Let's See If I Can Turn A Day Wasted Watching Superman Cartoons and Marathoning Supergirl Into Something Meaningful

You know since WWII the span of time one spends in adolescence has been stretched. There are a lot of reasons for that, the increased wealth of the post-war era, the increasing amount of education required for employment, the commodification of youth culture. It's annoys me to do so but even I have to admit that, having wasted the day watching a bunch of Superman cartoons.

It's a topic that's been hit too death by a series of newspaper and magazine articles, but ironically enough I feel that it's television that's come closest examining this particular moment in that phenomenon with shows like Broad City and Girls.

And while I can appreciate those shows, Broad City is one of the funniest things to hit Comedy Central since The Chapelle Show, none of them really speak to my experience.


Up until now I took this as willful self-delusion on my part. That yeah I am just as immature and wishy washy as Hannah Horvath and didn't want to admit it. It still might be willful self-delusion.
But then came Supergirl.



Supergirl as a character about the experience of being young. And she always has been but watching this show about somebody realizing that they are both a part of and apart from the legacy of the past generation for some reason strikes a chord with me. Uh did I mention I have Jr. issues. You may know every trick the original knew at his peak but you don't know a thing about me.

But more over than that a lot of the choices the show makes aren't about speaking to the teenagers the original comics were aimed at but to... me. Twenty something millennials who are trying to balance what they want to do with their lives with what they've for various reasons decided to do right now in this moment.

Anyway the show feels like a more optimistic less cynical Girls. And based on what I've seen each of the monsters of the week advances that theme.

First off they aged up Jimmy Olsen and Kara. It puts them both in a place where they have some experience and respect but not the same experience and respect as the rest of the Superman family of characters.

Not only that but a theme of several episodes is the spinning plate routine. And in doing so it gives some advice I'm slowly learning but wish somebody would have stopped and told me. You can have it all but not all at once and not right away.

One of the undercurrent phenomenon not often commented on is what happens when you have a generation of college graduates as coffee baristas. You end up with a lot of people trying to use what they have in whatever ways they can,  whether that be by going back to school to get smarter, starting a blog, volunteering or whatever.

Constantly shifting what part of your life means what to you and the person you want to be is an inescapable part of that equation.

Supergirl or Kara Danvers. Superman or Clark Kent.