#the word problematic should be martian wiped from our brains for a few years

[sapphic-luthor]

Honestly mon-el is hardly the worst instance of bland white hetero male character from the cw, but when you consider the circumstances of his character being introduced (abusive misogynistic showrunner self inserting) and the show he was introduced to (a show supposedly centered around a woman, with the ostensible purpose of her breaking free of the shadow of her more popular male counterpart) it does shoot his utter unlikeability through the roof past his more onerous peers.

see i wasn’t around in s2 so i didn’t/don’t know any of the behind the scenes stuff about the character choices or anything. i popped in right around the end of s4 i think and even then, years on, there was a lot of hatred toward mon-el that imo had the bang of a specific type of terminally online tumblr-callout-post off it. like just weeklong threads fighting with karamels and big huge posts about how problematic he was etc etc when honestly he’s like… fine, in the context of what he is, which is a cw character.

i honestly believe mon-el (and winn to an extent) both were victims (in this fanbase) of the modern online thing where we strive to equate unlikeability with moral failings to prove our own points; like it’s not “i hate this guy” it’s often “i hate this guy and he is problematic and here’s a callout post listing why.” and i totally fell for it because i went into this rewatch waiting for him to be this horrific unlikeable scumbag and he was pretty much fine.

obviously i don’t like the guy because straight men annoy me and we all know kara’s rightful place on earth is on her knees between lena’s legs, but all in all the ire that this fandom had for mon-el really does feel quite pearl-clutchy and overblown in retrospect lol