Supergirl's Mon-El Problem
During this week’s “SuperFlash” crossover Kara (Melissa Benoist) and Barry (Grant Gustin) were sent into a fever dream. In order to escape, they had to help Tommy and Millie, played by Mon-El (Chris Wood) and Iris (Candice Patton), tell their families, who happen to be mortal enemies, about their relationship. Kara takes Tommy to talk to his father who is pissed that he’s fallen for the daughter of his enemy. Kara jumps in to defend Tommy. Of course, he didn’t tell his father about his relationship. He knew that his dad would react negatively. She advises his dad to listen to Tommy and try to see things from his point of view. As Kara gives this advice, she realizes that she never listened to Mon-El’s reason for lying to her. Ultimately, she forgives Mon-El and they get back together. The Music Meister (Darren Criss) traveled across dimensions to show two heart broken heroes that “love is about letting yourself be saved.” Love is about many things, one of which is allowing yourself to be saved but that’s one part of a million.
At the end of this week’s “Supergirl,” Kara finally reached her limit of free passes for Mon-El’s behavior. Since their romantic relationship began, she’s spent the majority of her time trying to get him to listen to her and scolding him for trying to possess her. Kara is a strong independent woman and his refusal to do these things is, at best, disrespectful. You can’t love someone you don’t respect and declaring your love doesn’t give you a free pass on hurting them.
We deserve better than seeing this show, which has had strong feminist roots from day one, have Mon-El, a straight white man, get the girl simply because he wants her. For now Kara and Mon-El are back together. Hopefully the next time Mon-El disrespects Kara she’ll remember her threat and drop a mountain on him because Kara deserves the best and so far Mon-El doesn’t rank.