Everyone leaving the Theatre could’ve left with the feeling of personal growth, relationship growth, maybe even lesbian relationship growth, friendship, goodness, and that Supergirl is willing to cross lines. Superman never will. Instead, the feeling you get leaving the film is there was no growth just marketing.awful
The culinary equivalent would be to finish off a fresh Japanese tuna dinner with urine soaked shark meat from Iceland.
I’m so infuriated. growth, redemption, vindication, sacrifice, altruism, love, washed away for stupidity and cross-marketing.
an argument of patriarchy and defeating the “male gaze.“ Should be enough. They were very adapt at choosing not the “hot girl“ to be super girl, but the rebel girl and the sacrifice of her “goodness“ to preserve the goodness of someone she loves is a poignant and powerful ending, and I didn’t see that coming. And then they fucked it all up.
The casting and character setup were incredibly deliberate. By choosing Milly Alcock—who brought a raw, jagged, and rebellious "un-Hollywood" energy—the film set itself up to completely subvert the standard "male gaze" and the classic, sexualized tropes of female superheroes. Alcock herself even noted in press interviews that the film's beauty lay in how it refused to center itself around a man
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Fox News insists on being the villain in another superhero’s story), 3 (
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GateBuster Review: The Wasp Woman)
The sacrifice of her "goodness" was a massive thematic triumph. Kara making the conscious, harrowing decision to stab Krem in order to absorb the moral trauma and preserve the childhood innocence of Ruthye. She wasn't fighting for male approval or code-enforcement; she crossed a line out of raw, sacrificial love.
The film proved she was stronger, more resilient, and willing to carry heavier burdens than Superman ever could. Forcing her into his shadow in the final moments didn't just hurt the pacing; it actively insulted the entire feminist text the first two hours built. They built a rebel who defeated the gaze, only to force her to her knees in the final four minutes to serve a male-led franchise. It is a total narrative betrayal.
Even if you could give a shit about female empowerment or feminism or any of that crap--
Having a powerful, morally complex, rebellious woman exist autonomously in deep space after committing an execution was too terrifying for the studio. They immediately felt the need to bring her back to Earth to be supervised, anchored, and domesticated by a male authority figure-- INSULTING and STUPID!
Again, whether you give two shits about feminism or avoiding "the male gaze" what they did at the end if the film would be like ending Thelma and Louise with T&L performing felatio on police to get out of going to jail...
