Supergirl Trailer Hits All the Girl Cliches, But I Still Kinda Like It
CBS is definitely going ahead with a Supergirl TV show, and the first trailer hit the Internet last night. It’s a full six minutes long, so it’s packed to the gills with pretty much everything the show is going to have. Heck, it’s practically an entire episode in and of itself. Go ahead and watch!
The problem is that it looks like nothing but a ‘girly TV show’ cliche! The fine people at io9 sum it up very well. I can definitely see those cliches, but I still liked the trailer in spite of them. In fact, as soon as Supergirl starts using her powers and being heroic, the trailer looks pretty great. It felt really cool watching a female superhero take the lead in an amazing way, for once. Arrow and The Flash have their special effects, but here’s Supergirl catching an airplane! Here’s Supergirl letting bullets bounce off of her as she fights the bad guys. Here’s Supergirl having the fun, real world problems like finding a costume that looks good and a cape that doesn’t get destroyed.
And actress Melissa Benoist looks really good in the role!
Maybe the cliches are just part of the pilot, like the people making the show knew they needed to appeal to the moronic studio executives, so they delivered an easy to swallow pilot. Pilots are not the be-all, end-all of a TV show. I think this one definitely has a chance.
What’d you think? Let me know in the comments!
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Posted on May 14, 2015, in DC, Superman, Television and tagged CBS, Melissa Benoist, Supergirl. Bookmark the permalink. 15 Comments.
Henchman-4-Hire 
I agree, it was great. I didn’t like the actress playing Grant, but that doesn’t matter that much. The idea that she’s got a tech-guy is good and I think it works. There are too many people that know her secret identity, and from that clip, it doesn’t seem that it takes very long for them to find out. And while I like Brooks, turning one of the Soulless into a black man still annoys me. His personality fits his looks, so turning him black should completely change him.
Also, yet again, one of the “Here’s” is a “He’s”.
Dagnabbit! I really do proofread my posts! I swear!
Turning Jimmy Olsen into a sexy heartthrob is an interesting choice.
It’s fine. A typo or two shouldn’t matter, as long as the document is more than two words, if the rest of it is readable, the typos are obvious based on context, and they are not in the header. That said, there’s another one, and it’s all over. You spelled it supergirl, but it should be spelled superwoman. I think that discussion was great and just shows her boss as a moron. Don’t name people without their consent. Who does she think she is, Kara’s mother?
Kara should have put out a press release in advance!
“Hey, you’re about to see me do something crazy, or maybe not so crazy since my cousin publicly exists, but it’s okay, because I have a name. That name is -”
“Hey, Supergirl!”
“As I was just about to say, my name is Superwoman.”
“I like mine better. You’re obviously going with super-, wearing the same costume as him, but you’re clearly a girl.”
“I prefer woman. It sounds better, and women stop being girls past a certain age. Try calling the other one Superboy.”
How old is she supposed to be anyway? She kinda looks fairly young in some shots, especially in the still-picture with her in costume, and other times she looks like she might be old enough to maybe get called woman. Or why not go in a slightly different direction and call her “Superlady” since that seems a bit less age specific.
She’s definitely in her mid-20s. That’s definitely a cliche Hollywood mid-20s woman life. She fetches coffee for a powerful media magnate, lives alone in an amazing apartment that she couldn’t afford on her likely salary. Oh wait, now I remember, she literally says she’s 24 in the opening narration, doy.
Yeah I didn’t quite notice that the first time. She says her planet was in peril 24 years ago. She already looked a bit older than no real age, maybe topping out at ten? Can’t quite guess at her age. That’s also space/krypton/who knows years, could also be earth years, but whatever, that’s weird enough. She’s not human, so she might age differently. Also, it looked like she was maybe being hugged by a grown-up version of her cousin, unless that wasn’t a big red cape, that shot with him holding his hand out might have been conveying the same thing, so they might be going with one of the she took longer to get to earth stories. So she might not even have aged those twenty four years. All that leads to an unknowable actual age.
I think this show has a lot of potential. It’s refreshing to see a DCU on TV where they’re allowed to just say that Superman exists but that’s not what we’re focusing on. But if they don’t overcome the chick flick clichés after the pilot, Supergirl is going to face a whole lot of criticism. Action scenes are awesome, Melissa Benoist is awesome, and I can’t get “Fight Song” out of my head.
So we’re probably going to get a Superman appearance, right? They sure like to talk about him. And if they can do that, why not Wonder Woman? Or, dare I say it, Supergirl could reach the Batman world and deliver a team up with Robin!
Our best hope is that Batman v. Superman absolutely fails and the DC Cinematic Universe falls apart before it even starts. Then someone at Warner Bros. will realize that they’re killing it in the TV racket and start putting more resources there.
Trailer definitely looks well made, and i like the actor they cast in the Supergirl role. But like you said, the show is fairly girly and seems to be just as much about female empowerment/trials/travails as sweet glorious action. That’s definitely a weird mix because they each appeal to different crowds for a large part. Maybe, like you said, they’ll tone down the girl stuff a bit after the pilot, so one (by one, i mean men basically) doesn’t feel they are watching The Devil Wears Prada or something, or maybe not, maybe their intention is to draw in a mainly female audience, who knows. There is certainly a lot of female comic readers and i imagine Supergirl might be quite popular among them. Either way, I think i’ll take a pass.
I’d be cool with them trying to draw in a female audience. As you said, there are a lot of female comic readers! And I demand more diversity in my superhero TV shows! Sadly, even in 2015, that’s still a lot to ask.
I think this looks pretty great. Yeah, it’s girly, and I get that girly ain’t everybody’s thing, but it’s hardly a mark against it. “The Devil Wears Prada” is girly. “27 Dresses” is girly. “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” is girly. They’re all good movies — and in that last case, I’d even say great.
If they did Black Widow like this, it would be bad. But it’s Supergirl, for God’s sake. Who gives a fuck.
I care! I’d like a superheroine show that’s more than just cliches. And I really hope the show will rise to the challenge!
If reviews of today’s leak are any indication, it will.
Also, to clarify, my point is that there’s nothing wrong with some girly cliches if they aren’t completely out of place for the character. What wouldn’t work for Natasha Romanova (see the SNL Black Widow parody) might be fine elsewhere since there are different kinds of women.
Too true! And yeah, those were some nice reviews. I’ve half a mind to pirate that trailer myself…but that would be wrong! *winky face*