Princess Perilous and Ultra Lady find out what it's like to be supersheroes for a day
Maybe it was the empowering and inspiring story of Terrifica, the superheroine in NY, perhaps it was to make our surveys seem more legit, or could it just have been a good excuse to dress up in capes, incognito? For all these reasons and more, my friend Princess Perilous and I, Ultra Lady, decided to go out superheroine-style and hand out surveys to Clevelanders on the street, to find out how the general public really feels about caped crusaders. Due to our hectic schedules, we were only able to try out our new identities for an hour or so, but managed to get 45 surveys filled out and pick up lots of interesting comments from passersby
Initially, we had hoped to take out superlady roles to the next level: helping old ladies across the street, assisting small children in search of their parents, that kind of thing. Once we entered the public sphere however, it became clear that such actions might get us beat up rather than garnering gratitude. Many parents with small children shot us alarmed looks and pulled their youngsters in the opposite direction. Can't say I blame them, really: with our brightly colored tights, hot pants and black wigs we sort of resembled the Power Puff Girls' delinquent older sisters. During our first five minutes on the street, a carload of guys drove by, yelling Hey, superman! as we approached our first survey filler-outer: a nice woman with two little dogs.