Supergirl and Queerbaiting

Kara Danvers and Lena Luthor are endgame. At least, that’s what the majority of fans of these two believe. Supporters of Kara and Lena, aka Supercorp, have been arguing for them to get together since season 2, but the writers seem to insist that they are just friends, even as they continue to write scenes that mirror other popular tv show couples. This results in queerbaiting. 

Queerbaiting, a media tactic that hints at a queer relationship to attract LGBT viewers, has become a rising issue in the past 10 years, with shows like Supernatural, Sherlock, Teen Wolf, Once Upon a Time, The 100, and Rizzoli & Isles contributing to the problem [x]. Afierra from Hypable wrote an article on the issue of queerbaiting within Supergirl, illustrating how the queerbaiting on Supergirl is so strong that even non-LGBT fans can pick up on it. 

I want to illustrate how queerbaiting negatively impacts the LGBT fan community. Based on a majority of fan comments found on Tumblr, many fans are ecstatic about the idea of Kara and Lena’s relationship developing into a romantic one [x]. The reason so many fans are fairly positive about the progression of Supercorp’s relationship is that a show previously accused of queerbaiting, The Legend of Korra, revealed in the series finale that the two characters that were used for the “queerbaiting” actually ended up together [x]. This gives many fans of Kara and Lena hope that the two will get together romantically someday on the show. 

Comparing Lena and Kara’s relationship to other canon couples from other TV shows demonstrates how the show writers of Supergirl have continued to ‘string along’ the LGBT fans, resulting in fans being extremely displeased and let down. Additionally, with mental health issues being a higher risk for LGBT youth, it is important to look at the negative effects of queerbaiting as it may exacerbate the already alarming state of mental health of LGBT fans.

Evidence of Queerbaiting within Supergirl

Since the introduction of Lena Luthor at the beginning of season 2, “fans of their “relationship” began to emerge, mostly due to the natural chemistry between the two actresses” [x]. There are countless gifs of the flirtatious nature of their relationship. Another gif illustrates how Kara made the same face when James Olsen spoke, whom she was interested in romantically, as when Lena Luthor spoke to her, resulting in hope that Lena will become a love interest for Kara [x].

However, Supergirl is now on its fifth season, and there is no evidence - besides the hope from fans - that Kara and Lena will get together romantically. However, there is speculation that Supercorp will happen as within the Arrowverse shows the main characters have their one and only since the first few seasons of the show - Oliver met Felicity in season one, Iris has been on the show since day one, and Sara met Ava in the third season of Legends and their relationship is still going strong. Besides Lena, her sister, and her father figure, there is no other character that has been on the show for very long; in fact, most of the cast for the fifth season was introduced last season. Additionally, Kara and Lena are portrayed in typical superhero tropes that parallel other shows like Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and even from past shows that depict Superman and Lois Lane [x]. 

The biggest parallels that fans of Supercorp make is with Superman and Lois Lane, like Kara hovering outside Lena’s window [x]. Another parallel was drawn between Supergirl and The Legend of Korra, where both Kara and Korra are incredibly powerful beings who have an intense love of food, and Asami and Lena are both brilliant women who have an engineering background and have strayed from their families’ beliefs [x]. Asami and Lena have done whatever they could to protect Korra/Kara, and have both inherited their families’ companies, becoming the CEO [x]. Not to mention that both Korra and Asami dated the same man, Mako, at different points during the show, while Kara and Lena both dated the same man, James, at different points during the show. This gives fans of Supercorp hope that Kara and Lena’s relationship will develop into a romantic one, as Supergirl and The Legend of Korra are both very similar shows and Korra and Asami from Legend of Korra ended up together in the end. 

All of this - the parallels between other couples from other shows as well as romantically inclined scenes between Kara and Lena - have given fans a base for their belief that the show writers of Supergirl are actively queerbaiting, in which they purposely make the scenes between Kara and Lena somewhat romantic in order to draw in an LGBT audience. At this point, the queerbaiting has become so strong “it’s no longer just Kara and Lena fans who are interpreting their interactions as amorous. People who are completely indifferent to the pair or don’t even watch the show are recognizing what’s happening” [x]. 

For over three years, Supercorp fans have been queerbaited by the show writers of Supergirl, and this constant queerbaiting affects the LGBT fans because there isn’t a belief that “it’s just a matter of time” but that they must hold dear and take whatever scraps they are given. The fans want and hope that Supercorp will happen, but there isn’t any fan that is 100% sure that Kara and Lena will end up together like fans of heterosexual couples. This lack of certainty that LGBT fans exhibit is based on the history of LGBT portrayal within the media. The lack of portrayal of LGBT fans in the past, as well as a history of queerbaiting from a multitude of popular shows, results in LGBT fans’ low confidence in seeing themselves represented on screen.

Research that Supports the Negative Effects of Queerbaiting

LGBT fans have only just begun to see a spark of more LGBT centered shows and movies within the past few years, but there are also many shows which have queerbaited their LGBT audience. For instance, The 100, while giving its audience a lesbian “relationship” between Clarke and Lexa, \they had a total of two romantic scenes in which Lexa was killed off the show right after the last romantic scene of the two. A majority of the fans were outraged due to the Bury Your Gays (BYG) trope, where a character who is revealed to have a queer identity is then shortly killed off the show because the “BYG trope punishes these characters by erasing them from the narrative entirely if the depiction indeed goes beyond subtext to include acknowledged queer identity” [x]. Both queerbaiting and the BYG trope is harmful to the LGBT fan community as fans see themselves in these characters, and when those characters are pushed into an opposite-sex relationship or their sexuality is limited to subtext, it implies to the LGBT fan community that their sexuality should never be acted on and they should always remain hidden. More than 70% of LGBT youth have reported “feeling sad or helpless for at least two weeks in the past year” [x], and with popular media utilizing queerbaiting within their shows, it doesn’t help the already despondent LGBT youth. Therefore, “both queerbaiting and BYG…  punish queer audiences by the suggestion (or even promise) of quality LGBTQ representation, only to have their hopes dashed” [x]. 

In season five of Supergirl, the queerbaiting has reached a whole new level in that the fans don’t even need to reach to find hidden implications of a romantic nature between Kara and Lena. But throughout these Supercorp scenes, there are always reaffirming their friendship status. By the writers reaffirming Kara and Lena’s relationship as “just friends” and then at the same time playing into the romantic tropes between Kara and Lena, it gives the LGBT fan less confidence to believe that they will get to see the happily ever after they crave because, in the past, many relationships they believed had the potential to be something more was written off as “just friends” or the characters that were confirmed queer were then killed off. This implies to the LGBT fan community that having a happy ending isn’t for queer characters and therefore, not for their queer audience either. 

The LGBT youth fan community is already struggling with mental illness and a sense of identity due to having to hide their true selves or be unable to acknowledge it because of still prevalent homophobia, so many will turn to media as a distraction or even as a way to gain hope for their own future. But when so many shows are debased to queerbaiting, the hope these fans have for their future becomes further diminished with lack of representation, and will negatively affect the LGBT fan audience to believe that nothing will come out of their hopes and beliefs of two characters getting together romantically. 

Conclusion

From the analysis of the evidence above, it’s becoming more obvious that the Supergirl writers are actively queerbaiting their audience to the point that LGBT fans aren’t the only ones noticing it. As discussed previously, queerbaiting negatively affects LGBT youth as it diminishes their hope for a better future, further outcasts them within society, and lowers their self-confidence. Therefore, with a popular show that is so clearly queerbaiting its audience, it further drives the previous negative points of this issue because it's now seen by all types of audience members that the LGBT fans aren’t worth the happy ending they seek within popular media. 

Producers and writers of popular media need to understand the detrimental effects of queerbaiting the LGBT fan community. Therefore, more action will be taken by fans if they feel that Supergirl has wronged them in the lack of representation between Kara and Lena. 

Therefore, the writers of Supergirl need to either stop blatantly queerbaiting their audience or allow for Kara and Lena’s relationship to develop into what many fans have already vied for: Supercorp. If the writers continue to walk the path they’re currently on, fans will become outraged and the ratings of their show will come down. So, for the benefit of Supergirl, the fans’ happiness and mental stability, stop with Supercorp and queerbaiting.