There’s an overwhelmingly dark and individualist focus across the superhero genre, even in works dealing with teams and coming together. DC Universe and CW’s Stargirl works to show the importance of teamwork, and how it can only come from true friendship and belief in one another, as well as yourself. Stargirl shows its optimism and belief in raising up the ones you love, be them superheroes, sidekicks, or your family. Even the backstories of the villain characters deal with the importance of family and how that can be fractured when love and respect isn’t easily seen from the ones from which you expect to be respected and loved.
Stargirl uses its humor, fight choreography, and backstories to create a show filled with optimism that brings the importance of teamwork, friendship, and family to the surface. Questions about morality, human nature, and family are raised throughout the series, and always handled with careful attention.
Humor Builds Relationships
Courtney Whitmore (Brec Bassinger) starts off disliking her stepdad, and not wanting to move when he packs up their family to go to small-town Blue Valley. Throughout the series, her relationship with her stepdad, Pat Dugan (Luke Wilson) gets stronger in a natural progression, one that involves humor and finding where you belong in the world that seems hellbent on keeping you down.
When Courtney first discovers the secret Pat is keeping, she says “You don’t get to ask the questions, ‘Pat’. If that’s even your real name.” to which he responds, “It’s Patrick.” Even from this early moment, we feel the beginning of a dynamic shift, bringing Courtney and her stepdad closer through a quick response with a dad-joke charm.
As Courtney and Pat grow closer, and more friends – children for Pat to take care of with their superhero duties – come into the fold, the humor sparks an instant connection between the newfound friends. When Courtney, aka Stargirl, recruits Beth Chapel, aka Dr. Midnight (Anjelika Washington), Yolanda Montez, aka Wildcat (Yvette Monreal), and Rick Tyler, aka Hourman (Cameron Gellman) to her team of teenage superheroes, they have a moment of connection when Pat describes the eternal fights between the Justice Society of America and the Injustice Society of America. The teens all agree that the people who come up with these names aren’t doing a great job. This bonds them and helps the group become even stronger, both in and out of battle.
Throughout the series, moments of humor work to make everyone feel safe like they finally found a place to call their own. There are awkward moments of comedy throughout the series, and we learn more about each character as we see how they react under pressure and when they are only surrounded by the people who care for and support them. When Pat and Courtney try to hide part of their secret, there’s something sweet about them both–unbeknownst to the other–coming up with the same excuse of falling down the basement stairs.
Further along in the show, naming conventions bring humor to the forefront and connect Courtney to her friends. When Pat first tells Courtney about the Seven Soldiers of Victory, she responds, “there were eight of you, Pat.” In another episode, Beth sees the same picture and tells Pat, “There’s eight of you in the picture” to which he responds “I know that Beth” while taking the picture back.
Importance of Teamwork
The fight scenes in Stargirl bring forth the importance of working together, and how going off alone ends in disaster. Being in-sync with your teammates and friends helps bring the best out of every single member of this loving team as they save their town and the world. During the battles, characters will use their powers to support each other, instead of aiming every single fight move towards the enemy.
In addition to combining moves to make their teammates better, Stargirl also highlights the power found within every character, even if they aren’t the traditional heroes of the story. None of the main group have their powers without specific items granting them use. But even the characters who possess no powers at all are still able to fight – and even be the ones to save the day.
In episode 12, Pat’s son, Mike Dugan (Trae Romano), and Courtney’s mom, Barbara Whitmore (Amy Smart), stand their own ground in fights and have their own moments that helps fight against the villains of the series.
When characters go off alone to fight without the support of their teammates and friends, only disaster and heartache occurs. When Courtney, after pushing away her teammates during a failed training exercise, goes off to investigate the ISA on her own, she gets hurt the most she has all season during a battle with Cindy Burman, aka Shiv (Meg DeLacy). By working without the team she has grown to love, Courtney starts to value the importance of teamwork.
As the series progresses, Rick, Beth, Yolanda, and Courtney become closer, and Pat acts as a protective father towards them all, creating a wonderful team that gives each person new expectations of what it means to be family. When Courtney has a bad meeting with her biological father, her friends come together to make sure she knows she’s special, and just because something she believed in wasn’t true doesn’t mean she’s any less of a hero.
Even Villains Get Emotional Depth
The focus on family throughout Stargirl isn’t delegated only to the heroes of the series. So many adaptations within the superhero genre spend less time on their villains and don’t represent their depth and the fact that they have lives outside of being the one our heroes are fighting against. Stargirl does a wonderful job of making each villain have moments that make us wonder if they might make a decision against their team in order to save the ones they love.
Throughout the season, there are many moments when I felt for the characters most often designed to only be hated. The reason Stargirl works so well and discusses concepts of morality and what it means to do the right thing is because the villains are written as people, instead of figureheads we dislike from a distance.
Seeing Jordan Mahkent, aka Icicle (Neil Jackson), in intimate moments with his son Cameron (Hunter Sansone) dealing with the death of his mother offers an insight into their relationship and a desire for things to work out for the better.
By allowing the audience to see villains with the same frequency and heart that we always view the heroes, Stargirl fully explores the question of are people inherently good or bad.
In some relationships represented in the show, this question pushes parents and children apart, because they have different views of human nature. The relationships between parents and their children – both close and distant – offer problems and dynamics that are unique to those characters, yet universally understandable.
Giving these characters backstories that would make anyone feel their pain, the emotions of the series run strong and showcase how important communication is for any relationship, be it romantic, platonic, or familial.
By having a team of villains, each with their own issues to move through, there’s always a deep-down feeling that someone might change their mind and reveal heroic tendencies, but even when they don’t, we still see the humanity inside every character.
The closed-off relationship between Henry King aka Brainwave (Christopher James Baker) and Henry King Jr. (Jake Austin Walker) offers a welcome dissonance from the close bond we see between Jordan and Cameron. These relationships are completely different in terms of affection and respect, but both of the father figures are part of the Injustice Society of America.
Displaying different types of father figures within both the stories of heroes and villains, we feel just as much pain seeing an unhealthy dynamic represented in characters deemed villains and ones looked at as heroes.
Friendships and Family Relationships Take Center Stage
Even with looming disaster and intense battles throughout the first season of Stargirl, the relationships at the center of the story are given the importance that they rightfully deserve.
We get to watch Courtney grow and accept herself as she makes friends and discovers the family she needs is the one who sticks around and shows her the love she deserves. In a very emotionally resonant moment, Pat stands up to Courtney against her biological father who asks for Courtney to give him back her necklace, which is the only thing she has to remember him all because he wants to sell them for a little extra money. Pat stands up for Courtney and makes sure she knows that he’ll be there for her.
Throughout the season, Pat’s bonding with Courtney puts Mike in a position of being left out because he doesn’t share the same super-hero-sized secret that she does. He feels like he’s losing his place in his father’s life. This type of emotional moment, especially with a male character, would be bottled up and ignored in a different show, but Stargirl explores the implications and even makes notice of how Mike and Barbara begin spending more time together.
The two share a wonderful moment when Barbara helps Mike with his science fair project–a volcano of chocolate–which they eat together after the fair is over. The moments of bonding with his stepmom are nice, but the series never forgets that Mike misses being the only one in his dad’s life.
Stargirl cares about the neglect newfound bonds can create. The series always explores multiple sides of every dynamic to showcase realistic and layered relationships.
Stereotypical Teen Drama Doesn’t Overpower Emotional Developments
Stargirl stands apart from other teen shows by making sure to focus equally on the life of its teen main characters, their personal journeys, and the friendships they build throughout the series. So many shows about teenagers focus entirely on the romance and the high school drama, which are elements that get touched upon in Stargirl, but they never take up so much of the story that the building of friendships and finding your family falls to the wayside.
Stargirl includes plots that are commonly present in teen media, such as crushes, rumors, and bullies, but these stories feel closer to how they are in reality and less centered around how intense and ‘adult’ the scenarios can become as the story progresses. Yolanda, Beth, Rick, and Courtney come together when Courtney joins their table at lunch and realizes it’s the only place where she’s welcome to sit. The group starts the series as outcasts, only together because they have nowhere else to go, but as they get to know each other, and realize what they have each gone through, friendship forms among the group. They have finally found the people they can call family when their own home lives might not be as great as they deserve.
There are hints at romantic relationships, but these are worked into the more important focus on self-discovery and figuring out where you fit in. Yolanda, Rick, Beth, and Courtney all have their individual problems to face, and at first, they try to do this alone. It doesn’t take long for them to realize that facing their problems together will bring them closer together, and ready to stand up for what they believe in.
As we learn more about Beth’s relationship with her parents, we can see how much she wants and needs to find friends her own age, and be appreciated by her peers, instead of pushed aside. At first, Courtney and Yolanda don’t want Beth to join them, but they quickly realize the hypocrisy of their actions and build a lasting bond with Beth. The same happens when Rick joins the group, and everyone must accept him, faults and all, to truly be the heroes we know they can.
Conclusion
Stargirl brings new, optimistic light to a genre so frequently centered around fight scenes where everyone is off by themselves, and not fully welcoming the friendship and family that comes along with being a team. Stargirl is a welcome entry into the superhero television world that touches on issues of morality, the different types of families, and the importance of helping each other. There are many ways the series deals with these topics and showcases the importance of teamwork in all aspects of life.
What are your favorite superhero tv shows? Do you like it when shows and films explore the complexity of relationships? Share your thoughts in the comments.
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