#Allow me to introduce 'Kai Winn'

[filmjunky-99]

s t a r t r e k d e e p s p a c e n i n e created by rick berman, michael piller [life support, s3ep13] 'Allow me to introduce 'Kai Winn'. In honor of this occasion, I've named my latest creation after you. It's a chocolate souffle with Haligian tongue sauce.' - quark

[rotationalsymmetry]

General gripes about DS9 and gender (some spoilers) (content notes: some references to sexual abuse/trauma, and specifically spiritual abuse/sexual misconduct in religious leaders, also death/murder):

I swear to fuck these people do not know how to write female characters without shoehorning them into romance plotlines. (Or weird fucked up stuff, like when that Cardassian serial murderer kidnaps Kira.) Especially noticeable with Ziyal -- when Kira takes her to DS9, the writers apparently can't think of a single thing to do with a young woman other than ship her with a much older Cardassian. Then, she's starting to get her own life and make a name for her as an artist, and they fucking refridgerator her. The fuck. (And: the focus is on how her death affects Dukat, that fucker. Which, obviously sure it's going to affect him...but it's also going to affect Kira, who sees Ziyal as like a younger version of herself and was trying to protect her. And then Ziyal dies. That should have some sort of effect on Kira! And did no one else on the station make any sort of connection with her when she was there?) This is arguably not primarily a gender thing, but it is partly a gender thing: the show keeps demanding Kira find sympathy for her oppressors, over and over again. (This is a gripe fest: of course there's a lot of things about Kira's character that are done really well.) She keeps getting thrown in situations that show (some) Cardassians in more nuanced lights and that more or less force her into relationships with them, while meanwhile her old resistance cell friends all get killed off, her parents are dead, if she has any other family we don't hear about it, and she's basically left with no Bajoran friends even, as far as we know. She gets Bajoran lovers who... OK, about that. First, Vedek Bareil. Now, Bajorans are shown to have a pretty relaxed attitude towards their clergy (eg Kira is frequently rude to Winn even after she becomes Kai with apparently no consequences) -- but still. Vedek is roughly equivalent to, what, cardinal? He's high up in the heirarchy. And, he's put himself in a role of spiritual authority relative to Kira: she gets access to one of the Orbs through him. They've got a power imbalance and one that's connected to Kira's ability to do her religion. I don't care what the social norms are on Bajor that is 100% sexual misconduct on Bareil's part. If something went wrong in their relationship, it could fuck up Kira's connection to her faith. And in the show it's presented as no big deal.

(Star Trek seems to be aware of this when it comes to ship's captains! For all that Kirk notoriously fucks everyone, he never voluntarily (/outside of the mirror universe, outside of odd transporter malfunctions that split him into two parts, etc) came on to a crew member. But it's no less important for religious authorities.) (Also: this has nothing to do with celebacy. I'm fine with Bajoran religious figures being allowed to have sex and being allowed to have sex outside of marriage. But: a religious leader having a sexual relationship with someone who they're in a pastoral relationship to is wrong, and while Bareil isn't exactly Kira's pastor I think there is some level of, he's providing spiritual guidance to her. That means she's off limits to him, or should be. In the same way that bosses shouldn't fuck their direct reports, college professors shouldn't fuck their students, therapists definitely shouldn't fuck their patients, etc. Regardless of how they handle their sex life outside of those restrictions. And regardless of whether there's love involved or not -- romantic love absolutely does not make it better.) And then there's Shakaar, the former leader of her resistance cell. That she joined as a teenager. It's...yeah, it's been many years, yeah she's not directly under him any more, and yeah goodness knows a band of resistance fighters is probably not going to have a clearly written up sexual harassment policy so it's not necessarily unrealistic...it's not as blatantly "oh god no" as Bareil, but it's got some...is anyone thinking of potential abuse of power issues here? Anyone?

There was one episode where Jake and Nog were double-dating and it goes badly due to Ferengi, uh, gender roles not meshing well with Federation egalatarianism. And, then the rest of the episode is all about how they're going to repair their friendship. And I was thinking: we didn't see either female character either before or after, and why is a sexism issue being shown from the lens of "how can I, a nice guy, stay friends with my male friend who has sexism issues" and not "how am I, a young woman, going to deal with this affront to my basic personhood" or "how am I, a young woman, going to repair my friendship now that I talked my friend into a double date so I could date the guy I liked but his friend turned out to be garbage?" Like...out of all the potential relationships there, why is Jake's friendship with a guy with sexism issues (who's made it clear he's not going to change, at least as far as dating goes) the one presented as being in most need of preservation? I know, it's because Jake and Nog are more central characters and their friendship has been significant in the show for seasons now. But...that just brings up more questions. Like why does this show have a significant bro friendship between two teenage boys, but there's no friendship between two women (or between a woman and a man for that matter) that's given as much weight? There's some bonding between Kira and Dax, but it doesn't have the same presence and significance as Jake and Nog or, say, Miles and Julian. (I'm having first name/last name inconsistencies here. Ah well.) Keiko has no on-camera friendships. Kira has no on-camera friendships that have Jake & Nog or Julian & Miles weight. Dax maybe does with her Klingon buddies from Curzon's lifetime. (Benjamin Sisko also doesn't.) Ziyal could have, but doesn't. Molly could have, but doesn't. Miles doesn't seem to have any (on-camera or otherwise acknowledged) parent friends (like...there's one couple mentioned who can babysit Molly at times? That's it? We never even see them?), which is weird because fuck knows parenthood can make it hard to have any friends who aren't parents. Odo's got his weird frenemy thing with Quark. Garak has his standing lunch with Julian (if you read that as platonic, which ... yeah, there's not a lot of arguments for seeing it as platonic beyond "they're both men.") I am, don't get me wrong, extremely for showing male friendships. Very much for it. It's just...I want friendships that aren't between two guys also. And I want them to be shown as significant and meaningful and worth overcoming obstacles for. Friendships between women, friendships between people of the same race or culture (or alien species, since we are talking Star Trek here), friendships between men and women that aren't just a precursor to romance. And...parenting that isn't just...I want to see Keiko have problems with parenting that she overcomes with help from other people. I want to explore the emotional ramifications of Kira being a surrogate mom to Kirayoshi or being a semi adopted mom to Ziyal and then having her die. I want Kira to talk about how her own upbringing in times of famine and war and occupation affects her sense of her ability to potentially be a parent. I want a female character to calmly talk about her decision to not become a mother and have that decision be treated with the utmost respect. I want the sort of struggles that male characters have with parenting on the show, like Worf's difficulty connecting with his son or Benjamin's conflict over watching his son grow up and get less interested in spending time with his dad, be shown for female characters as well. And the joys, like when Benjamin remembers holding Jake as an infant, like when they reunite after Jake gets caught in a war zone. Rather than parenting be this thing that mom characters apparently do on autopilot without any internal conflict or feeling out of their depth or particular moments of joy and amazement. There's so many plot lines and moments and bits and pieces that could be amazing moments that give

mother characters balance and nuance and characterization, but they only ever get shown for fathers. (And this is not just Star Trek either...look at all the kids movies that are about father/son or father/daughter bonding, and somehow the moms...just aren't there. It's so good when there are single father storylines, just...where are all the mom storylines that could be like that?) And why do teenage boys get focus and their own stories (especially with Jake in DS9, but also TNG has Wesley Crusher and Alexander, and TOS had one story centering on a teenage boy) but girls either aren't there at all or don't get to have stories that are about them? Ziyal's stories aren't about her, she doesn't get to form her own friendships and only barely gets to develop an interest of her own before her life is taken away from her. Molly doesn't get stories that are about her. (And yeah, Molly's a lot younger than Jake, but those are still choices: DS9 could have been set when Molly was a teenager, or the show could have introduced a different teenage girl as a significant character, or Jake could have been a girl rather than a boy, or Benjamin could have had two children...)

[someplace-that-is-else]

’Well…I Guess That’s Your Exit’: What Supergirl Season 2 is Getting Wrong

Another day. Another time for me and my co-worker to discuss the important stuff…you know…like Supergirl.

My co-worker loved, loved, LOVED the whole relationship between Kara and Mon-El. I rolled my eyes over it…mostly because the actor had done such a great job over on The Vampire Diaries as the murderous Kai. All I saw was Kai when I saw him. Not helping matters was the fact that the actor was kinda…one-note.

One thing that we could agree upon was that Season 2 had been a different beast than its first season on CBS. However, for the longest time we could not put our fingers on why. There were still storylines going on. There were romances all over the place. Dialogue still had its moments. What could it be?

Then…it came to me.

LEFT TURNS

At the start of the current season, there were a few things going on. The Kara/James relationship was brought to an abrupt (IMHO) stop. Cat Grant had a midlife crisis of sorts and left. Winn changed jobs, working full time at the D.E.O. Kara wanted to focus on ‘the Year of the Kara’ aka finding her place in the world. Oh…and Superman showed up.

But how has that worked out?

Well…

As I mentioned above, Kara embarked upon a new relationship with the alien Mon-El. Cat was still on ‘hiatus.’ Winn…was still Winn…but with alien girlfriend. ‘The Year of the Kara’ has pretty much gone up in smoke. Other than Kara losing her job for a minute, it has been all about Mon-El with…Guest Star Supergirl. And that simply took away from the show.

Speaking of being taken away, another thing that vanished was the team itself.

Was Team Supergirl still active? Why yes. Kara still went on patrol. So did James as new vigilante Guardian. Winn was still on laptop. Alex and Martian Manhunter were still with the D.E.O. with assist from Alex’s new girlfriend Maggie. So active for sure. However…they were for the most part all in different storylines for the most part.

Compare that to Season One. Usually there was a prisoner from Fort Rozz on the loose. Or there was some freak of nature. Alex, Kara, and Martian Manhunter would be on the case. Winn would be on the laptop as usual. Sometimes Cat would interact in that. A rapport was established. A dynamic that clearly grooved with the viewing audience.

And It was something that viewers got used to. However, Season Two did what too many shows/movies (recent examples:  The 100, arguably Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2) did after their first showing/season. Characters are separated into individual storylines. That would be fine except for the fact that the characters rarely came back together, affecting the dynamic/rapport that viewers were used to and loved.

Then there was Kara and her characterizations. Season One Kara was a hero in training. She made mistakes. She learned from it. She was capable and strong, but flawed. It was promising at the start of the current season. I was looking forward to seeing her personal life (re: CatCo stuff) develop now that she had a good grip on her professional (re: superadventures) life. Instead, Season Two Kara appeared to almost get her butt handled to her in fights without some help. And it appeared that the show was more about the adventures of Mon-El on Earth. Kara helped him adjust for sure.  She even fell for him.

However, what else was there for her to do? Where was her development? She was more than a super girlfriend. She was SUPERGIRL! You know…the MAIN CHARACTER. But…you wouldn’t know it if you had been watching this season.

Finally, Season Two was also missing the plot, too. And by plot, I meant a focal point.  Was Season Two about Mon-El and his secrets? Was it about Kara’s fight against the anti-alien group Cadmus? Was it about something with the President? What was Season Two about?

Meanwhile, Season One…for its flaws…had a clear plot. Supergirl had to learn about being a superhero as she proceeded to capture all the escaped prisoners from Fort Rozz. Meanwhile, her aunt was alive and planning something sinister called Myriad. Those two threads ran through the first season along with various subplots. However, it was clear what the season was about.

Season Two on the other hand…

What was going on?

RIGHTING THE SHIP

As of this writing, there were only a few episodes of Supergirl left before Season Two was over.

Thankfully, it appeared that the writers had found a way to right the ship for Season Two. They introduced a Trojan Horse named Queen Rhea played by Teri Hatcher.

Queen Rhea was Mon-El’s mother. She had traveled to Earth to find him and rebuilt their world Daxam. He would not leave due to his love of Kara. And that had driven Rhea mad. After killing her husband (Kevin Sorbo we hardly knew ya!), Rhea now plotted her revenge on Kara and Earth.

Rhea’s appearance gave the season what it was lacking: focus. There was the obvious conflict for Kara and Mon-El. From the reveal of his identity which was a secret to the fact that Rhea does not like Kara, there was trouble between them. And that trouble allowed the show to shift back to where it should be: focusing on SUPERGIRL with Mon-El supporting her.  There had already been a ‘getting the band back together’ vibe thanks to Rhea’s presence, allowing all the characters to interact and emphasizing their great rapport established in Season One. Finally, going by the promo for Episode 2.21, Rhea’s plot has resulted in converging the other Season Two plotlines from Cadmus (the enemy of my enemy) to the President’s deal. Nothing like unity to solidify direction.

It was a shame that it took most of a season to figure this out. Hopefully going forward into Season 3, Supergirl would remember this as they formed the arc for next season. Keep the focus on Kara, keep the dynamic of the team, and have a coherently planned plot, and you will be flying high.

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