Every year San Diego Comic Con comes around, and every year I am excited for the new content that will emerge from it. It’s a place where fans, who love and ship all different things, come together with the creators and cast members and should enjoy their time together. Fandoms of this content often clash over particular relationships, particularly when ‘straight’ characters are read as queer, and on Saturday we saw this clash come directly from Supergirl cast members.
“We spent a lot of time watching characters and reading into relationships that could give us any hint of representation, because we had none.”
This year, some of the Supergirl cast were present and did a musical recap of their second season (notably missing the two actresses who portray canonical lesbians). Jeremy Jordan leads the recap song and soon mentions Katie McGrath’s character, Lena Luthor, with whom many fans imagine to be in a relationship with title character, Supergirl/Kara Danvers (Melissa Benoist). As a part of this recap, Jordan sings “They’re just friends! They’re never going to get together!” and Benoist joins in with this, and most of the rest of the cast laugh. If that wasn’t enough to isolate LGBT+ fans, Jordan and Benoist pat themselves on the back later in the interview, claiming to have ‘debunked’ SuperCorp (the fan name for Lena and Kara’s relationship).
Queer fans, who already feel isolated from most television shows that don’t portray us at all, were particularly upset by this. For years, the only queer characters to be seen on the screen were villainised, killed off, or forever alone. We spent a lot of time watching characters and reading into relationships that could give us any hint of representation, because we had none. Even now when we watch television or films, queer characters are rarely main characters, and often fail to portray us as real people who love and feel and live like anyone else.
“One of the great things about television is that you can find your own meaning in the shows you love.”
We have had to write fanfiction, read into every small look and every seemingly insignificant touch to imagine a fraction of the representation that straight people have. When the cast and crew of a show gets upset and angry at these readings of their characters, what we hear is that we’re not valued viewers, that they have accidentally attracted us when what they wanted was the ‘normal’ straight viewer. We hear people that we have looked up to wanting us to be quiet, and only enjoy media in the way they want us to enjoy it. That is not the way media is consumed.
One of the great things about television is that you can interpret from it what you will, that you can find your own meaning in the shows you love. Writers and actors should be proud and excited that they are doing their jobs so well that we’re getting even more out of it than they intended. It should be exciting to them that people are seeing something more to their portrayals and that we love them enough to want to be like them. When queer people see a character as queer it should be an honour that we see so much in them that speaks to us. It is insulting to fence off characters and relationships as only ever straight and platonic, as if we’re only allowed to be one type of person.
“In my experience, it’s best to actually listen when a community is telling you that you’ve done something wrong and not invalidate their feelings and experience.”
Jeremy Jordan issued an “apology” on his Instagram on Saturday, addressed “Dear kids”. Just in case we thought he wasn’t going to be condescending in this statement, he luckily cut us off before he even gets going. He claims to have made a “silly joke” about SuperCorp and apologises “to anyone who took this the wrong way.” He then went on to say “hundreds of people are calling my comment homophobic or putting down the LGBTQ community, you are so off the mark. My track record has PROVEN my love and utter devotion to the LGBTQ community.” In my experience, it’s best to actually listen when a community is telling you that you’ve done something wrong and not invalidate their feelings and experience, so let’s just file this in our ‘how not to apologise’ box (please stop sending submissions, it’s overflowing).
Just when we thought we could move on from this however, someone must have told him that saying “I made some of you feel pretty shitty, and I’m sorry for that” probably won’t suffice in terms of an apology, as he posted an apology for his apology. This time his apology was more sincere, and he said that he would try better. There is, however, no word from Melissa Benoist on an apology.
On the back of a fairly lacklustre season that was carried by Alex and Maggie’s relationship, and the blossoming friendship between Lena and Kara, the support from the young queer community is what Supergirl should be counting on for a successful third season. Rather than dismissing queer fans, they should listen and learn from them. It’s a lesson to media that just because you include LGBTQ+ people and don’t kill them off, doesn’t mean that you’re infallible to criticism. There is much room for improvement — Cat Grant’s blatant transphobia for one — and LGBTQ+ fans deserve better than the bare minimum.
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Image via TV Guide
