Fandom is wacky: Smallville edition

[butterfly]

So, I've been reading the TWoP boards for Smallville (which is kinda crazy, but I started going back over there for... Battlestar Galactica and the Supernatural boards are good (though the first season recaps of the show suck -- second season is looking up, because they're being written by the guy who wrote the recap for the pilot and not the Supernatural-hating hack that recapped the rest of the season... dude, at least try to be amusing when you hate)) and ran across this theory called 'Chlois'.

Which baffles me. Did this theory exist back in season three (which is the last time that I visited the Smallville boards)? I don't remember it, though the Chloe-worship is... familiar.

Apparently, there is a group of people who think that Chloe is going to change her name to Lois, dye her hair, change her personality, pretend not to know Clark, and then become the love of Clark's life (because he's not going to notice that Lois has gotten a lot shorter... because he's a "Big Dumb Alien" who isn't worthy of her Radiant Goddess Glow and... why do they want her with him again?).

Or I guess they think that Chloe is already like Lois Lane which... baffles me more. Chloe is soppy. Lois Lane is not soppy. Lois Lane is the opposite of soppy. I mean... I don't have anything against Chloe, I've always mostly liked her (she was my favorite female on the show in seasons 1-3, before Lois showed up and stole my heart (as she does)), but how is she anything like Lois Lane? Chloe is an underdog. She has, like, eighty-gazillion fans (note: number may or may not be exaggerated) because she's an underdog.

Lois Lane isn't an underdog.

I can't ever imagine Chloe staring down her boss and saying that she didn't write a mood piece because she "wasn't in the mood" (I can imagine SV's Lois saying that, though -- only the news that she's interested in, thank you). Lois is confrontational, pushy, and (gasp!) kinda bitchy. She steamrolls over people when she's figuring out what to do and then is annoyed at them for not being fast enough to move out of the way.

Not everyone likes Lois Lane. That's always been true. It amuses me how many people on the "Chlois" thread bash Lois and Clark's Lois, who strikes me as a classic Lois in the tradition of the better comics and the first two movies. Dude, y'all don't even like Lois. Why do you want your favorite character to turn into her? Is the love of Clark that wonderful and amazing?

I love Smallville's Lois Lane. Like the other classic comic characters (Clark and Lex), they took the basic character profile and twisted it so that Lois was actively fighting against her future.

But all three of them have the essence of what will one day make them their Iconic character (It took me forever to figure out that ILL stood for "Iconic Lois Lane", btw.). Lex has the will to power, Clark has that need to help, and Lois has the guts to stand up to both of them. All three of them are coming by those essences differently than the various other versions of themselves, but that's all right. That's comics. There are many worlds, many versions. They don't cancel each other out, nor do they necessarily lead into each other.

The comics are not the movies are not Lois and Clark is not Smallville. There's pre-Crisis and post-Crisis. Silver and Gold Age. Superman Returns and The Adventures of Superman. All different, but all with a few things in common. Superman. Clark Kent. Lois Lane. A little later, Lex Luthor.

Clark and Lois, though, first and always.

Also, I seem to feel the same protectiveness towards Lois that I feel towards Buffy and Rose. That is, I feel that they're strong female characters that I would feel honored to be anything like, so I have a shockingly limited amount of patience for dismissiveness towards them. Not criticism in general, just that particular brand of condescending criticism where I'm told that what I see as strength is really the cold-hearted, smug bitchiness of women who are getting 'above their places' (Want to make my blood boil in ten seconds or less? Mention that someone, particularly a female someone, needs to be 'put in her place'.). When Rose is dismissed as a stupid shopgirl or Buffy is called a heartless bitch or people call SV's Lois various hideously sexist terms and make everything all about her body (And her *omg* huge breasts, which just comes across as hypocritical when they're cooing over "Chloevage" every other post. I guess breasts are only okay if they're Chloe's.), I feel true feminist rage.

Comments

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

*rotfl* OMG! You just found out about Chloisers! *rotfl*
Yuh. Um, yes, there are lots of those fans.

They make no sense! I continue to read and they continue to make no sense. And they claim to be all about the "Iconic Lois Lane" while saying things that made me think that they've a) never picked up a Superman comic in their lives b) never watched a Superman movie (except possibly Superman Returns) and c) definitely didn't watch Lois and Clark.

It was especially baffling to have people knock on her bad spelling as that is a classic Lois Lane trait that pops up often.

*falls in love with you* Yes. So do I. Feminist rage. I can't go near a lot of the TWOP boards or into some parts of LJ because the sexist vitriol that is heaped on Lois and ED is so repulsive. You nailed it here--it's extremely hypocritical.

It really, really is. And I just don't see how they don't notice it.

I also feel protectiveness to strong female characters like Lois and Buffy (and, for me, Starbuck and Roslin in BSG). I just don't understand why women want to buy into milksoppy versions of women rather than the few strong (and complex) women that are finally being offered to us in the media.

It doesn't make any sense, really. Except, maybe, that change is hard. People still tend to believe that for one person to rise up, another has to fall (this is brought up all the time in Chloe vs Lois arguments), when that isn't the case at all. Everyone can (and should) be lifted up.

[bop-radar.livejournal.com]

They make no sense! I continue to read and they continue to make no sense.
*giggle* Um, yeah. I have some Chlois fans on my f'list, and some are definitely more sane than others, but yes, I still find the Chlois thing inherently baffling.

they claim to be all about the "Iconic Lois Lane" while saying things that made me think that they've a) never picked up a Superman comic in their lives b) never watched a Superman movie (except possibly Superman Returns) and c) definitely didn't watch Lois and Clark.
Right!! You're going through all the same emotions I had on discovering them. It's completely baffling. And the spelling! Yeah! I end up concluding that they don't really like iconic Lois either, but are projecting what they would like on to that name.

when that isn't the case at all
Oh, I try time and time again to argue that point. But they just don't see it. One of my issues with Chloisers is that they see everything as a competition (between women--for men, for the prize job). And they assume that Chloe is going to WANT to be Lois in the future. It seems quite clear to me that Chloe is her own person with her own desires, and the timing is not right. Chloe likes Clark now, but when it finally comes to Lois and Clark hooking up, what's to say she won't have cheerily moved on? That's life. That's what happens. Is baffling.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

*giggle* Um, yeah. I have some Chlois fans on my f'list, and some are definitely more sane than others, but yes, I still find the Chlois thing inherently baffling.

I guess it's partly... the drive to be canon. Because Clark/Lana is canon, Clark and Lex's complicatedness is canon, Clark/Lois is future canon like woah. From what I've seen Chlark and Chlois fans seem to actually mostly just be Chloe fans (I say this based on the many insults flung at Clark that go mostly unchallenged). So, they want her to matter, to be important to canon. And, in the future, the two most important people in Clark's daily life will be Lois and Lex. And Chloe probably can't take over Lex's life.

Right!! You're going through all the same emotions I had on discovering them. It's completely baffling. And the spelling! Yeah! I end up concluding that they don't really like iconic Lois either, but are projecting what they would like on to that name.

Yeah, that's what I'm really getting. And there are also posts about how, if Lois is the real Lois Lane, she should have come in and immediately blown everyone away with how cool she was. Which... for one, that would make for a sucky continuing character and for the other, I find it hard to believe they wouldn't have been yelling, "Mary-Sue!" if that happened.

One of my issues with Chloisers is that they see everything as a competition (between women--for men, for the prize job).

I've been picking up on that vibe. Like, if Chloe can't have what Lois ends up getting, Chloe is doomed to be miserable. If Chloe can't be the star reporter of the Daily Planet and Clark Kent coming home to her at night, she'll be unfulfilled and miserable. And that just seems very limiting.

[bop-radar.livejournal.com]

for one, that would make for a sucky continuing character and for the other, I find it hard to believe they wouldn't have been yelling, "Mary-Sue!" if that happened.
Totally! Sometimes I wonder if I'm watching the same show as other people. What would the show have been like if ALL the characters had to come on already 'being' their iconic selves. The point of Smallville is to show them before that.

And that just seems very limiting.
Yes, exactly. Whereas I actually think having a character like Chloe on the show is very freeing because her destiny is NOT a fixed point.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. Whereas I actually think having a character like Chloe on the show is very freeing because her destiny is NOT a fixed point.

Indeed. They're able to do a whole lot with her, without being accountable to the people who own Clark Kent and Lois Lane (which is another reason that the Chlois theory rings false -- I can't imagine Almiles ever getting permission to do it, not from the people who sound as if they were guarding Lois's legacy so very carefully in her appearances on the show).

[bop-radar.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, totally. The Chlois-ers ignore all those restrictions that AlMiles are under. That's another little bugbear of mine. People love to hate on AlMiles--I understand that. But when they hate on them for things beyond their control--like the restrictions on Lois or not being able to have Bruce Wayne on the show, it irks me.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Yes, people were, as I recall, upset that 'Adam Knight' didn't turn out to be Batman. But DC wouldn't let them. That's not AlMiles' call. DC ultimately owns it all (and they, as I understand it, are very firm on Lois/Clark being together at the end of it all -- I heard that they let someone go because he was trying to shake up the marriage). From everything that I've heard, DC likes Erica's Lois. ED has done cons with the other Lois Lanes. There's an entire bloody documentary on the fourth season dvds about 'Being Lois Lane' that shows all the ways that ED's Lois is related to the other versions of Lois Lane.

[bop-radar.livejournal.com]

Totally! Yes, DC do seem very positive about Erica's Lois. I've read a transcript of a con panel with ED and Margot Kidder, and Kidder was incredibly supportive of Erica--it was really touching and felt like a real passing of the torch down the generations.