Shallow thoughts

[rivkat]

The Truth is out there, but so are secrets.

Does that sound as weird to you as it does to me? SV has this anvilicious opposition going on: Truth/secrets. To me, two more fit oppositions have been mushed together: truth/lies and knowledge/secrets, or perhaps exposure/secrets. Clark doesn’t always need to lie to protect his secrets. Sometimes he just shrugs, fails to explain, and accepts the consequences. It’s his unwillingness to do that with Lex that’s getting him into hotter and hotter water. The writers seem to have fallen into what I think is a logical fallacy – all lies are a kind of secret, so all secrets are a kind of lie. That is, frankly, a frighteningly totalitarian concept.

I can see why Lex would believe it, though, especially since he doesn’t feel any need for reciprocity. It’s nice to be the man behind the curtain, all-seeing and never seen, but it’s not so nice to be observed. (Insert here discussion of “the gaze” and the subject, Laura Mulvey-style, and the oddity of the pure object Lana insisting on being the one to see. Is that going to be her fatal flaw? I have the sinking feeling she’s going to end up being punished for wanting to use that pedestal to see a little better.)

Lana says people who are close shouldn’t have secrets from each other, and maybe the truth/secrets opposition is intended to be limited to people in intimate relations. I’m still uneasy about that. I think there’s room for a little mystery in the human or Kryptonian heart. Also, truth is different from knowledge, which implies understanding. That Lana wants truth makes her less appealing to me than Lex, who wants knowledge. On the other hand, knowledge seems much more susceptible to misuse than truth, and I can see why giving Lana the truth is a lot safer than giving Lex the knowledge. Truth can reveal secrets, but knowledge can exploit them.

Knowledge/secrets is traditionally a gendered opposition, written on the body as it were; truth/lies is somewhat less so unless we look to overt misogyny. I’m not sure how that fits in, but I have a feeling that it does.

Re: Smallville recently. I’ve never had a show break up with me before. I’ve had them cancelled on me; I’ve sat by the bedside during a long wasting disease, turning my head only at the last horrific moments (yes, that’s the XF); I’ve even had the relationship just sort of dissolve into nostalgia and no hard feelings (Buffy; I’m a weirdo who loved S6). But having SV flaunt its other audiences in front of me stings. Maybe that’s why I can’t seem to finish a story lately.

I can’t believe I thought Lana & Clark did a good job kissing. Is nothing sacred in this insane world?

Also, Farscape. It’s neat to find a good show that doesn’t demonize or erase the father. John Crichton’s relationship with his father isn’t exactly smooth, but it is loving and he didn’t start out his journey broken. I’m really enjoying watching the show in order, though my TiVo is groaning with all the stored episodes.

Mary Ellen, would you be willing to take another hack at "Tempest"? I've added a bunch and, I hope, improved the ending.

Comments

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

Sure! I was just thinking about it today, wondering what had happened to it.

[estepheia.livejournal.com]

But having SV flaunt its other audiences in front of me stings. Maybe that’s why I can’t seem to finish a story lately.
I can’t believe I thought Lana & Clark did a good job kissing. Is nothing sacred in this insane world?

Believe it or not, I feel the same. I could so picture an audience of 14-year-olds squee at the kissage, and I admit the kiss wasn't so bad and KK is a pretty girl, even if her Lana is breathtakingly dull, BUT I couldn't enjoy the developments.
I'm also beginning to think that I'm doomed to dislike SV because I love watching shows that are an affirmation of friendship - and the Clark/Lex friendship is so utterly doomed. *Sigh*

[luciamad.livejournal.com]

(Insert here discussion of “the gaze” and the subject, Laura Mulvey-style, and the oddity of the pure object Lana insisting on being the one to see. Is that going to be her fatal flaw? I have the sinking feeling she’s going to end up being punished for wanting to use that pedestal to see a little better.)

I was just skimming lj and I saw Mulvey and I just about died. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who obsesses over that stuff. Mostly I worry over figuring out her new language. So damn problematic, that.

Anyway, I read the gaze into just about everything but haven't done too much of that with Smallville, outside of considering Lex and Clark in terms of pedestals and ideals. The show's relationship with the gaze is all very vague for me. Mostly because I don't think that they know what they are doing most of the time. It's interesting what you say about Lana though, very true.

I also like what you say about knowledge/secrets being a gendered opposition. I'm not sure I understood it exactly though. Are you speaking in the active/passive way or something else?

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

I find SV subject to a lot of psychoanalytic film theory-type analysis, mostly because Lex is constructing Clark as his fetish object. The blue room of scientific inquiry really made me happy in that light.

I meant that knowledge/secrets is gendered in the sense that the female body is often constructed as a place of secrets, mystery, internal and unseen processes like arousal, while the male body wears its opinions on the outside. And men are the ones who discover, who penetrate the mystery. So part of it is active/passive, but also visible/hidden.

Re:

[luciamad.livejournal.com]

I get it now. I don't think I ever really thought of it that way.

And I'm sorry to assault you with my inane scopophilic ramblings but you got me thinking and this started running around my head. Chloe is already the girl with the glasses. She looks and asks with no overwhelming concern for what that does to her position as a possible object. She does get punished, that whole thing about men don't want girls who wear glasses, because Clark doesn't return her affection. She wants a little objectification but she can't reconcile that with her refusal to take off her glasses.

Lana, like you said, is pure object who now is thinking about trying on the glasses. While she may flirt with it, I don't think that she will. The show is too obsessed with maintaining its dichotomies of black and white, active and passive.

That was fun. Thanks for spurring that.

[out-there.livejournal.com]

Also, Farscape. It’s neat to find a good show that doesn’t demonize or erase the father. John Crichton’s relationship with his father isn’t exactly smooth, but it is loving and he didn’t start out his journey broken.

Hmmm... That comment just stuck out to me for some reason. In general, I think it happens because the characters on Farscape are far more emotionally mature than other shows.

Admittedly, the other shows that are springing to my mind are Buffy, Angel and SV, which are all shows revolving around the lives of teenagers, or at least started out that way. So I can see why the parental influence would be seen as something confining, something to rebel against, rather than something to respect and uphold.

The other series use "relationship with father" as a shorthand code for deep-seated insecurities and flaws. It's generally an explaination for why character X acts this way (because his father treated him that way). It's an easy way to plant depth into a character, and make him far more understandable.

I'm also wondering if it could also be caused by a different manner of storylines. John starts out a typical (to very healthy) normal guy, and it's the contract between him and his "alien" surroundings that originally provides the conflict and tension in the story.

Have you seen much of Farscape? I haven't watched it all, but I've seen part of S1, S2, S3 and S4. So this random rambling could spoil you if you haven't seen it.

Eventually, John does become part of the crew of Moya, even the leader to an extent, and the tension has to come from somewhere else. By the third season, it's pretty clear that the new source of this tension is Scorpius.

In many ways, Scorpius takes on the role that the fathers in other series do. He encourages John in certain directions, mocks him for his folly, watches over him and keeps him safe from certain dangers while trying to mold John somewhat into his own image. With the chip, he becomes internalised into John's psyche as firmly as any father, and becomes a resource for John to call upon in times of trouble.

Just as the other series use a relationship with a father to give the character insecurities to explore, likewise John's relationship with Scorpius has a strong effect on John and creates flaws to play with.

Sorry, this rant really doesn't go anywhere. It was just a case of laughing at your comment, and wondering why we see this conflict with fathers again and again in different shows.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Love your icon, by the way.

Interesting point -- I have not seen every episode of FS, but I'm using the SciFi reruns to work my way through in order, which is proving quite interesting.

Your point about the starting dates for Buffy/Angel and SV is well taken. Yet in XF, fathers were also pretty nasty pieces of work, or at best distant and demanding. The conflicts were always played out as family dramas, and that was actually something that pissed me off about the XF. You know what, if the world's going to be eaten by aliens, it doesn't actually matter whether it was your dad what done it. Stopping it matters. (See also the spate of films a couple of years back that tried to make us care about the President by showing us his lovely family in danger. Nope. We should care because he's the President. Family isn't the only way that things become important. Sorry -- this tapped into an existing peeve of mine.)

One of the things I've really enjoyed about FS is that Crichton is smart, well-adjusted and healthy (and darn it, people like him!) when he's thrust into an environment where at first he's completely incompetent and his crewmates' perceptions of him lag behind his acquisition of competence. I like that he didn't start out cracked, but got there because of pressures simply too great to bear. The father thing is one component of that. I get what you're saying about Scorpy, but I don't think I've seen John need his approval in a familial way.

[out-there.livejournal.com]

Love your icon, by the way.

Thanks!

I was never a XF watcher, hence I can't really comment on it, but I do understand your annoyance with the use of family. Generally, it's just laziness/lack of creativity on the writers part. Not everything comes down to childhood/family trouble, but it's an easily understood way to get a point across. I think that's it's far more work, far harder, to get into a character from a less familiar angle, but the payoff is much better.

I like that he didn't start out cracked, but got there because of pressures simply too great to bear.

I couldn't agree more. I do think that it's a very hard thing to do, as well. Hard not only to show the character slowly disintegrating before our eyes, but also hard to keep him sympathetic and interesting to the audience.

I get what you're saying about Scorpy, but I don't think I've seen John need his approval in a familial way.

Hmmm... I'm thinking about this. I don't think he ever seeks Scorpy's approval so much as Harvey's approval. (Have you seen the last season? If you haven't this won't make much sense. I mean Scorpy as in Scorpius, and Harvey as in the Scorpius clone trapped in John's mind.) On occasions, such as the time travel/nuns episode, he does seek Harvey's guidance... but still, it's not a case of seeking approval to validate himself. In fact, he frequently goes out of his way to avoid behaviour that Harvey encourages.

I have the gut feeling that when it comes to approval, John generally seeks that from his crewmates. I'm just intrigued because I never thought about the family relationships on Farscape. It honestly just never occured to me. We have John's healthy relationship with his dad, Chiana's healthy relationship with her brother, D'Argo's difficult relationship with his son, Aeryn's non-existant relationship with her mother... I think it mentions somewhere that Crais was close to his family, before becoming a Peacekeeper.

All in all, the relationships aren't perfect, or even all good, but there is a nice mix of both. And generally, although they are used to help give us background, they aren't used to completely base the character upon.

Yeah, I'm rambling, and missing the fact that Farscape seems to have disappeared from our screens. *sigh* Knowing my luck, SV's going to be next.

[kattiya.livejournal.com]

Hi RivkaT! *waves*

Just finished reading your "Shallow Thoughts" - if only my shallowness could manifest so wonderfully! Would you consider archiving your meta thoughts on the Existential Heroes (http://www.somedistantgalaxy.com/images/sepia_03.gif) site? I'm taking over for bonibaru as archivist and would love to have this essay. Also if there's any other writing you have about SV in general or the episodes in particular (esp. Season 1), I'd love to read it. *g*

Thanks, Kat

p.s. If your response is "yay," how would you like to be credited? Proper title? Contact info: email or LJ?

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Sure! Yay! If you want to grab them off the LJ, go ahead. If other formats are desired, that will take me a while longer, including time to grade my exams which is technically what they pay me for. RivkaT@aol.com is my address.

[kattiya.livejournal.com]

You should definitely grade your exams if that's what they're paying you for *g* - I have no problem grabbing this off of LJ. Two questions though:

1) Do you have a title for this essay?
2) Is there any way I can edit to add (via footnote) the following reply to a comment?

I find SV subject to a lot of psychoanalytic film theory-type analysis, mostly because Lex is constructing Clark as his fetish object. The blue room of scientific inquiry really made me happy in that light.

I meant that knowledge/secrets is gendered in the sense that the female body is often constructed as a place of secrets, mystery, internal and unseen processes like arousal, while the male body wears its opinions on the outside. And men are the ones who discover, who penetrate the mystery. So part of it is active/passive, but also visible/hidden.

Whenever you have time - thanks so much RivkaT!

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Maybe The Tree of Knowledge and the Father of Lies? Lots of biblical goodness there. Why don't you tack on that comment as a footnote to the gender paragraph? I also have a post to ClarkLex or LexSlash, can't remember which, that talks about the blue room of science and the fetish object, which I can try to dig up.