Superman (2025)

When I first clicked ‘play’ to watch ‘They Fight’ and began seeing André Holland in a do-rag and prison scrubs begging for his freedom, my first reaction was to click ‘stop’ and find something else to watch. I did not want to watch another Black man in a stereotypical role. The next day I came back and continued to watch it with an underlying sense of dismay.

Here’s the set-up: An ex-con/ex-boxing coach with an ex-lover wanders into the Congress Park Recreational Center and finds redemption.

I really wanted to like this film but it was hard to see past all the tropes that appear from the very beginning.  André Holland(Walter) and Wendell Pierce(Slim) were as brilliant as always. Unfortunately, their impeccable performances were in the context of appealing to the “White gaze” - a term coined by Toni Morrison describing how Black art is altered to fit the perceptions of non-melanated folks. 

It’s important to note the source material for this project is a documentary of the same title and a Washington Post article that chronicles the story of a self-taught boxing coach who uses the sweet science to connect with his stepson and eventually impacts the young men of Southeast DC. Some of those key elements that made this story so compelling were eliminated from the HULU original film.

Supergirl embodied some super powerful themes. As a disclaimer to start, I have to rewatch it again later when it comes out on streaming, so I can watch it more thoroughly with subtitles due to bad hearing. However, I wanted to get this out there as a start in order to validate the movie, since I already love it. I want to do my part in countering the bad reviews online.

Kara (Milly Alcock) is both the cool girl as well as the more complex and compelling dark feminine character. As the cool girl, she’s a cross between Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) in Thor: Ragnarok and Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) in Guardians of the Galaxy. Drunken, independent, and nonchalant. Yet, when it comes down to defending the innocent from danger, she steps up immediately. She saw little Ruthye as a nuisance at first glance, but then felt intrinsically called to protect her.

Supergirl is also somewhat reminiscent of Loki (Tom Hiddleston) in terms of having some of the darker qualities. She was traumatized by having her whole species decimated, including her parents and her planet. She was sent off to safety in a space shuttle by her father, alone with only her cute little puppy. The only kin in the universe remaining was her cousin —Superman, whom she met for the first time upon arrival on Earth.

Unlike other “good” superheroes, she’s not afraid to kill the villain in the end. She spares Ruthye the moral burden – insisting that she walk away from the bloody deed. After Ruthye (Eve Ridley) reluctantly complies and tearfully hugs her, departing the scene, Kara stabs the villain twice, in the chest. It’s pretty gruesome. This is pretty much the personification of dark feminine energy. Destroying evil in order to protect the good and the innocent. Kara possesses Kali energy, the dark feminine goddess in Hindu mythology. Only a baby fan of the DC comics if that, I hadn’t known the storyline ahead of time. I was a bit surprised by the direct demise of the villain, to be honest.