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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.
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.
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From:
no subject
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?
From:
no subject
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.
From:
Re:
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.