Dammit. Apparently I will not be able to concentrate until I get an icon of Clark in glasses. If anyone wants to make it for me ::big anime eyes:: I can post a screen cap when I get home.
I was responding to Viola in my previous post and for some reason I got off on a rant about Lana Lang and it had nothing to do with Vi's comment - but it still didn't stop me from rolling out all of my issues.
My number one, big ole issue? I don't like character-bashing. Normally, I don't worry about it - I love Mulder. I love Scully. I want to call Skinner daddy. These things work themselves out. Sometimes, I might feel distant from a character - I may dislike them sometimes and want to see them dead - but for the most part I tolerate them and sometimes even value their presence. I guess Firefly's Inara and Season 3-4 Fred qualify here. Right now I am really liking Fred (and I loved crazy!Fred in Pylea, writing on walls and craving tacos) and I think I would have bonded eventually with Inara - Heart of Gold and Trash being eps where I really valued her contribution to the dynamic.
Sometimes I love a character irrationally and still wish to throttle them thoroughly. Spike comes to mind as the best possible example of this. I really do not want anything bad to happen to Spike. Well - I don't want him dead and burning in hell. That thought bothers me - I love Spike - I do. I want to shake him like a British nanny, but I love him. Mulder - he is in this category as well.
Sometimes I don't trust a character and cannot bond with them because I feel like I don't really know them. I want to like them, but then I don't want them to turn around and trick me. Gunn this season is a good example. I used to know and like Gunn, but not anymore. I was wary of the Shepherd on Firefly - I really wanted to like him - I really did. Maybe it was because Barney Miller was on a lot as a child and by not liking Ron Glass - well it would be like being mean to Mr. Carlson on WKRP - it just isn't done (RIP Gordon Jump). Season 7 BtVS Giles became like this for me too and almost broke my heart in the process.
Sometimes I hate a character and want to see them die because I am *supposed* to hate them. They are a villain and not in the fun Mayor sense - but in the most evil on high, horrors of the world sense. Warren. I hated Warren. I still hate Warren. I don't think he should have been flayed - but there is not much sympathy in my heart for him because I hate him. I hate Chris Hobbes. I hate Lionel Luther with a passion for attempting (and perhaps succeeding) to lobotomize his son. I wait patiently for his death and I hope it happens onscreen and on that day I will dance. Fuck the Magnificent Bastard bullshit - I hate that man and he needs to pay.
I don't hate all villains - I mean - who can hate the mayor? Or the Master? You just can't. Sometimes - as in the case of Glory and Adam - I don't care enough to really build up an emotional response. I think that is a failure of the character - either in the writing or in the intrepretation or in both - because the purpose of the villain or the hero or the glorius inbetweeners (FAITH!!! KRYCEK!!!) is to make me *feel* something. And if I am walking through a season like season 6 Buffy, then we have a problem. But - I an still deal with this and not want to tear out my hair, because even when I don't give a shit about the villain, I still have an emotional connection to the other characters and to the experience.
And this is where character bashing rears its ugly head. I *hate* it with a passion. Want to get me riled up? - bash Buffy unfairly. Or Angel. Or Spike. Or hell - even Fred. Back the fuck off Aeryn Sun, there are reasons she made the choices she has. Don't say that just because Dawn is acting like a teenager (which she is) that she is the worst character evah! That will piss me off. Give Jayne a chance and don't you dare talk about my Mulder. Well - unless you can back it up and then we'll talk. Mulder is an idiot most of the time - I'll admit it, but that doesn't change the love. We mock because we care. Mocking outta love is way different than bashing and if I wanna call Angel a man-whore, I do it with both pride and canonical support.
Sometimes, like in the case of Cordelia and Scully, a character you truly adored becomes someone you don't recognize and you must mourn. That it not bashing. That is just sadness and letting go. It's okay - I am here for you.
But sometimes - you just have to bash - because you hate a character. It is not because you are supposed to hate them - it is because the way they interact in that particular universe, in your opinion, weakens everything else about the show. I know what it is - the unbelievability of them - it *pulls* you out of the universe you are trying to inhabit and then rather than emotionally connect with the events - you are puzzling out your irritation.
Back in the Big Eighties - my mom loved "Designing Women" - loved it. I liked Suzanne Sugarbaker - Delta Burke's character. She was loud and flashy and had a pet pig and said everything that crossed her mind, tact be damned. She was a Southern Beauty Queen and more Cordelia than Cordelia. Suzanne had an older sister played by - well damn. That southern actor that is always trying to sell fans and is married to Hal Holbrook. I forget her name - she played Julia. And Julia was cool at first - I liked her a lot. She was intelligent and liberal and independant and would brook no shit. Then it seemed that on the show - Julia became infalliable - always right and always correct and Suzanne was always stupid and always vapid and you know what? The universe just does not work that way. No one is right all the time - but the way the show was set up - you would think Julia Sugarbaker was the modern day equivalent of Jesus Christ, decorator. I started hating her. She went from being outspoken to being sanctimonius. She went from being liberal to being rigid and judgemental. I couldn't stand to watch the show at all and I used to just want Julia to be wrong and Suzanne to be right and the show to acknowledge it just one freakin time and I would be a happy woman. But no, instead we see Julia treating Suzanne like a second-class citizen because Suzanne has a pig named Noel for a pet and likes to date old men. So the fuck what? Arggghhh!! I am getting angry just thinking about it.
It was a case where the shows creators became to invested in one particular character - in essence they Mary-Sued her - and in the process she lost all believability and any connection the audience might have felt was severed because none of us are right and proper all the time.
I worry about the fate of Brian Kinney sometimes.
But this brings me to Lana Lang. I could like her - I could. I would like her if she was allowed to be real and have real flaws that were acknowledged to be flaws - I mean I can give you a roster of her issues, but no one acknowledges that they exist. It is fricking Julia Sugarbaker all over again! If we could just explore this dark gray area Lana - and dudes, she is one seriously masochistic bitch, then I would be happy. Instead, whenever they want her to act out - or be unperfect - she has to be under the influence of some outside force. I cannot connect to a character that is not at least a shade or two realistic -- unless that character is *extremely* dynamic. I will never, ever like the perfect characters - cause they pull me out of the fantasy. So I want to bash Lana - and it pains me, because there is just no way to really enjoy a show when a character that pulls you out of the verse is the predominant focus. It makes it hard to watch.
Well that has been my two cents and 13 paragraphs. YMMV - and I speak only for myself.
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