into Supergirl.
Headcanon is that she’s rocking out to the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack
Kara Zor-El is chilling. It’s her birthday week and what is a girl to do when she’s turning 23 and she’s lived through multiple armageddons, and everyone she knew and loved other than her cousin and dog is dead, other than party on some red sun planets so she can get drunk and forget her troubles for a little while? Even if a little while turns out to be multiple days? We’ve all been there, right? Anyway, while Kara and Krypto are out having what at least on the surface looks like a good time (at the very least Krypto is enjoying himself; that dog doesn’t know how to be down in the dumps, it seems), trouble is brewing not far from her chosen watering hole.
Not only is he a scary looking dude, he keeps a ton of extra ammo for his BB gun just stuck to his face
And that trouble comes in the form of Krem and his brigands, an interstellar gang of, well, brigands. I’m talking scum of the Earth (well, any planet, really), absolute garbage monsters to whom life is worth nothing and young girls are breeding stock for their all-male “race”. Krem is played by Matthias Schoenaerts (The Old Guard) and while he has more Starscream energy than Megatron, it’s immediately and violently clear that he is ruthless, feared, and a remorseless murderer. Because when we meet him, he’s arrived at the home of a legendary swordsmith to take everything he’s made; and you better believe fair compensation isn’t a term in this man’s vocabulary. Things go horribly wrong, as expected, and we’re left with a little girl surrounded by the dead bodies of her family. That little girl is Ruthye, played by newcomer and actual child Eve Ridley, who does an excellent job at playing the traumatized orphan with justifiable bloodlust. Of course, being a small child, she’s not the best equipped to go after a band of murderous girl trafficking scumbags on her own, so she does what I think anyone in her position would do. She grabs her family sword, slings it across her back, and goes to the nearest bar to find a champion to take on her cause. We’re talking standard operating procedure here, basic life stuff. It’s not like she can pull up revenge4hire.com on her phone and order in an army of killers. I don’t know how the internet works in space. And who knows what number you have to dial to get the Green Lanterns on the phone? You can never find a space cop when you need one.
Unfortunately, as you can imagine, this doesn’t go well. This is a 13-year-old girl, not the ideal age to walk into an amoral den of intergalactic killers and drinkers and wave around a sword from a legendary swordsmith and offer it as a prize. She’s immediately cast aside and her sword taken from her. This leads Kara to get involved, fighting the man to reclaim Ruthye’s sword. Fun complication for Kara, though. The planet she’s on, Ruthye’s planet, has a red sun.
Now if you don’t know, Kryptonians get their superpowers from the yellow sun, like the one we have in our solar system. Under a red sun, like the one they had on Krypton, they’re pretty much normal. Although I do use that definition lightly, because even without her powers, Kara is still a force to be reckoned with. She retrieves Ruthye’s sword, gives it back to her, and then, well, refuses to help further. This is classic stuff, you know, straight out of Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey. Kara can’t grow unless she refuses the call to adventure, so she does. Tells Ruthye to forget vengeance because it’s such a dark path. But then Krem puts a ticking clock on Krypto’s life and Kara has to cross the first threshold or lose him. Game on.
Kara (played expertly, of course, by the returning Milly Alcock) and Ruthye are surprisingly well suited for each other’s company. One is a girl desperately seeking revenge for the horrific wrongs committed against her and her family, the other is a girl desperate to not let her past tragedies define her present and future. Together though, this Lone Wolf and Cub dynamic goes anything but smoothly. Much to my delight, however, it does go quite comedically, with Kara’s nonchalance leading to some pretty funny moments where the juxtaposition of Kara’s and Ruthye’s demeanors through this whole ordeal is played for comedy. Ruthye is determined, but naive. Kara is reckless and world-weary. Together, they represent a very stoppable force that is held together mostly by sheer determination and will and they’re up against seriously strong and well-prepared enemies. An interstellar child bride trafficking ring doesn’t happen by accident. The amount of fear they instill in the people they terrorize doesn’t happen by accident. This is a vicious group of child rapists and murderers they’re going up against and Kara will not only have to dig deep to find a way to defeat them, but also not let Ruthye lose her humanity in the process. Revenge gets a bad rap in movies most of the time, but even in my most vengeful moments, even I don’t think it’s a good idea for a 13-year-old to go on a John Wick-style killing spree. That seems like the kind of thing that would send most therapists spiraling into an early retirement. There are so few tales of revenge that end with the person exacting it getting their happily ever after.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that James Gunn pretty much fixed the Kryptonian problem by nerfing our favorite yellow sun worshippers. First we had Superman get dealt losing hand after losing hand and have to push beyond his limits to deal with it. Supergirl makes good uses of red and yellow sunlight as a challenge mechanic to make Kara feel even more vulnerable at times. But it’s further testament that powers aren’t what makes one super. Certainly not what makes one a hero. Superman is tough, I couldn’t take him in a fight, that’s for sure (but I’ve also been bested by a strong gust of wind, I’m not the yardstick here). But he’s not a hero because he’s strong. He has to choose that. Kara has to choose it too. And she has to go on her own journey to get there. The choice isn’t default. Look around the world; the capacity for those with great power to do evil on a global scale is pretty much boundless (or at least it feels that way when I watch the news). You have to choose to be good. And not being bad isn’t the same thing. Not harming people isn’t the same as helping. Especially if you have the power to help and do nothing. Hard to look in the mirror and call yourself a good person when you have the capacity to help and do nothing instead. It’s not easy to be good. It’s not. It’s a high bar. Kara is just at the start now, learning what makes her the woman that she is and how to be a hero when the choice to not be one is so much easier. But what we see in Supergirl is Kara learning not just importance of using her powers, but the importance of being and doing good. And I’m very excited to see where her journey takes her next.
You don’t have to be nice, but you have to be good. That’s this movie’s enduring message. And it’s one I hope more people will be willing to receive. There has been a lot of talk about the needle drop, but what matters more are the moments of quiet. A bottled rage that all who wish to see justice in a world rife with injustices perpetrated against the most vulnerable people feel. That Kara feels too. And no, I didn’t particularly care for the song chosen or the moment the needle dropped, but it took nothing away from the movie and I understand why it was chosen. But it just doesn’t matter. There are moments that matter much more than liking the song chosen over a fight sequence. Those are the moments; the silent screams, the quiet memories in a state of melancholy contemplation. This is when Supergirl is at its most powerful. Those are the moments that make this movie great. Milly Alcock said that this movie isn’t about love. I respectfully believe that she misspoke at the time. This movie is not about romance, not even a little bit. But I see love in almost every frame. Love for family, love for the ones we lost, love for the people all over the galaxy screaming out for someone to help them. There’s love everywhere you look in this film. There’s just no Ross and Rachel. Because why does there have to be? That’s not what this story is about.
Superman makes me want to be a better person. A better man. Someone who uses whatever strength is still in my increasingly creaky bones to support and lift up and help those who need it. Someone who cares not just about good, but right. Supergirl reminds me that it’s okay if I’m not there yet as long as I’m working towards it. That when my knees buckle and my back aches and I barely have the strength to physically or emotionally even stand for myself, let alone for others, that it’s okay. I don’t have to be perfect. I don’t have to always do the right thing. I don’t always have to know what the right thing to do even is. And neither does Kara. Supergirl embraces the mess of humanity and shows us that making a fist is just one small part of being strong. And I think that’s pretty groovy.
Yeah, I’m John Wicking everybody for this fluffy boy, but I draw the line at sharing a spoon