The Flash – Bitch Flicks

Top 10 ‘Bitch Flicks’ Articles Written in 2017

Here are our top 10 most popular articles written in 2017.

10) Queen of Katwe Is a Gorgeous Inspiring Look at a Young Black Life Fully Realized by Candice Frederick

“Yes, it’s wholesome and finishes on a heartwarming high like many other cherished Disney stories. But at its core lies a story of redemption, cultural pride, feminism, and economics — elements of a young life contending with extraordinary challenges. […]

“Queen of Katwe is a mesmerizing story of a life fully realized, a life that’s often overlooked and not given a chance. Its young cast, led by Nalwanga’s nuanced performance, help illuminate layers of humanity resting deep in the ‘slums’ of Uganda, exhibiting talent well beyond their years. Meanwhile, Oyelowo and Nyong’o’s performances temper the film with heart-wrenching emotion. And Mira Nair’s touching portrait of Katwe’s inspiring young queen with a dream is one to remember.”

9) Céline Sciamma’s Films (Girlhood, Tomboy, and Water Lilies) Capture the Complexities of Adolescence by Charline Jao

“French director and screenwriter Céline Sciamma of Water Lilies, Tomboy, and Girlhood has gained critical acclaim for her portrayals of adolescence and coming-of-age, particularly on themes of gender and sexuality. Sciamma’s movies are intimate character studies, punctuated with dancing, tiny details embedded in body language, and a serious respect for younger viewers. For all the cringe-worthy or mediocre child acting that permeates film, Sciamma has a remarkable ability to draw out nuanced and organic performances in her works, oftentimes from non-actors.

“[…] The adolescent or teenager sits on the threshold of adulthood by sitting between child and adult, figuring out their rites of passage and space within society. This undefined, yet crucial space is an uncomfortable one and Sciamma’s films excel because they embrace the chaotic ambiguity of youthful liminality.”

8) Hush: A Resourceful Heroine with Disabilities for the Horror Genre by Cassandra A. Clarke

“What’s brilliant about Hush, written by Mike Flanagan and Kate Siegel (who stars as the lead), is it pushes the envelope of the survivor’s tale further through its main character, Madison ‘Maddie’ Young: a woman who is deaf, mute, and lives alone in a rural area. In addition to featuring a female protagonist with disabilities, Hush crafts a home-invasion story that isn’t about her ‘problems’ or obstacles or the attacker at all, but rather it focuses on the tactful solutions she chooses along the way.

“…Its depiction of Maddie as a full, engaging character who fends for herself and thrives alone is an asset to adding more characters with disabilities in films, especially horror, as not victims but stars.”

7) Gilmore Girls: Rory Gilmore Is an Entitled Millennial by Scarlett Harris

“That’s because she’s never had to hustle; everything has been handed to her. She only watched her mother struggle to raise her on her own, and even then it’s established that Lorelai went to great pains not to expose Rory to her struggles. […]

“To be fair, Rory is largely a product of her upbringing. Until the events of Gilmore Girls as we know it — Lorelai’s reconciliation with her rich parents so Rory can go to an expensive private school and then Yale — Rory was raised by an independent, struggling, small-town single mom. Whatever life lessons she learned there were swiftly erased by the ensuing plot developments: her rich grandparents and then her rich father paying for her education and European holidays, her rent-free accommodations, and breaks in school and work to ‘find herself’ similarly bankrolled by Richard (Edward Herrmann), Emily (Kelly Bishop), and Logan (Matt Czuchry). […]

“Despite her flaws, I relate to Rory because she displays all my — and my generation’s — worst characteristics.”

6) The Love That’s Really Real: American Psycho as Romantic Comedy by Caroline Madden

“A 2006 YouTube video created a parody trailer envisioning American Psycho (2000) as romantic comedy. While the stark juxtapositions between the classic boy-meets-girl formula and a horrifying portrait of a serial murder are amusing, the sentiments between them are not so far-fetched. Although primarily a horror film, American Psycho has a satiric backbone that appropriates codes from the romantic comedy genre to expose the absurdities of our gender ideals. Director and co-writer Mary Harron’s lens skewers the qualities we find appealing in romantic comedies as terrifying.

“Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) is a concoction of the romantic comedy and drama archetype of ‘the bad boy.'”

5) The Revenant Should Be Left in the River to Drown by Celey Schumer

“Don’t believe the hype. You have been conned. The Revenant is a terrible film. […]

“This white-man-against-all-odds tale of revenge has been told so many times, even Michael Bay is probably like, “Eh, can’t we find something more original?” […]

“The second galling part of the film is its abhorrent treatment of Native peoples. It is at best mediocre, at worst condescending, and at all times unremarkable lazy recycled fodder. Almost every time Hugh has an interaction with a Native American person, they meet with disaster. Honestly, Chief Elk Dog (Duane Howard) and his men are the only ones operating with their own agency and justice in their quest to rescue his kidnapped daughter, Powaqa (Melaw Nakehk’o). But we hardly see them and are left to infer all of this information, until of course Hugh the White Man comes to Powaqa’s rescue. […]

“Can we see this whole movie from the Arikara tribe’s perspective? From Powaqa’s perspective? That would be an actual game changer.”

4) The Eyes of My Mother Is a Gorgeous Coming-of-Age Horror You’re Not Likely to Forget by Candice Frederick

“Oh, how I love this age we’re living in in which women characters on the big and small screens are allowed to be inappropriate, messy, b**chy, and sexual. It just further illuminates the myriad complexities women embody, painting a more thorough profile of inclusive feminism. But even while Hollywood has been consistently pushing these boundaries in more recent years, few films have explored morbid sensuality through the gaze of a woman better than writer/director Nicolas Pesce’s The Eyes of My Mother. […]

“…Pesce explores the nature of human instinct and arrested development in a way that is uncomfortable to watch yet immersive just the same.”

3) 20 Years of The Craft: Why We Needed More of Rochelle by Ashlee Blackwell

“I was flustered and empathetic to a character that was virtually invisible to an entire school population outside of her small coven of comrades, unless to be the unchecked target of racist scorn. This made her experience even that more isolating in contrast to her white female counterparts who, if they did get that brief seat at the table, were promptly dismissed for their class, burn scars, and not performing for the teenage ‘good ‘ol boys’ club. The most glaring difference; Rochelle was never going to get that seat. […]

“The movie for many sparked the thirst to explore the deep intersections of the weirdo. Rochelle was the social outcast with the other handful of social outcasts of St. Bernard Academy, sure. But how do we cinematize the Black girl outcast teenager that many of us felt like? That just so happens to be a practicing witch?

“Much of what can be read of Rochelle relies heavily on those of us whom she meant so much to. What kinds of conversations did young Black girls have back in 1996 and are having now about the importance of her presence in a film that at least, didn’t blend her in colorblind rhetoric? How did many of us find camaraderie, empathy, and imagination in Rochelle’s broader, unseen story?”

2) Caitlin Snow: It’s Time to Give The Flash’s Overlooked Heroine Her Due by Lacy Baugher

“Plus, the decision to continually depict Caitlin as afraid of herself and her abilities is unsettling. Women are almost always taught to fear their own power, instead of embracing it or attempting to understand it. It’s sad to see that pattern repeating on a show that has so few leading women in the first place.

“Caitlin’s journey – whether she ultimately keeps her powers or not – should be about figuring where she fits within Team Flash, within her family, and within her own idea of herself. We have seen Caitlin unnerved by the darkness inside her. She has issues with her mother and even occasionally with members of her own team. She’s certainly lost enough to want to burn the world down twice over. But she’s never really gotten the chance to deal with any of those issues on-screen in a significant way. This Killer Frost arc offers a perfect opportunity for her to finally do so. Caitlin’s journey shouldn’t be about whether she might turn into a monster, it should be about her becoming whole.”

1) Too Feminine, Too Pretty, and the Gendered Bias in the Critique of Sofia Coppola’s Films by Claire White

“However, while being one of the most discussed women directors, it is hard to think of a female director who is under as much scrutiny as Sofia Coppola. This is especially true when it comes to her signature pretty and feminine filmic style.

“When it comes to the critique of Sofia Coppola, her filmic style is too often described along the lines of being too pretty, too feminine, or as style over substance. …Male directors, however, who exhibit the same attention to style and aesthetics, are not held to this same ideal. As explored in Rosalind Galt’s book Pretty: Film and the Decorative Image, prettiness in film is not exclusively female or feminine, and is thus unfair to use as a critique against women directors’ films. […]

“There is a double standard in the way prettiness is regarded in cinema. ‘Pretty’ is for female directors, but for male directors, prettiness isn’t ever uttered, and reverence is received in its place.”

Caitlin Snow: It’s Time to Give ‘The Flash’s Overlooked Heroine Her Due

The decision to continually depict Caitlin as afraid of herself and her abilities is unsettling. Women are almost always taught to fear their own power, instead of embracing it or attempting to understand it. It’s sad to see that pattern repeating on a show that has so few leading women in the first place. … Caitlin’s journey shouldn’t be about whether she might turn into a monster, it should be about her becoming whole.

This guest post is written by Lacy Baugher.

There’s so much that The Flash does right. It’s probably the best example of a superhero series on TV right now, featuring fun stories, surprising twists, and strong, compelling relationships between its lead characters. It’s a joy to watch, most of the time. It has a ton of heart, and it generally remembers the most important thing about superhero stories: They’re supposed to be about hope. But for all the great things about it, The Flash has never particularly handled women well.

The show’s issues with how the writers have written superhero Barry Allen’s (Grant Gustin) girlfriend Iris West (Candice Patton) are already well documented elsewhere. She’s been frequently ignored in major stories, lied to by everyone she knows, and was the absolute last person to find out Barry’s secret identity. As a character, Iris has definitely had it pretty rough. But the way that The Flash often chooses to portray its other female lead is just as frustrating, and discussed far less frequently. Caitlin Snow has never gotten the storyline or attention she deserves, and it is well past time for that to change.

Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) is a brilliant doctor, a loyal friend and an integral part of Team Flash. She is brave, resourceful, and much more capable than she gets credit for; she’s been working to keep Central City safe since the show started, often at great personal sacrifice. Despite all this, she’s still the main character we know the least about, both on a personal and emotional level. The Flash is primarily about Barry Allen’s journey, so it makes sense that the show often prioritizes exploring his various levels of man pain. But we also get plenty of Joe’s man pain. And Cisco’s. And Wally’s. It’s possible this show has actually fleshed out more of recurring sometime-villain Leonard Snart’s inner life than they have Caitlin’s. And she’s one of the show’s female leads!

Instead, The Flash has struggled to give Caitlin any kind of storyline that isn’t somehow focused on the man in her life. She spent the better part of two seasons stuck in stories that almost solely revolved around her romantic relationship. Since the men in her life keep dying or disappearing, Caitlin has been trapped in a constant Greek tragedy of grief, as she’s buried or mourned two different love interests. When we first meet her, Caitlin is coping with the death of her fiancé Ronnie Raymond (Robbie Amell), killed during the particle accelerator explosion that kicked off the TV series. So, as viewers, we’ve actually never known Caitlin when she wasn’t shadowed by some terrible loss.

Of course, it turns out that Ronnie isn’t actually dead, and Caitlin’s season one storyline is focused on finding him, helping him, and then marrying him at the end of it. All of her actions and motivations are tied to him. When Ronnie dies again after their wedding, Caitlin is plunged back into her default state: grief. In season two, she was given another love interest, a Flash from an alternate version of Earth named Jay Garrick (Teddy Sears). Caitlin’s entire season two storyline revolved around Jay — helping him adjust to our Earth, searching for a cure for his mysterious speed illness, and falling in love with him. Sound familiar? It was. At least until Jay was revealed to be evil metahuman Zoom (voiced by Tony Todd), who then kidnapped Caitlin and held her hostage for multiple episodes, trying to force her to romantically accept him. Seriously, this girl cannot catch a break.

For a real sense of how Caitlin has been underused in virtually every way, compare her development to Cisco’s. Introduced at the same time as Caitlin, Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes) was also a brilliant S.T.A.R. Labs employee. In the two and a half seasons since The Flash began, we have learned plenty about him beyond that, however. Cisco is a fully developed character with dreams, quirks, and fears. We learned about his childhood and met some of his family. He went on a season-long journey to discover and accept his powers as a metahuman. And while he has had a couple of romantic interests along the way, Cisco’s story has never been defined by them in nearly the same ways that Caitlin’s romantic relationships have defined her. We have learned little about her family, her past, or her personal desires, beyond how they connected to the man she was involved with at the time. On the rare occasions Caitlin got to be involved in a story that wasn’t about Ronnie or Jay, she was usually stuck taking care of one of the other Team Flash members who injured themselves in some way.

Until now.

Thanks to Barry’s creation of the alternate reality “Flashpoint,” Caitlin Snow has been transformed into a version of her comic book alter ego, the villainous Killer Frost. A metahuman with the power to manipulate frozen air, we have already seen one version of this character on The Flash, in the same alternate version of Earth that brought us Jay Garrick. In our reality, Caitlin’s powers slowly manifested themselves over time and she kept them hidden from her teammates out of fear that “Killer Frost” would take over against her will. Caitlin very clearly does not want to be like her evil self from Earth-2; she’s quite worried that she might hurt others with her abilities. In fact, Caitlin seems pretty determined to contain or, if possible, get rid of her powers, and is actively working toward both of those goals.

Theoretically, the Killer Frost twist should be a great development for Caitlin’s character, and in many ways it is. For the first time on The Flash, she has a story arc that is solely about her. Even though the writers have shoved yet another boyfriend in her plotline, Julian (Tom Felton) is very clearly a secondary feature in her story. (In fact, you could argue she’s only involved with him because she thinks he might be able to “cure” her.) Which is fantastic. Because it means that Caitlin finally gets the chance to be a real, three-dimensional person. Her behavior is wonderfully human; she’s selfish and aggravating and makes a lot of poor decisions. Her actions – bringing Julian on to the team, stealing a piece of the Philospher’s Stone – are incredibly self-serving. She’s lied and she’s manipulated people and she’s kept secrets. In short, Caitlin’s kind of a mess right now. And it’s awesome. We’ve never really gotten the chance to see her character like this before.

Unfortunately, The Flash has yet to really embrace the full potential of a metahuman Caitlin. While there were initial hints that she might learn to control her abilities and still maintain her sense of self, the show has recently doubled down on the idea that Caitlin deeply fears her powers. And she kind of has good reason to – because if she uses them, she basically becomes evil; not just a darker version of herself, which would be kind of interesting in its own right. No, instead, Caitlin basically just turns into Earth-2’s Killer Frost. It’s like she’s getting body snatched by someone from another universe. It appears as though she loses her real self completely.

This is problematic on multiple levels. For starters, no one else on The Flash is affected by their powers in a way that alters their core character in this way and there’s been no clear explanation as to why. (After all, Cisco’s Earth-2 doppelganger was also pretty evil. And he’s still fine whenever he “vibes” something.) Plus, the decision to continually depict Caitlin as afraid of herself and her abilities is unsettling. Women are almost always taught to fear their own power, instead of embracing it or attempting to understand it. It’s sad to see that pattern repeating on a show that has so few leading women in the first place.

Caitlin’s journey – whether she ultimately keeps her powers or not – should be about figuring where she fits within Team Flash, within her family, and within her own idea of herself. We have seen Caitlin unnerved by the darkness inside her. She has issues with her mother and even occasionally with members of her own team. She’s certainly lost enough to want to burn the world down twice over. But she’s never really gotten the chance to deal with any of those issues on-screen in a significant way. This Killer Frost arc offers a perfect opportunity for her to finally do so. Caitlin’s journey shouldn’t be about whether she might turn into a monster, it should be about her becoming whole.

While Caitlin has currently become her evil alter ego – a near-death experience necessitated using her ice powers to save her life – it seems unlikely that The Flash will turn her into a full-fledged villain for keeps. (Especially since we’ve already seen evidence that Caitlin is capable of controlling her abilities herself.) Whether this means she will ultimately lose her powers or come to accept them remains unclear. Maybe Julian will find a metahuman “cure.” Maybe Caitlin will end up fighting beside Barry, after she comes back to herself. Maybe Killer Frost really is here to stay. This story could go a lot of ways. But, no matter what happens, it should be about the person that Caitlin herself chooses to be. And The Flash needs to be brave enough to tell the kind of story that gives her that choice.

Lacy Baugher is a digital media strategist by day, and a lover of all things geeky all of the time. Her major interests include British period dramas, complex ladies in superhero stories, and the righteousness of Sansa Stark’s destiny as Queen of the North. Stop by and say hello on Twitter at @LacyMB.

Call For Writers: Superheroines

Despite industry claims that no one will pay and audiences aren’t interested in seeing a superheroine-led film, the dazzling success of series like ‘The Hunger Games’ and ‘Divergent’ prove that the world is ready for women to take charge and lead. While we’re seeing movement in response to growing demand for female superhero representation, there is still a long way to go before we reach parity.

Our theme week for May 2016 will be Superheroines.

There has been such a resounding call for superheroine leads on the silver screen that both DC and Marvel finally caved to give us, respectively, a 2017 release of Wonder Woman and a 2019 release of Captain Marvel. On the small screen, CBS — which co-owns The CW, home to Arrow and The Flash — released Supergirl in 2015, and it’s a hit. Not only that, but the gritty Netflix original anti-superheroine series Jessica Jones has also gained incredible popularity, acclaim, and even serious critical analysis for its representations of race and rape culture. Despite industry claims that no one will pay and audiences aren’t interested in seeing a superheroine-led film, the dazzling success of series like The Hunger Games and Divergent prove that the world is ready for women to take charge and lead. While we’re seeing movement in response to growing demand for female superhero representation, there is still a long way to go before we reach parity.

Why is superheroine parity so important? The documentary Wonder Women: The Untold Story of American Superheroines tells us that superheroines give little girls and even adult women the invaluable ability to envision themselves as heroines and champions. All women deserve a role model who represents attributes like strength, kindness, righteousness, and teamwork.

In fact, Gloria Steinem views superheroines in our culture as critical:

“Girls actually need superheroes much more than boys when you come right down to it because 90% of violence in the world is against females. Certainly women need protectors even more, and what’s revolutionary, of course, is to have a female protector not a male protector.”

Tell us about your favorite superheroines. What are your favorite superheroine representations? Show us how film and TV have gotten superheroines wrong and right. Which superheroine deserves her own franchise?

We’d like to avoid as much overlap as possible for this theme, so get your proposals in early if you know which topic you’d like to write about. We accept both original pieces and cross-posts, and we respond to queries within a week.

Most of our pieces are between 1,000 and 2,000 words, and include links and images. Please send your piece as a Microsoft Word document to btchflcks[at]gmail[dot]com, including links to all images, and include a 2- to 3-sentence bio.

If you have written for us before, please indicate that in your proposal, and if not, send a writing sample if possible.

Please be familiar with our publication and look over recent and popular posts to get an idea of Bitch Flicks’ style and purpose. We encourage writers to use our search function to see if your topic has been written about before, and link when appropriate (hyperlinks to sources are welcome, as well).

The final due date for these submissions is Friday, May 20, 2016 by midnight Eastern Time.

Here are some articles we’ve published on superheroines:
Wonder Women and Why We Need Superheroines
Top 10 Superheroes Who Are Better As Superheroines
Supergirl Premiere: The Enemy of My Enemy Is Super
Do Black Widow and Scarlet Witch Bring Female Power to Avengers: Age of Ultron?
Top 10 Superheroine Movies That Need a Reboot
Big Hero 6: Woman Up
Wonder Woman Short Fan Film Reminds Us to Want this Blockbuster
Top 10 Superheroines Who Deserve Their Own Movies
Avengers: Age of Ultron‘s Black Widow Blunders
Jessica Jones, The Kilgrave Mirror and the Distancing Effect of Negative Masculinity
Supergirl, “Fight or Flight”: No One Puts Kara in a Refrigerator
The Superman Exists and She is American: Scarlett Johansson in Lucy
The Feminism of Sailor Moon
The Avengers: Strong Female Characters and Failing the Bechdel Test
“Did I Step on Your Moment?” The Seductive and Psychological Violence of Female Superheroes
Rape, Consent and Race in Marvel’s Jessica Jones
She-Ra: Kinda, Sorta Accidentally Feministy
Jessica Jones: A Discomforting Yet Real Portrayal of Abuse

‘Supergirl’ Premiere: The Enemy of My Enemy Is Super

So instead of being a little irritated by the way the show constantly winks at the audience in signaling its mildly feminist and corrective agenda, I begin to see that aspect of it, not as a wink at me and other fair-minded folks, and not as pandering, but as a “nanny-nanny boo-boo” at anyone small-minded and hateful enough to be put out because there’s a superhero show on TV that is actually pro-woman and pro-girl and wears that on its sleeve.

Alright, let’s get this plot stuff out of the way. Kara Zor-El, eventually known as Supergirl, is Superman’s older cousin, who was sent to Earth before the destruction of Krypton, along with Supes, to keep an eye on him. She got pulled into some kind of intergalactic time warp (It’s just a jump to the left, etc) and ended up reaching the earth a couple dozen years younger than him. So Superman gave her to Mr. and Mrs. Danvers (one-time Kryptonians Dean Cain and Helen Slater, for those paying attention) and their daughter Alex (Chyler Lee).

Kara grows up trying to fit in, to be as “normal” as possible, because the world already has Superman, and he doesn’t need her anymore. She grows up and moves to National City, which is basically DC. She gets a mundane job as an assistant to demanding media mogul Cat Grant (Calista Flockhart, clearly having fun). Her nerdy, chisel-jawed co-worker Winn (Jeremy Jordan) has a crush on her, but Kara has the hots for the super-hunky new Black photographer Cat’s hired. You know, Jimmy Olsen (Mehcad Brooks). Only this hunky version insists on being called James. He’s from Metropolis and talks about his relationship with Superman the way someone who’s never actually met Superman would, so I was surprised to learn by the end of the episode that they actually are pretty tight.

Kara is doing a good job of stifling her superpoweredness until Alex (now her roommate) is on a flight to Geneva that loses one of its engines. Kara thinks about it for a moment, then flies off to carry the plane to safety, rescuing everyone on board. It kind of makes you wonder how many planes she let crash before that one, though.

Now that Kara has outed herself as a superhero, it turns out that Alex works for a secret government agency, the Department of Extranormal Operations, or the DEO. Her boss is the alien-hating Hank Henshaw (David Harewood). Naturally, Kara’s a little miffed that Alex has kept this a secret from her for many years. You’d think with the super-hearing and seeing through walls and everything, Kara’s not the type of roommate you could keep that kind of secret from, but well, I guess Kara just trusted Alex.

Kara doesn’t heed Alex’s warnings to keep her head down, and she ends up getting beaten up by Vartox (Owain Yeoman), a misogynistic alien dude. (“On my planet, women kneel before men!” “This isn’t your planet!”)

Oh, that time-warp thing I mis-described above was actually the Phantom Zone, where Krypton sent its prisoners, so when Kara passed through, some prison ship latched onto her escape pod; I am not well-versed in this universe, as you may have noticed. In any case, the prison ship crashed on Earth, too, and so I guess they’ve all been biding their time and waiting for Kara to be old enough to give them a fair fight when they try to murder her. Because it turns out Kara’s mom back on Krypton was some kind of badass judge who sent all these prisoners to the Phantom Zone. This all makes sense, right? Well, maybe just enough sense that the show is kind of fun to watch, in a way I haven’t found with Arrow, or The Flash, or Gotham, though of course that last one’s not supposed to be fun. At least, I hope not.

Melissa Benoist stars as Kara/Supergirl, and she’s terrific. Adorable. She brings the same kind of goofy, naively enthusiastic charm to the role that Christopher Reeve brought to those old Superman movies. She would be the best, most fun thing about the show if it weren’t for this other thing.

You see, my original plan was to write a mostly positive review of the series premiere of Supergirl but with a few caveats. Plotting, for example, is not its strong suit. Some of the expository stuff is clunky. It’s inordinately self-congratulatory about being a feminist show. The CGI effects are cheap-looking and unconvincing.

Wait, what’s up with slipping that one bit there into a list of otherwise mostly innocuous (but still super-insightful) criticisms? The part about it being self-congratulatory. Make no mistake, Supergirl is high on its own supply (of feminism, laced with color-blind casting). But it didn’t take me too long to realize that A) I kind of enjoyed that “in your face” aspect of the show, complete with its questioning both Supergirl’s moniker (“Shouldn’t we call her ‘Superwoman’?) and the comic’s midriff-baring costume (“I wouldn’t wear this to the beach”), its name-slamming Bill O’Reilly and climaxing with Supergirl vanquishing an intergalactic MRA douche-bro, using his own ignorant underestimation of her abilities. And B) Any brief, unwise perusal of “user reviews” or really just comments anywhere the show is being discussed online indicates that it’s kind of a necessary pre-emptive corrective to the kind of vitriol awaiting any kind of mild display of feminism in popular culture. So instead of being a little irritated by the way the show constantly winks at the audience in signaling its mildly feminist and corrective agenda, I begin to see that aspect of it, not as a wink at me and other fair-minded folks, and not as pandering, but as a “nanny-nanny boo-boo” at anyone small-minded and hateful enough to be put out because there’s a superhero show on TV that is actually pro-woman and pro-girl and wears that on its sleeve.

So sure, Supergirl is a bit corny and kind of sloppy, but it’s also considerable fun, especially if you enjoy the silly schadenfreude of it all.