Something I’ve noticed is that when we criticize Mon, someone always jumps into the notes to defend him. And the way they defend him is always the same – “well, he’s new to this planet, he doesn’t know how things are here!” / “he’s still learning, give him a chance” / “Well, but Kara likes him that’s all that matters” / “He lost his whole planet he’s probably traumatized” / “When he choked Kara and threw her through a window, he was scared and confused because he’d just woke up” / etc.
But here’s the thing: he is not any of those things. People are defending him as if he is a real person. He is not.
When we criticize Mon, we are not criticizing him as a person, because he isn’t one. He is a fictional character. We are criticizing the way he is being written. We are not angry at Mon the person because he does not exist.
We are angry because on a television show about a female hero, one marketed toward young girls, we just got an episode where two men fought over which one of them Kara belonged to, completely disregarding Kara’s agency and (lack of) consent.
We are criticizing the writing because we have yet to see a single reason why Kara likes him, or why he is somehow worthy of her, because his attraction to her, and him feeling bad because he thinks she doesn’t like him is not, by any measure, a reason why she should return that affection. As written, her interest in him is completely inexplicable, other than the fact that the actor playing this character is conventionally attractive. That’s not me saying “Mon is a terrible person and Kara doesn’t even like him”, because again, he’s not real. That’s me saying “The writing this season is terrible.”
We are critical of his character because, as we learned last season, they can easily write a character being confused on Earth, and not understanding how things work without writing the character as an admitted misogynist.
We are critical because if they wanted to show a character being scared and confused, there are dozens of ways to do that without him violently assaulting his future love interest, but they chose to write it this way.
We are criticizing the writing because if they wanted to show a relationship between two characters from different worlds, they could have done that with James and Kara, because James is from Earth and Kara is from Krypton. But they chose to suddenly and abruptly break up a relationship that they spent an entire season establishing and still haven’t adequately explained why in the story, and put Kara in a romantic relationship with Mon instead.
Mon isn’t real. He is a fictional character. We aren’t angry at him, because he doesn’t exist. We’re angry at the systemic culture of misogyny and racism, where the writers and producers and network executives think breaking up an interrracial couple after a season-long slow-burn before they even have a date so they can bring in a white guy; where the writers may have intended to write a brash hero, but think that means he should belittle and humiliate his love interest, our title character; where nobody seemed to have stopped to think “perhaps we should not have our future male romantic lead violently assault our female lead in a manner extremely reminiscent of domestic violence in a show aimed at young girls?”; where nobody seems to have stopped to think, period.
Look. I get that people who ship it think Mon is handsome, and that you think he just needs to be given a chance and he’ll change for Kara because he loves her so much. But he’s not real. He’s not capable of that, because he doesn’t exist. You can’t remove him from the context of the world we live in, because fiction doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and a show for young girls about a female hero normalizing that this is what romantic relationships should be like is incredibly irresponsible, and just plain bad writing.
There are hundreds of different ways they could have written this character. They chose to write him as a misogynist. They chose to take the romantic lead role away from the black man playing a beloved character, and give it to the new white boy instead. They chose to show our new romantic lead being physically violent to our female lead on more than one occasion – and specifically showed her being physically vulnerable to his strength (the scene where he chokes Kara and throws her through a window? Watch it again. He chokes her with one hand, picks her up by the throat and throws her with one hand – as Kara struggles and uses both hands to try to free herself and can’t, watch Kara on the ground as he kicks her in the stomach, sending her body sliding clear across the room). They chose to show him treat Kara as a prize to be won. They chose to write it in such a way that it, at best, is something very close to emotional abuse. They chose to show him disrespecting Kara. And they chose to have Kara be interested in him. They chose to sideline Supergirl in her own show (the only plot Kara has this season is supporting Mon).
They did not have to write him this way. But they did, and it’s reprehensible and irresponsible.
So, no. I don’t hate Mon. He doesn’t exist. What I do hate is every single one of the decisions made by the writers, producers and network executives that led to them thinking this was how to write a romantic relationship. It isn’t.
How many young girls will aspire to this kind of relationship because of this show? How many will be treated cruelly and think it’s just the way things work in relationships because of the message the writers are teaching them? Shows have shoved this nonsense down people’s throats for decades. It’s not revolutionary, it’s not cute, it’s not “banter” as the EP calls it, it’s damaging. They could literally be harming young woman with this story line. Whoever is responsible for turning a show about empowering women into a show about treating them poorly needs to be fired.
As they like to say in comics, with great power comes great responsibility. The Supergirl writers need to start taking some for their actions.
The Doctor Is Out 