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Supercorps Friday and Kara's Big Coming Out Moment

By Fannie

Just two heterosexual gals having a completely heterosexual conversation about their 100% heterosexual friendship:

I know I'm really gay, but in all seriousness, I find it nearly impossible to view Kara coming out to Lena as Supergirl as anything other than Kara professing her longstanding love for Lena. It's actually so obvious it feels silly saying out loud.

If Kara had just said, "I'm Supergirl" and left it at that, and Lena then expressed surprise, and they both moved on, one could maybe buy that this convo was solely a superhero-identity revelation.

But, Kara continues by saying, "I've always been Supergirl." The "always" comment is weird, right? Was there ever a possibility, for instance, that multiple people were pretending to be Supergirl and that Kara was only Supergirl for part of the time Supergirl has been around? No. Of course not. "I'm Supergirl" is clearly a stand-in for "I'm [in love with you.] I've always been [in love with you.]" because that's a somewhat standard line when TV/film characters are finally revealing undying love to a crush.

Also, I haven't fully bought Kara's angst about revealing her identity to Lena. Over the course of the previous four seasons, she has revealed her identity to many people, including those she has known for less time and initially has less reason to trust than Lena. The angst and fear in two canonically-hetero characters appears, on-screen, to stem more from feelings akin to, "Oh shit. I'm 'straight.' You're 'straight.' We're in love and I'm not sure how to handle it."

Lena's reaction, for instance, is hardly measured. She's left speechless, initially, and then goes up in front of a crowd and improvises a super touching speech about her "best friend."

Like the early seasons of Xena, it's clearly a same-sex romance that the powers-that-be are presenting in such a way that can plausibly (I guess?) be read as platonic by some viewers and subtextually queer by others, thus sort-of not fully pleasing or offending either camp.

In conclusion, I'll continue to monitor the situation. Um, for science.

Full post as published by Fannie's Room on October 25, 2019 (boomark / email).