‘Supergirl’: Melissa Benoist that ‘Saturday Night Live’ – Black Widow sketch
The premiere of the “Supergirl” trailer generated quite a bit of discussion online. Clearly, quite a few people were more than excited to see it on the screen! However, at the same time it would be a lie to act as though there was not some sort of negative reaction to parts of it, as well. This always happens when you have 14 million people watch your trailer, but a comparison between it and a certain Black Widow parody on “Saturday Night Live” featuring Scarlett Johansson did not help.
For the record, the show was in some ways the victim of bad timing. It was really the music and also Kara Danvers a.k.a. Kara Zor-El working in Cat Grant’s building that made the trailer similar to the sketch, which had Black Widow working in a similar, “Devil Wears Prada” sort of capacity. The show’s pilot was written and made long before that sketch was, and they can’t just change things on the fly.
With that being said, star Melissa Benoist probably has the best attitude ever when talking about those similarities. Just take a look at what she had to say to Entertainment Weekly:
“We don’t really take ourselves too seriously in that respect. The camp is going to be there. It’s a superhero show. But I don’t think that takes away from the female empowerment. Obviously you see Kara in her work atmosphere, it resembles the Black Widow parody, but what you don’t see is Kara kicking butt. There’s so much more in the pilot that I think people are really going to be surprised by. Also, it’s a girl. Supergirl, that whole discussion, it’s a girl figuring out how to become a woman. [The SNL spoof] came out and all of us thought it was so hilarious. I don’t think any of us expected people to compare them or put them side-by-side.”
The pilot does have a whole lot more action, and while we do think there are obvious similarities between the trailer and the spoof, some of these are probably going to dissipate once people watch the show itself. “Supergirl” will premiere on CBS this October, and stay tuned for some more updates!