#who are incompetent at find tv free online. such as myself

[hollowslantern]

they took magnum pi off any streaming this is horrible news for fans of hairy assed man's legs

[thegreymoon]

Hi I have been a fan of your work for a very long time and so I sneak into your tumblr from time to time.I counldnt help but notice that you post a lot of political/sjw stuff and I know it is none of my business but since I am probably absolutely opposite in my political views I can't help myself and ask: I understand that you are Asian, but you don't seem to be interested in real or imagined injustices in your country/continent and are mainly interested in USA, why is that?

Hi, anon!

First of all, I am not Asian and I’m very sorry if I ever did or said anything to mislead people into thinking that I was. It was unconsciously done. I have no intention of offending anyone or appropriating an identity that isn’t mine, so if I did something of that sort, please let me know and I’ll do my best to correct myself. I often reblog stuff about China because I think it’s an amazing country, I’m learning Mandarin (not making much progress, though), love their culture, nature, architecture and am a big fan of their historical/fantasy dramas. Also, the two fandoms I was the most active in (coincidentally) happen to be a Japanese anime and a Japanese video game, so I have a lot of love for their art and aesthetics.

I’m actually very surprised that you would ‘notice’ that I post a lot of ‘political/sjw stuff’, considering that I mostly use Tumblr to repost Merlin gifs, cast/crew news and fanworks. There is maybe one reblog on just about anything else for every fifty (perhaps even more) Merlin posts, so I really have to wonder which of the RL issues I posted about bothered you so much that you would describe them as ‘a lot’.

I may be misinterpreting the tone of your ask, so forgive me if I misread your intentions and am responding too harshly, but in my experience, ‘SJW’ is a term that is used to be dismissive when people are talking about real social issues, plus I found your wording of ‘imagined injustices’ very… interesting.

Also, I find it odd that somebody would unironically ask me why I’m ‘mainly’ interested in the USA.

First of all, the global market is oversaturated with American media, American products, American news, American movies, TV series, music, you name it. It’s everywhere. Of course I’m going to know more about it than, say, Lichtenstein. The exposure of American public figures is insane and it just happens that the stuff that appears on my dash is most often related to the USA because that is what the people I follow also follow (and for the record, on Tumblr, I mainly follow the Merlin fandom and to a somewhat lesser degree, various artists, baby animals, Chinese traditional outfits, Buzzfeed and NASA news). I absolutely do reblog pure evil, injustices, hypocrisy and intentionally inflicted misery in other countries too when I see them, but I don’t actively go looking for them on Tumblr, just like I don’t actively look for the USA posts either. The USA posts are simply there, without much active input from me, while other countries are not. An important point, of course, since we are having this weird discussion about why a random person outside of the USA is consuming so much American media, is that English is the only foreign language I am fluent in, so when it comes to foreign content, I am primarily going to read and interact with posts in English. And which country creates the most content in English? Yup, you guessed it!  

On a similar note, everything that happens in the USA affects other countries too. Nothing that goes on there takes place in a vacuum and the USA has made damn sure that it has its fingers in each and every single pie all over the world. Everything, the good and the bad, spills over and trust me, we feel the effects acutely in my unstable, politically fraught little country. The economic and cultural implications are enormous, so you can bet American issues are very personal for me, even if I don’t live there. My country’s government consists of puppets in the hands of various world leaders playing tug of war with actual human lives. My literal paycheck depends on the stability of the dollar. The survival of the entire human species hangs on how we deal with climate change right now and that ignorant, illiterate orange shitstain Americans voted into power is now standing on a global platform, spouting nonsense that is barely one step removed from Creationist bullshit and Flat-earther conspiracies. And you seriously ask me why I’m interested in the USA? 

The USA loves to dub itself as ‘the leader of the free world’ and ‘a global superpower’, and has managed to stick its nose into everybody’s business everywhere (usually with no good intentions), but somehow you question why the rest of us are now going to be interested in what is going on there, not to mention critical when the US government spouts absolute rubbish not just on a domestic, but also global scale? So, yes, I am personally invested in what is going down next in the USA and am sitting here, half the world across, cheering Americans on as they fight to have that shame they elected removed from power and, hopefully, incarcerated, along with all his corrupt cronies, advisors and family members. I’m going to be genuinely celebrating here when he finally goes down!

Secondly, I come from one of those countries that the USA and its allies have destroyed for their own gain and where they have ruined countless lives over multiple generations. I have every reason to notice, take a personal interest in and comment on the hypocrisy, the grandstanding and the false moral high ground that is assumed by the USA (and any of its bootlickers) when I see it.

For any of my USA followers here, I would just like to note that I am perfectly capable of distinguishing between ordinary people and disgusting government policies enacted by corrupt or incompetent politicians. I realise this post sounds angry, but I wish only good things for you all, people are people everywhere and the stuff I’m talking about is way above the average person’s paygrade. I also realise that the USA has screwed over so many of its own citizens; including its war veterans, PoC, minorities, the poor, the weak and the disabled. My heart goes out to you all, truly, and I love you all!

(BTW, I intentionally have not said which country I’m from because I’ve stopped publically stating my location online, simply because it makes it too easy for malicious people to identify me IRL that way. I don’t necessarily hide my RL identity if I have a valid reason to reveal my true name and location, but please forgive me for not stating it outright here, on a public platform, to satisfy the curiosity of an anon ask. My country is misogynistic, homophobic and hostile to all who are non-conforming and my job prospects are hard enough without my online pseudonyms being generally known in my RL circles. I used to be much less secretive about it, but have since learned the error of my ways and am now taking the most basic of precautions.)

With that said, yes, my country has issues! And, fyi, I have ranted and raged and cried about them before online, IRL and in private. I have posted about my country’s political problems everywhere, including here, when I was just too angry to hold it in because I’m absolute shit at being careful even when I make a conscious effort to be. Most recently, I raged about our elections which were a punch to the gut. If I was to start typing about the corruption, injustices and absolute evil going on around me, I would never stop, but I’m not going to do that because that’s not what I come to Tumblr for. This is primarily a fandom space, mostly for fandom stuff, where I come to look at other people’s things and almost never create content of my own. Just about anything political has been reblogged from someone else because it showed up on my dash and touched a nerve. Very little of that is stuff from my own country because nobody creates and reblogs posts about it in the fandom circle I mostly interact with.

I’m now trying to think back to what ‘SJW’ issues (as you put it) I reblog the most often and how any of them are ‘imaginary injustices’. Off the top of my head, the ones that usually touch a nerve are about the oppression and discrimination of women, patriarchy, sexism, various kinds of abuse, sexual assault, overworking, capitalist brainwashing, mental health issues, LGBTQ issues, freedom of speech, resurgence of Nazism, the gap between the rich and the poor, climate change and criminal religious institutions regaining power in society. I can assure you that none of these is ‘imaginary’ and the negative ways in which they affect me and the people around me are very, very real. Also, none of them is unique to the USA, which is what you seem to be the most concerned about, and even if the post is from or about the USA, these problems definitely overlap with things that I, and countless people around the world, are personally experiencing and have a lot of feelings about. The only social issues ‘unique’ to the USA that I often reblog are the ones related to the particular US brand of racism and the appalling, still-ongoing genocide committed against the indigenous people there, and how can you not empathise with that when it’s so egregious? I will reblog them every time they cross my dash to spread awareness since the US government is actively trying to stifle it and rewrite history and idc who is uncomfortable.

With all that said, I’m open to corrections and have no problem admitting to being wrong once I realise I’ve made a mistake. So, this goes for all the people following my blog: if any of the posts I shared are about ‘imaginary’ issues (just… wow at the use of this word) or contain false information, please feel free to let me know and I will take it under advisement. I’m always willing to learn.

[popculturebuffet]

Changing the Channel: My History as A Channel Awesome Fan and Why I Unsubscribed

I thank anyone who reads this. As the #changethechannel movement takes the internet by storm and slowly but surely destroys Channel Awesome, I felt I needed to let out some emotions regarding the skeletons tapdancing out of channel awesome’s closet following the revelations in the Google Doc. 

A long time ago in a High School Video Media Classroom far away, 8 years ago to be exact, I was a fresh faced young man living the dream of helping produce the school news show Wham TV, a dream I’d had. But as I was just the lowly credits guy, I had a lot of free time on my hands and during one of these down periods I noticed a bunch of the guys watching something on my friends computer. And that is how a young me found the Nostalgia Critic. I was a huge fan, binging every episode I could find at home since the entire series was on YouTube.  And if that wasn’t enough, as school ended I soon found out there was an entire SITE full of other people like him, riffing on bad films, comics and just about anything thanks to the crossover film Kickassia. I loved it at the time, and it opened my eyes to all these other people floating around. I watched the crossovers that came out and once I got a computer at home fast enough to actually watch blip without it taking two hours to load, I dove right in.

For the next few years I slowly found my faviorites: Lupa, Linkara, Todd, Spoony, The Nostalgia Chick… I devoured their videos along side Doug’s at rapid pace.  And as my first year of Community College went on, I found myself more and more isolated: I was an awkward young man ape, unable to talk to women at all, barely relating to my fellow guys, and finding myself in a very unhealthy online friendship with an asshole that constantly made me feel like crap and insulted me at every turn that I was desperate to impress and was close to my best friend. And in those dark uncertain times.. Channel Awesome was my light in the darkness. A beacon that provided weekly mounds of entertainment to binge at school after class, people like me who were nerdy but had fun making hilarious videos and clearly had a tight knit surrogate family to back them up.  I aspired to be one of them, to make my own reviews. I wasn’t great and bottomed out, but I still wanted to be one of the shiny happy people walking by, the nerds who had friends and relationships and were loved by many.

I never made it, a combination of having no camera, little skill, and a huge amount of homework squashed that dream… and in hindsight.. that was a good thing considering just how bad that dream went for the people who did make it. What I never realized is that while Channel Awesome really was a family to some people.. it was also a nightmare of mismanagement, misogyny, and neglect as time went on.

When I saw Suburban Knights I saw a stellar sequel to a movie I loved..  not poor Iron Liz getting starved and being treated like a pack mule, several people being injured, and Doug being Tommy Wiseau levels of dangerously incompetent.

When I saw to Boldly Flee I saw a deep exploration of the fear they all faced in the wake of SOPA and a touching sendoff to the critic. I didn’t know that Doug just outright refused to listen to ANYONE about the script even with it involved characters they made, terribly sexist jokes, horrendous rape scenes, and script bloat, not to mention giant amounts of cast abuse.

When I saw Demo Reel while I gave it a chance, feeling that Doug was finally living his dream I didn’t realize that he was tanking the site and didn’t give one shit what happened to anyone else. And when I heard Allison Pregler, one of my favorite reviewers on the site was being harassed I just naturally assumed that Doug, like just about everyone else, had come to her aid… instead of ignoring said harassment even when it got to the point there were threats on her life. When Fool Fantastic was fired, I assumed he was just some lazy kid, never realizing that instead he was basically forced into video reviewing due to a format change, then went through several months of upheaval dealing with high school graduation and coming out to less than accepting parents.. and then  finding himself removed from the site despite having told a staff member about it, and given no sympathy by Rob and Michaud despite having gone through hell. And that, in this inferno of horrible facts coming to light that’s been #changethechannel, what’s gotten me the most. People suffered. People struggled. And I saw none of it. Wether it was due to pressure to keep things under wraps to keep their jobs, as Channel Awesome, or just plain feeling like no one would care due to not having many friends on the site, I was blind. Even when Allison and Phelan came out post firing about their mistreatment, I saw it as just Rob and Mike’s fault. Doug had to be innocent right? He had to be a good person? I can’t have been following a giant sack of dicks for years at this point?  But I was so wrong. While Doug wasn’t nearly as bad as these two.. he still didn’t seem to give two shits about anyone outside a select few he’d bonded with. It was all about the Nostalgia Critic to him, it was all about the critic to rob and it was all Michaud said.

The rest of Channel Awesome were just window dressing, minions to be used and discarded whenever they decided they weren’t needed anymore. To be fired for missing ONE video after years of service, to be fired for missing a goddamn Skype call or just for no damn reason.  While Doug wasn’t’ nearly as abusive as Michaud he still did jack all to change things at the site or actually talk to anyone. He just let his brother and actual animate sack of dicks CEO do whatever and slowly run the site into the ground. And amazingly despite having the management skills of a flamingo that’s on fire and had it’s brain surgically removed and replaced with a can of tuna with the word “BRAIN” sloppily written on the side that the site still stands today. And it’s amazing that even as quality dipped and it became clearer and clearer just what a waste of space Doug Walker’s work was… I stayed by anyway. Because he was a nice guy and surely it’d turn around. But it didn’t and he sure as shit hasn’t, letting the company twitter send out half assed apologizes and according to one report DEFENDING that heartless mass of diseased rats and spittle.  And if he won’t just man up and get his show back, fire this asshole and firmly apologize for EVERYTHING, then why do I need him.  After MONTHS of finding out people I liked in movies and such were the worst humanity had to offer... why should I give him ANY sort of chance. And with that I unfollowed channel awesome and spent the next few days beating myself up about watching Doug for so long. I felt terrible, like by supporting the site and him I’d hurt so many people... for ignoring the signs... and so... that’s why I’m here today. Because I felt like I had to get my feelings out and in doing so I realized that while I was a dum dum for giving Doug the benefit of a doubt… I’m not dumb for just HOPING beyond hope someone was a good person.  It’s not bad to have faith, but you can’t let it blind you. And you can’t beat yourself up for hoping he’d get better or that things would change… al you can do is walk away, leave Doug to let Rome burn and hope beyond hope that the people still on the site don’t go down with him.

And even with all Michaud has done and the walkers let him do… Channel Awesome WAS still a family. For many of it’s former contributors it was home and they found best friends, spouses and comrades.. .. and if anything all this coming to light has only strengthen those bonds, and shown that no matter WHAT mike did, no matter what he tried to take.. he couldn’t take away their friendship, their audiences or their basic dignity. And he certainly isn’t taking my peace of mind anymore.

[breathofthedice]

Letter to the CW

Hey guys, here’s an example of a letter you can send to the CW asking them to keep mon el off of Supergirl (letter under the cut for length):

Mr. Michael Roberts

The CW Television Network

3300 W. Olive Ave.

Burbank, CA 91505

Dear Mr. Roberts,

I am writing in regards to the CW show Supergirl. When Supergirl premiered on CBS, I found myself enamored with this lighthearted superhero show focused on family and the theme of ‘el mayarah’, or ‘stronger together’. Unfortunately, feminism is a rare find on mainstream TV these days, but Supergirl portrayed its main lead as a strong, capable woman who drew strength from the other women around her. Perhaps my favorite thing about the show is the bond between Kara and her adopted sister Alex. It’s so refreshing to see a show centered around the bond between two women, and two sisters at that.

When I heard that one of the DC shows would have a character come out, my thoughts instantly went to Alex, even though it seemed too much to hope for. And when she did indeed turn out to be that character, I was ecstatic. Alex’s journey this season has been everything I could have hoped for, and Chyler Leigh and Floriana Lima have been extremely outspoken in their support for this storyline. As a lesbian, representation like this is so wonderful to see, and I want to thank you for giving that to my community.

However, I have one major concern about Supergirl: Mon El. As I’m sure you know, Mon El has created a deep division among fans of the show. He perpetuates many sexist tropes, such as ‘frat boy is fixed by a woman’ and ‘inside every frat boy there’s a hero waiting to be brought out by a woman’. While I understand that the intent of the character was to show that anyone, even a person from a horrible background who is initially awful, can be a hero, I don’t think Mon El was the best vessel to tell that story. For starters, his story reinforces the idea that it’s a woman’s job to fix a man. That is not only sexist, but it frames Mon El as the lead instead of Kara and reduces her to a vessel in his story. This trope is also problematic for a very scary reason: It perpetuates abuse. Now, Mon El was not deliberately written to be abusive, and his character is meant to develop into a hero, not a villain. But girls who are watching this show will see this development and think that that is how things go in real life. When they meet a boy like Mon El, they will attempt to change him no matter how badly he treats them. And when that bad treatment escalates, they still won’t leave because they believe that if they only try harder, they can make him better like Kara did with Mon El. This is such a dangerous message to show to young, vulnerable girls. Media has a very real effect on real life, and internalizing this message can only lead to trouble.

I also don’t like how Mon El has taken up so much of the narrative. Part of season one’s charm was that the show focused around women and the relationships between them. Now Kara spends her time almost exclusively with him (incidentally, Kara has no plot line this season outside of Mon El) and barely ever interacts with her sister. Alex and Kara’s relationship was the heart of the show in s1, but now they have very little screen time together. This season, the show feels more like a romance-driven narrative, with Kara and Mon El and Alex and Maggie compartmentalized apart from one another. I understand that this is more or less par for the course on the CW, but it isn’t the show that I and so many others signed up for. Supergirl’s success wasn’t because it was similar to other CW superhero shows like Flash and Arrow; it was successful because it was different. But now that difference is slowly vanishing, and the show is losing viewers as a result.

Mon El is not the lead of Supergirl. Kara is. But it’s Mon El who gets the hero’s journey; Mon El who has driven much of this season even though CADMUS was touted as the big bad, and Mon El whose narrative is driving the latter half of season two with the arrival of his parents. The viewers of Supergirl are not interested in seeing a man take over the show when we started watching because of the powerful feminist protagonist. The product that is being sold is vastly different from the one we were promised.

I mentioned above that Mon El was not deliberately written to be abusive, but unfortunately, that’s how he has come off. Several people have come forward online, including abuse survivors, domestic violence attorneys, and therapists, and said that Mon El’s behavior is textbook emotional abuse. He has repeatedly ignored Kara’s thoughts and wishes and did what he wanted to instead. For example, when they first start dating, Kara asks him to keep it quiet for a while because her relationship with James crashed and burned and everyone knew about it. She wants time to explore this on her own. Mon El agrees without any hesitation, and in the very next scene, he blurts out their relationship to the entire DEO, which is her place of work. This behavior is disgusting. Not only does he disregard Kara’s very clearly expressed desire, he tells her coworkers about it in a professional setting. Later in the same episode, Kara asks him to be nice to her father Jeremiah, who has recently been rescued from a shady government organization. Instead of doing so, Mon El accuses the man of being a spy and calls J’onn and Alex incompetent for not being suspicious of him. He then tries to tell Kara that “all right, that’s two strikes on me”, and asks her to forget about it.

What Mon El does in the above examples is a classic case of emotional abuse. He ignores Kara’s wishes in favor of his own, and when she calls him out, he attempts to brush it off and asks her to forget it. Not only are there no repercussions for this behavior, but the viewers are shown that Mon El was correct about Jeremiah’s intentions, which is meant to validate the way he acted.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about Mon El is that he owned slaves. We currently have a president who is endorsed by the Klu Klux Klan, which is downright disturbing, and yet someone high up the chain decided that Kara should date a man who owned slaves. Again, Mon El faces no repercussions for this behavior. Kara breaks things off with him because he lied to her about being the prince, but less than a day later, she is back together with him. And she apologizes! Mon El is the one who had hurt Kara, he is the one who has done wrong, and yet he faces no consequences and instead is given an apology. I have no words to express how disgusting and harmful this is. If Mon El were to suffer some sort of consequence, this would be less upsetting, but because he is a white man in a position of privilege, he gets off scot-free for his actions. We already see this in our day to day lives, and now it is being shown in a TV program that once prided itself on being feminist.

I could go on about the problems Mon El brings to Supergirl, but in the interest of brevity, I will stop. Suffice it to say, the messages being shown are not messages that should be perpetuated, particularly when the majority of the audience followed it to the CW because they believed they were being given a vastly different product than the one that has shown up. Mon El embodies several sexist tropes, and he has demonstrated classic abuse behavior. And yet in spite of all this, he is still dating Kara and is given quite a lot of screen time on a female-led, female-driven show. We are even expected to support this relationship and root for him because ‘he has changed’, but the reality is that Mon El has not changed much at all and has no business dating a woman he treats in such a way.

This is not the Supergirl I fell in love with. I miss the show that lived and died by Alex and Kara’s connection. I miss the show that centered around family and legacy and what it truly means to be a hero. I miss the show about the relationships between women and I miss the show about faith and love. I had hoped that the CW would keep Supergirl true to its roots, and I can’t express my disappointment that that is not what’s happened. I sincerely urge you to reconsider what you are showing and how it matches up with what your audience wants to see. On behalf of women everywhere, I ask you to consider the messages you are expressing to us. We deserve to be heroes, not to be reduced to a love interest for a sexist, racist, disrespectful man.

Sincerely,

Jordan Meyer

Fort Collins, CO

[breathofthedice]

Letter to the CW

Sincerely,

Mr. Michael Roberts

The CW Television Network

3300 W. Olive Ave.

Burbank, CA 91505

Dear Mr. Roberts,

I am writing in regards to the CW show Supergirl. When Supergirl premiered on CBS, I found myself enamored with this lighthearted superhero show focused on family and the theme of ‘el mayarah’, or ‘stronger together’. Unfortunately, feminism is a rare find on mainstream TV these days, but Supergirl portrayed its main lead as a strong, capable woman who drew strength from the other women around her. Perhaps my favorite thing about the show is the bond between Kara and her adopted sister Alex. It’s so refreshing to see a show centered around the bond between two women, and two sisters at that.

When I heard that one of the DC shows would have a character come out, my thoughts instantly went to Alex, even though it seemed too much to hope for. And when she did indeed turn out to be that character, I was ecstatic. Alex’s journey this season has been everything I could have hoped for, and Chyler Leigh and Floriana Lima have been extremely outspoken in their support for this storyline. As a lesbian, representation like this is so wonderful to see, and I want to thank you for giving that to my community.

However, I have one major concern about Supergirl: Mon El. As I’m sure you know, Mon El has created a deep division among fans of the show. He perpetuates many sexist tropes, such as ‘frat boy is fixed by a woman’ and ‘inside every frat boy there’s a hero waiting to be brought out by a woman’. While I understand that the intent of the character was to show that anyone, even a person from a horrible background who is initially awful, can be a hero, I don’t think Mon El was the best vessel to tell that story. For starters, his story reinforces the idea that it’s a woman’s job to fix a man. That is not only sexist, but it frames Mon El as the lead instead of Kara and reduces her to a vessel in his story. This trope is also problematic for a very scary reason: It perpetuates abuse. Now, Mon El was not deliberately written to be abusive, and his character is meant to develop into a hero, not a villain. But girls who are watching this show will see this development and think that that is how things go in real life. When they meet a boy like Mon El, they will attempt to change him no matter how badly he treats them. And when that bad treatment escalates, they still won’t leave because they believe that if they only try harder, they can make him better like Kara did with Mon El. This is such a dangerous message to show to young, vulnerable girls. Media has a very real effect on real life, and internalizing this message can only lead to trouble.

I also don’t like how Mon El has taken up so much of the narrative. Part of season one’s charm was that the show focused around women and the relationships between them. Now Kara spends her time almost exclusively with him (incidentally, Kara has no plot line this season outside of Mon El) and barely ever interacts with her sister. Alex and Kara’s relationship was the heart of the show in s1, but now they have very little screen time together. This season, the show feels more like a romance-driven narrative, with Kara and Mon El and Alex and Maggie compartmentalized apart from one another. I understand that this is more or less par for the course on the CW, but it isn’t the show that I and so many others signed up for. Supergirl’s success wasn’t because it was similar to other CW superhero shows like Flash and Arrow; it was successful because it was different. But now that difference is slowly vanishing, and the show is losing viewers as a result.

Mon El is not the lead of Supergirl. Kara is. But it’s Mon El who gets the hero’s journey; Mon El who has driven much of this season even though CADMUS was touted as the big bad, and Mon El whose narrative is driving the latter half of season two with the arrival of his parents. The viewers of Supergirl are not interested in seeing a man take over the show when we started watching because of the powerful feminist protagonist. The product that is being sold is vastly different from the one we were promised.

I mentioned above that Mon El was not deliberately written to be abusive, but unfortunately, that’s how he has come off. Several people have come forward online, including abuse survivors, domestic violence attorneys, and therapists, and said that Mon El’s behavior is textbook emotional abuse. He has repeatedly ignored Kara’s thoughts and wishes and did what he wanted to instead. For example, when they first start dating, Kara asks him to keep it quiet for a while because her relationship with James crashed and burned and everyone knew about it. She wants time to explore this on her own. Mon El agrees without any hesitation, and in the very next scene, he blurts out their relationship to the entire DEO, which is her place of work. This behavior is disgusting. Not only does he disregard Kara’s very clearly expressed desire, he tells her coworkers about it in a professional setting. Later in the same episode, Kara asks him to be nice to her father Jeremiah, who has recently been rescued from a shady government organization. Instead of doing so, Mon El accuses the man of being a spy and calls J’onn and Alex incompetent for not being suspicious of him. He then tries to tell Kara that “all right, that’s two strikes on me”, and asks her to forget about it.

What Mon El does in the above examples is a classic case of emotional abuse. He ignores Kara’s wishes in favor of his own, and when she calls him out, he attempts to brush it off and asks her to forget it. Not only are there no repercussions for this behavior, but the viewers are shown that Mon El was correct about Jeremiah’s intentions, which is meant to validate the way he acted.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about Mon El is that he owned slaves. We currently have a president who is endorsed by the Klu Klux Klan, which is downright disturbing, and yet someone high up the chain decided that Kara should date a man who owned slaves. Again, Mon El faces no repercussions for this behavior. Kara breaks things off with him because he lied to her about being the prince, but less than a day later, she is back together with him. And she apologizes! Mon El is the one who had hurt Kara, he is the one who has done wrong, and yet he faces no consequences and instead is given an apology. I have no words to express how disgusting and harmful this is. If Mon El were to suffer some sort of consequence, this would be less upsetting, but because he is a white man in a position of privilege, he gets off scot-free for his actions. We already see this in our day to day lives, and now it is being shown in a TV program that once prided itself on being feminist.

I could go on about the problems Mon El brings to Supergirl, but in the interest of brevity, I will stop. Suffice it to say, the messages being shown are not messages that should be perpetuated, particularly when the majority of the audience followed it to the CW because they believed they were being given a vastly different product than the one that has shown up. Mon El embodies several sexist tropes, and he has demonstrated classic abuse behavior. And yet in spite of all this, he is still dating Kara and is given quite a lot of screen time on a female-led, female-driven show. We are even expected to support this relationship and root for him because ‘he has changed’, but the reality is that Mon El has not changed much at all and has no business dating a woman he treats in such a way.

This is not the Supergirl I fell in love with. I miss the show that lived and died by Alex and Kara’s connection. I miss the show that centered around family and legacy and what it truly means to be a hero. I miss the show about the relationships between women and I miss the show about faith and love. I had hoped that the CW would keep Supergirl true to its roots, and I can’t express my disappointment that that is not what’s happened. I sincerely urge you to reconsider what you are showing and how it matches up with what your audience wants to see. On behalf of women everywhere, I ask you to consider the messages you are expressing to us. We deserve to be heroes, not to be reduced to a love interest for a sexist, racist, disrespectful man.

Sincerely,

Jordan Meyer