Supergirl Downgraded A Character And Makes Another A Season Regular

Jul 17, 2018 14:07:53 GMT BexxyJ said:

Jul 14, 2018 12:15:50 GMT @deblovesbeccy said:

  
 That depends on whether you are watching the shows (which you aren't going to be anymore  ) but all comic book series that have their own TV shows are relevant at this point good, okay and bad since there are a lot of other comic book series that haven't had a chance on screen.   

All superheroes are irrelevant because they only exist in movovies and tv and do nothing to solve our problems in the real world. It's pure escapism but I sometimes wonder if people spending too much time escaping real world problems has lead us to where we are today.

I wouldn't say it's only escapism; fantasy has had a long history of inspiring people. At its core, any work of fiction succeeds or fails by how effectively the narrative can draw in its audience and have them relate to the decisions the characters make. That's not only an important part of the wish fulfillment process, but also necessary to engage and audience.  The power of fiction, good fiction, is to sway its audience in such a way as to have them feel everything as if it were really happening; love the people they love, hate the people they hate and through that shared perspective, understand the choices they make.  And that sort of empathy and engagement has shaped how people go about their lives, in positive ways.

Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" is essentially a morality play, that sets out to teach the audience along with Scrooge the values the spirits have to share.

Star Trek, in all it's campy, Technicolor glory inspired men and women to enter burgeoning science and technology fields, and event strive to become astronauts.  Nichelle Nichols, the actress who originally play Uhura in the original series of Star Trek, related how, after either the first or second season she had contemplated leaving the show.  Gene Rodenberry, the creator and show runner, asked her to take the hiatus to think about the decision before making it final, which she did.  While attending a function, I think in New York or somewhere, she was told there was a fan present who wanted to meet her.  When she turned around to meet this fan, she discovered it was Martin Luther King Jr.

He praised her work, saying that Star Trek was one of the few shows he let his children watch, and when Nichelle told him she was thinking about leaving the show, his response was, "You can't do that."  He went on to tell how her invaluable it was for people to see a woman of color in a prominent, positive role; and after that conversation she chose to stay on Star Trek, and later partnered with NASA years later to encourage women to join the program; I believe working along side a female astronaut who said that Nichelle's role on Star Trek had been a source of inspiration for her.

And years later another actress of color recounted how she was astonished to see the likes of Uhura on television, playing a character who wasn't a maid or some other stereotype for black people, but was someone in a position of authority in the series.  And because of that, when The Next Generation began, she reached out to them to ask to be part of it in a recurring role, when her schedule allowed.

That actress was Whoopi Goldberg.

With the likes of Superheroes, it may be set in the most outlandish scenarios and circumstances imaginable, but at its heart the characters are still fundamentally human; even when they technically aren't, the ones who are intended to resonate with the reader or the audience are the ones that we can relate to and picture ourselves in their garishly colored costumes, saving the child from kidnappers, to put right what once went wrong and reach the unreachable star.  And in direct application to real life, that may all seem grossly incongruent, but we don't need to put on a mask and spandex and literally live the life of a costumed superhero to be inspired to take forward any lessons that might be gleaned from those stories.  They're just parables, in a sense; modern myths and folktales that tell the story of what it means to be human, even if albeit set in improbable and fantastic circumstances.

But that invariably is where many of the Arrowverse shows fall short; when they don't use basic human nature or behavior as the underlying foundation for their stories, and require some semblance of reason in the behavior or think of their protagonists.  When they dumb down their characters, the writers are essentially expecting the audience to either already be at the same level of critical think, or be willing to lower themselves there; which is just insulting.