I never meant to imply this had anything to do with her being a girl, I'd be saying the exact same things if we were watching a Nightwing show, and people wouldn't stop asking when Batman was going to show.
That's the thing about biases, though -- if we all realized we had them, they wouldn't be remotely as insidious. Even if you aren't influenced by a bias, you can still fail to realize that you're unintentionally reinforcing a bias of the society around you.
The character's gender may not matter to you, but it does matter to a lot of people, and that's the issue here. Getting rid of Superman to allow Supergirl to take the stage would reinforce sexist prejudices in a way that getting rid of Batman to allow Nightwing to take the stage would not. There are still pervasive imbalances in society that stack the deck against women, and acting as though the playing field is already level just defends the status quo and perpetuates the imbalance. The only real way to be fair in such an imbalanced context is to actively resist the systemic unfairness, to push back against those prejudices rather than pretending they aren't an issue. I've learned this myself over the years. I always tried to live according to the
Star Trek principles I was raised with and pretend that racial and gender distinctions between people were a non-issue, but I've realized that by doing so, I've been ignoring the fact that they still are a huge issue for many people and living in denial doesn't do anything to change that. None of us can pretend they aren't an issue until
everyone accepts that they aren't an issue, and we're sadly a long way from achieving that.
You keep acting like I'm the one who feels this way, but I don't. I'm talking about the way it seems to me other people are feeling, and how to stop it.
And what I'm saying is that you can't stop fans from having opinions, and you can't worry about them too much. I've seen instances of shows that overreacted to viewer complaints and ruined themselves by doing so, like
Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda. It was constantly overcorrecting and changing its whole approach in response to criticisms of its former approach, and so it ended up directionless and devoid of identity, because it was just reactive rather than creative. (Hey, those are anagrams!) Oh no, five people on the Internet are saying it's too episodic! Pile on the story arcs! Oh no, six other people are saying the story arcs are too hard to follow! Fire the showrunner and expunge all continuing story threads! It's a lousy way to run a railroad.
As a rule, the complainers are always going to be more vocal than the supporters. People who already like things the way they are don't have as much incentive to take action, so they stay more quiet on the whole than the people who are unhappy and want a change. So the complainers always seem like a larger group than they actually are. Which is just one of the reasons that it's unwise to overreact to their complaints and resist the urge to write defensively.
Maybe this is the new lois and clark of tv? Anyone remember how good that show was back in the day? And how it changed from season 1 to season 2?
Lois & Clark changed showrunners twice -- from Deborah Joy LeVine in season 1 to Robert Singer in season 2 to Eugenie Ross-Leming & Brad Buckner in seasons 3-4. I felt season 2 actually worked fairly well at first, with a better balance of superhero adventure and character drama/comedy than season 1, but on my recent revisit, I found that it got worse as it went on, becoming too goofy and silly. As for seasons 3-4, they were terrible. I don't think Ross-Leming and Buckner had any respect for the material, and it became pretty schlocky and dumb. I didn't even bother to rewatch them.
