Adoptive Mom Pens Thank You Letter to "Supergirl" for Nuanced Portrayal of Adoption

[CBR News]

"Bullied" author Carrie Goldman recounts her family's experiences with the show as well as the day they met stars Melissa Benoist and Chyler Leigh.


Full article here.

[dan12456]

That's awesome. Love stories like this.

[pogofan]

That's awesome. Love stories like this.

Ditto! And BTW, I'm an adult adoptee with an adopted son (but unlike Kara, he doesn't have a sibling in our family).

[pogofan]

I just clicked on the link to read the full blog post--it brought tears to my eyes. Reading about how Benoist and Leigh interacted with the family at C2E2 was really beautiful.

[Osiris-Rex]

This is the thing haters of this show just don't get and never will.

[Holt]

Fiction in general is often really crappy about adoption. Adoptive families are usually abusive at worst and at best a placeholder until the main character can go find his real family. I'm happy to read stuff like this.

[Den]

Okay, that is a fantastic and well expressed bit of feel good news.

[j9ac9k]

Yeah, for anyone who dismissed "Supergirl" at first because it didn't live up to their expectations for a super-hero show, how about actually having a deep and positive effect on families like this? How about a tv show actually being heroic?

My wife was adopted and it's always been a sore spot the way adoption has been used as a punchline or how "you're adopted" has been used as an insult. I actually considered taking my wife to "The Avengers" (she's not a big comic book fan, but sometimes I make her watch stuff), but Thor's one "he's adopted" joke about Loki made it not worth while - it's an insensitive joke in the middle of a fluffy movie that could have ruined her night. (I'm really disappointed in you Joss ... c'mon, you went to Wesleyan for Pete's sake....)

[t hedge coke]

Yeah, for anyone who dismissed "Supergirl" at first because it didn't live up to their expectations for a super-hero show, how about actually having a deep and positive effect on families like this? How about a tv show actually being heroic?

I do kind of question what Supergirl the people who got the maddest have ever liked, but boy, if you said you liked the pilot because it was heroic and people were nice, you could get jumped on immediately by "Well, ____ is dark and serious and had politics." I, of course, was to much of a gentleman, to add to that "politics of a frustrated fourteen year old boy."

Seriously, though, there's a lot to be said for having some positive presence for things like adoption or, well, superheroing.

My wife was adopted and it's always been a sore spot the way adoption has been used as a punchline or how "you're adopted" has been used as an insult. I actually considered taking my wife to "The Avengers" (she's not a big comic book fan, but sometimes I make her watch stuff), but Thor's one "he's adopted" joke about Loki made it not worth while - it's an insensitive joke in the middle of a fluffy movie that could have ruined her night. (I'm really disappointed in you Joss ... c'mon, you went to Wesleyan for Pete's sake....)

Prima. Nocta.

Whedon doesn't do conversations. He just has people say things. Sometimes they repeat them. Because that's funny. Or, announce things. Lots of asides. But, can you imagine if they actually sat there and talked about "he's adopted"? Or, Loki at all? Or, "I will be reinstating prima nocta"?

It is an effective technique, unless it pings something for us, as individuals.

[AdamFTF]

Yeah, for anyone who dismissed "Supergirl" at first because it didn't live up to their expectations for a super-hero show, how about actually having a deep and positive effect on families like this? How about a tv show actually being heroic?

My wife was adopted and it's always been a sore spot the way adoption has been used as a punchline or how "you're adopted" has been used as an insult. I actually considered taking my wife to "The Avengers" (she's not a big comic book fan, but sometimes I make her watch stuff), but Thor's one "he's adopted" joke about Loki made it not worth while - it's an insensitive joke in the middle of a fluffy movie that could have ruined her night. (I'm really disappointed in you Joss ... c'mon, you went to Wesleyan for Pete's sake....)

It is kind of strange coming from Joss Whedon, considering how many of his works are built around what could be considered an unconventional family unit. Both Buffy and Firefly had it. He probably picked it up from reading X-Men when he was young, considering how X-Men is the ultimate "unconventional family" in comics.

But then, the media often steers away from how complicated family can be.

It makes me think of how many wicked stepmothers there are in fairy tales and how many of them were biological mothers in earlier versions. Or how Disney made Pinocchio into the simple case of a lonely old man wanting a child when in the book Geppetto wanted a son to help him make money and Pinocchio just wanted to do whatever he wanted and neither quite got what he expected at first.

Family can be messy and complicated and sometimes difficult to understand from the outside no matter how said family came about. And sometimes it's just too easy for the media to streamline that away.

[Wandacrystal22]

AMEN! This show got alot better ever since Jon Jonnz came onto the scene!

[Frontier]

Yeah, for anyone who dismissed "Supergirl" at first because it didn't live up to their expectations for a super-hero show, how about actually having a deep and positive effect on families like this? How about a tv show actually being heroic?

My wife was adopted and it's always been a sore spot the way adoption has been used as a punchline or how "you're adopted" has been used as an insult. I actually considered taking my wife to "The Avengers" (she's not a big comic book fan, but sometimes I make her watch stuff), but Thor's one "he's adopted" joke about Loki made it not worth while - it's an insensitive joke in the middle of a fluffy movie that could have ruined her night. (I'm really disappointed in you Joss ... c'mon, you went to Wesleyan for Pete's sake....)

Heck, for all the hate Arrow and Katie Cassidy's Laurel has gotten, there was that article a while back about how Laurel's character development and Sara as Canary really inspired a Cancer survivor.

Supergirl and Flash have both been pretty great about portraying adoptive families in a positive way (setting aside the dynamic of the BarryxIris romance I guess), and Superman's whole origin is probably one of the oldest and best positive representation of an adoptive family .

[j9ac9k]

It is kind of strange coming from Joss Whedon, considering how many of his works are built around what could be considered an unconventional family unit. Both Buffy and Firefly had it.

Yeah, that's why it was especially surprising coming from Joss's pen. I rewatched an episode of "Buffy" not long ago when the gang stands up for Tara against her biological family, claiming her as their own, regardless of her "witchy nature" and it brought me to tears. I know Thor's comment was a funny joke that most people aren't sensitive to, but I am glad to see the change where children of adoption aren't presented as the rejects that they are often afraid that they are. (and had previously been presented as)