I can't remember if you and I have discussed it before, but I know we've both discussed it with Hope - the people who watch and hate and watch and hate, week after week, season after season, never happy with the story arc, never squeeful... I've always been considered a gloomy downer of a girl, but I'm beginning to wonder what standards the folks in my hometown were using to judge.
If you think that rigidly and strip it down to one side is right and one side is wrong, you're going to miss out on half the show, which is missing out on half the tragedy of what's building here.
This being my first fandom, I can certainly see the advantages to watching a show outside fannish circles. On the one hand, I feel like I missed out on years of potential friendships in Buffy fandom...but I also was able to skip shipper wars, character hatred, and raving about how Joss is fucking with canon and ruining everything ;)
Insisting that the only way to be a fan of either character is to hate the other is incredibly short-sighted and childish and, as you've said, the viewer is basically putting on blinders to half of the story. I'm hardly unusual in that I tend to love the "bad guy," and I've certainly had my moments with Clark frustration, but there's no show without them both, and there's neither the drama nor growth we need to see happen in order for Clark to become Superman. If that means we have to see Lex become "evil" at the same time...well, I'm going to be watching. Front row seat.
It's taken to mythic icons and made them both incredibly flawed, wounded and human.
I never liked Superman (or Lex) until I started watching for the Pretty (and then the Sexy). The characters in comics had always seemed like cardboard cutouts, with a whiff of rigid conservatism that really did not appeal to me in the least. For every fanboy or girl who is rabid about the flaws in SV, there is probably at least one lapsed geek such as myself who has headed back to the comic book store as a result of watching the show. Rather than destroying Superman, the show certainly is giving him new life.
It's dopey, perhaps, but the very human flaws of the completely not-human Clark just make me ache for him.
And, for that matter, I do find it amusing and interesting that SV is seen as such a family-friendly and positive show when it clearly demonstrates that families (particularly fathers) can RUIN YOUR LIFE ;)
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Date: 2004-05-23 07:47 pm (UTC)If you think that rigidly and strip it down to one side is right and one side is wrong, you're going to miss out on half the show, which is missing out on half the tragedy of what's building here.
This being my first fandom, I can certainly see the advantages to watching a show outside fannish circles. On the one hand, I feel like I missed out on years of potential friendships in Buffy fandom...but I also was able to skip shipper wars, character hatred, and raving about how Joss is fucking with canon and ruining everything ;)
Insisting that the only way to be a fan of either character is to hate the other is incredibly short-sighted and childish and, as you've said, the viewer is basically putting on blinders to half of the story. I'm hardly unusual in that I tend to love the "bad guy," and I've certainly had my moments with Clark frustration, but there's no show without them both, and there's neither the drama nor growth we need to see happen in order for Clark to become Superman. If that means we have to see Lex become "evil" at the same time...well, I'm going to be watching. Front row seat.
It's taken to mythic icons and made them both incredibly flawed, wounded and human.
I never liked Superman (or Lex) until I started watching for the Pretty (and then the Sexy). The characters in comics had always seemed like cardboard cutouts, with a whiff of rigid conservatism that really did not appeal to me in the least. For every fanboy or girl who is rabid about the flaws in SV, there is probably at least one lapsed geek such as myself who has headed back to the comic book store as a result of watching the show. Rather than destroying Superman, the show certainly is giving him new life.
It's dopey, perhaps, but the very human flaws of the completely not-human Clark just make me ache for him.
And, for that matter, I do find it amusing and interesting that SV is seen as such a family-friendly and positive show when it clearly demonstrates that families (particularly fathers) can RUIN YOUR LIFE ;)