Supergirl at SDCC 2017: Controversy Mars the Weekend

July 28, 2017 Jamie Sugah

Supergirl at SDCC 2017 Thanks to Froggy for the awesome photo!

Controversy followed the cast of Supergirl at SDCC 2017. Despite a drama-free press room and a fairly charming panel, a now infamous video soured fans on the show and its cast (except Katie).

I didn’t find out about the video until after the press room and the panel, when I was back in my hotel room and scrolling through Twitter. Farid has already talked about it, so I won’t go into much detail, but I would like to take this moment to apologize to anyone who may be offended by my interview with Katie McGrath. I brought up the relationship between Kara and Lena because I adore them as friends and am always pleased to see positive female friendships represented on screen. I don’t ship Supercorp, but I can obviously understand why so many people do. Still, I fear I may come across as dismissive of the ship in my phrasing of the question, and that was not my intention. I don’t ask ship questions, as a rule, for many reasons, but it’s difficult to ask about two characters’ relationship without sounding like you’re asking when they’re going to start dating. Katie, of course, was absolutely lovely and very diplomatic in her answer.

I will admit that this incident has me second-guessing whether or not I want to continue on with the show. There were some storyline decisions that I’m not very pleased about, and some of the answers to the questions were less than desirable. It’s not that I’m expecting certain answers; more, I’m hoping I’m not given certain answers. All this I could have lived with, were it not for the cast being so gleefully dismissive of a portion of their fanbase, followed by their tone-deaf handling of the situation.

Kara’s relationship with Mon-El is something I’ve wavered on. They have their moments, but for the most part it comes across as a forced pairing just because they’re an attractive man and an attractive woman and on television, that’s all you need to make a couple. I suppose I’ve never really understood Kara’s depth of feelings for Mon-El, considering that she seemed to have done a 180 virtually overnight. Melissa Benoist describing Kara in the beginning of season 3 as someone who’s “lost her entire world” really rubbed me the wrong way, because it makes it seem as though Mon-El is more important to her than her family or her other friends. And maybe that’s true, but I really don’t think it should be. The season 3 trailer that premiered during the Supergirl at SDCC 2017 panel does tease a darker tone that indicates Kara is grieving.

There were some tidbits that sound very exciting. Odette Annable will join the cast as new villain Reign; Adrian Pasdar will also be setting up shop in National City as Morgan Edge. Calista Flockhart returns as Cat Grant in a recurring role, while Carl Lumbly (aka the voice of Martian Manhunter in the animated Justice League) will appear as J’onn’s father. In other news, James will get a new love interest and be more active with Team Supergirl in season 3. It’s also been promised that we will explore Kara’s job at CatCo more next season.

But there was also news from Supergirl at SDCC 2017 that was less than stellar. According to executive producers Jessica Queller and Robert Rovner, Floriana Lima (Maggie Sawyer) asked to not be a regular in season 3, which means that we will be losing the Sanvers relationship. They’ve promised a nice Sanvers story to wrap things up, which will hopefully leave things open should Floriana decide to return, but it’s still upsetting to be losing one of the few canon LGBTQ+ relationships on television (where one of them doesn’t die).

Supergirl returns with season 3 Monday, October 9th, at 8pm on the CW.

Author: Jamie Sugah

Jamie has a BA in English with a focus in creative writing from The Ohio State University. She self-published her first novel, The Perils of Long Hair on a Windy Day, which is available through Amazon. She is currently an archivist and lives in New York City with her demon ninja vampire cat. She covers television, books, movies, anime, and conventions in the NYC area.

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8 thoughts on “Supergirl at SDCC 2017: Controversy Mars the Weekend”

  1. Floriana has repeatedly stolen roles from Latinas and defends her extremely transphobic boyfriend Casey Affleck, show is better off without her

      1. Yes He was sued by multiple women for sexual harassment and the details are very eye opening and sad. She also called herself a “mutt” of English, Italian, some other white ethnicities and has liked tweets saying it shouldn’t matter if an actor isn’t the same race as a character they play. It’s all very unfortunate

  2. Floriana Lima did not “steal” anything. The showrunners are at fault here because they thought she was Latina and they ran with it, leaving a lot of people angry and confused.
    I don’t know of other times she stole roles in that way.

    1. If you were white would you say you were “non white” as Floriana did on the show? She was pushed as latina on the show and played other Latinas on other shows, she has liked multiple comments on social media saying this isn’t a big deal either.

  3. I was pretty sure I wasn’t coming back for S3, but SDCC pretty much cinched it. I was really disappointed with S2 and the behavior of the cast doesn’t help matters. In the premier Kara talks to Clark about how does he do it all and he said he didn’t at first, so I expected that as the season’s focus, Kara balancing her life after losing her mentor, but by the end the relationship with Mon-El was all that mattered. I did like Sanvers quite a lot, but now that’s ending. Honestly, I’ll probably only come back if Tyler Hoechlin appears again, but even then please don’t Derek Hale him where all he can do is praise Kara. How about an actual scene with Jimmy?

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