[meta] Are you now or have you ever been a Lois fan?
daybreak777 posted What Kind of (insert fave character) Fan Are You? a wonderful post on fans and the characters they love. I gushed about Lois in her post and I'm glad I didn't scare her off:)
I'll just post excerpts of my embarassing Lois fan love here because I'm a dork.
According to daybreak777 five kinds of character fan love:
- Squishy Love (I Love You and Forgive You Everything Forever Amen Love)
- Conditional Love (The I Love You But It's Conditional They Better Keep You in Character Love)
- ToughLove (The I Love You But if You're Self-Destructive I May Have to Kick Your Ass Love)
- Blind Love (The I Love You Blindly Can't See Your Faults Blah, Blah, Blah Love)
- Character Trait Only Love (I Love You But Only This Aspect of You and is that Really Love? Love)
What kind of Lois Fan Are You?
[snip] I'm a Lois fan, way before Smallville I've always been a Lois fan. It started with Margot Kidder's Lois then straight to comics!Lois then Teri Hatcher's Lois and toon!Lois and finally ED's Lois in Smallville (unfortunately, Bosworth!Lois does nothing for me). I love Lois in all her incarnations but I am not blind to her faults I know she's brash, out spoken, impatient, prickly, rude and bossy but those are the things I also love about her.
She doesn't have her heart on her sleeves but I love that about her too. I love characters who are sometimes emotionally repressed but passionate about their cause, I love characters who are a suceess professionally but whose lives are far from perfect. I also love good people who keep on trying to do the right thing even if they keep falling. I think all the characters I've come to love fall into the same pattern.
I don't love them because I identify with them or because of their moral compass (though that helps) I love them because they are flawed and human and trying, also being snarky does help.
And ED's Lois became my Lois because she's all that. We've seen glimpses of what she could be and is now becoming but before that Lois was still finding her way, still trying to figure out what she wanted to do. She's clumsy but graceful, she can call people on their bull and own her mistakes, she knows her faults and always, always respects other people's choices. She doesn't take herself too seriously and she learns from her mistakes. She knows people see her as a screw-up and even admits to being one but she doesn't let it define her, and sticks up to her convictions.
She's loyal to a fault and she cares but more often than not she'll try to hide it behind bluster and sarcastic comments and when she finally, finally sets her sights on a goal, come hell or high water Lois will see it through 'til the end.
daybreak777: She doesn't apologize for who she is. Every other character on that show is always hiding something. Hiding a part of themselves. But not Lois. What you see is what you get. She seems to truly like herself and how many characters can you say that about?
Yes. This is precisely why I love Lois. She doesn't apologize for who she is, she's not afraid of the Truth. She doesn't care about hiding things (well, except her feelings, that she keeps under lockand key) nor does she have time to do so. I think of all the characters in SV she's the only one who genuinely cares for truth and justice. For Lois, journalism isn't just about headlines, it's also a tool for her to get both truth and justice. That doesn't mean she doesn't know how to keep a secret, she'll keep it secret if she thinks its necessary.
To be honest I only started seriously watching SV again when I heard Lois was arriving and believe you me when I say I wasn't happy about it. I bitched about it to all of my friends but my love and curiousity about the character drove me to finally watch it and... I just fell in love.
For me Erica Durance's Lois is one of the closest thing to comics canon we're ever going to get.
daybreak777: Have all the Lois portrayals been consistent?
Hmm... y'know I never really thought about it! It just seemed to me that Lois is Lois is Lois.:) I suppose all actresses and writers have differing interpretations but I always come away with this impression:
- Lois Lane is tough. Whether her father was a businessman, an army man or a sports doctor she's always been tough.
- Lois has walls higher than fort knox but she's really a cookie underneath all that bluster. She doesn't like showing her inner cookie but it's there.
- The fastest way to get Lois to do something is say the following words: 'Don't go there', 'It's not safe, it'll be for your own good' or order her around. She'll follow everything you told her not to do because she's Lois.
- She'll fight tooth and nail for practically anything she thinks is worth the effort: family, friends and a story.
- And even though she's reached the height of cool, inside she's really quite a dork (c'mon, who else can come up with a 'Can you read my mind?' monologue and *not* be a dork?).
- Lois is good at writing (prose leaps out like a bengal tiger, right?) but ask her to articulate how she feels for someone else and see her stammer, eventually she'll just give up and make you a mixtape to convey exactly what she feels for you. Okay, this last one I got from SV but for me now it's practically canon in every incarnation.
daybreak777: SV's Lois has room to grow but she seems already herself, you know? It's like she's already a grown up, I don't know how else to explain it. Gosh, I'm waiting for that with Lana. She's certainly my favorite but Lana is going in the opposite direction, doesn't know who she is yet.
*nods* Yes, exactly, I think it was huzzlewhat who said that Lois is already the iconic Lois Lane, she just needs to find her career, and lo, she has her career now and boy is she shining! Sure, she's made some mistakes but she's making strides and I think Lois was the only character to ever really shake Lionel and that's saying something.
And, oh yes I'm loving Lana's arc so very much! She's gone gradually darker as the seasons passed and now she's firmly a Luthor despite, as Lionel said, giving up the name. I think KK enjoys playing dark very much! Just as ED enjoys playing Lois with this edge when dealing with the Luthors. I think she's been waiting for a chance to really show what she can do as Lois Lane.
daybreak777: I didn't know about her personal quest for Truth and Justice. Hee, Clark could learn a thing from her, for all he wants to bury himself in Smallville.
I think for SV's Lois it started out gradually. But I think it's fitting that she entered Smallville in an episode titled Crusade. It fits her character to a T. She starts out searching for justice behind Chloe's 'death' and goes on to confront Lionel while he's incarcerated. She'll go all the way, even as far as digging up Chloe's grave just to assure herself that Chloe isn't dead. Yeah, she can be obssessive.
But another thing I love about her, as nosy as she is, as much as she always invades another person's personal space (bathroom and home) when you tell her to back off, she will. She's not going to pry about your personal life.
A trait, which unfortunately early season Chloe didn't share, not to rag on her but that was one of the things I found annoying. Actually, what I find annoying in all the SV characters -- their sense of entitlement to the Secret.
It was really refreshing that Lois didn't even care for Clark other than seeing him on the surface level (at first) an attractive but really weird guy. To her Clark is just a guy, something that he finds annoying and refreshing at the same time. In fact I love that it wasn't love at first sight for Clark Kent and Lois Lane.
I love that they push each other's buttons and Lois occasionally bursts his bubble but in a way I think Clark kind of likes it. He likes that he doesn't have to tiptoe around her and that when he pushes, Lois pushes -- heck, shoves back.
She also doesn't put up with his emo, brooding act and I love that every confrontation ends with Clark looking annoyed but ends up smiling or looking perplexed. He needs that some times.
I love when the time finally comes he falls in love with Lois and vice versa it'll completely be unexpected. To them it isn't destiny, to Lois and Clark it'll be a 4 x 4 upside the head.
daybreak777: I want to see Lois' inner cookie! Now, I have to keep watching SV. I love seeing characters' inner selves. This side of her is very intriguing. I will definitely watch for it.
She doesn't show it often but when she does... She's really awkward with kids (despite being an older sister and a mother to said sister) but when the going gets tough she's really tender to kids.
Lois is a caretaker, has been all her life. From her sister (Lucy) to Chloe and, even Clark. There was one scene in Crusade where she found an naked, amnesiac Clark and drove him to the Medical Center and she tried to pawn off Clark to the orderly but he was having none of it and the following discussion felt very foreshadowy in terms of her relationship with Clark:
Lois: Look, I did the good Samaritan thing. But I can't be responsible for this guy.
Orderly: You already are.
As an army brat and the General's daughter she's been brought up to take care of people under her 'chain of command' and I'm guessing since her mother died she had more responsibilities other than just taking care of her sister. I bet there were a lot of parties she had to arrange or some such.
daybreak777: Lana is my POV character in SV. Totally started watching it for her. I don't know if I know her well enough to call her my favorite yet, but time will tell. Her arc is very interesting to watch indeed. You say she's firmly a Luthor now, huh? I don't know . . . :-)
Ooh, pov characters! Sorry, it's just I don't see a lot of people refer to characters they like as their pov character! Lois (as you can tell) is my POV character. Well, maybe not exactly a Luthor but she certainly has taken on some of the dominant Luthor characteristics.
Poor girl has been through a lot and one thing I think Lana likes about Lois is that Lois respects Lana's choices even though she doesn't agree i.e. Lana's relationship with Lex. Lois was always the one to point out to Clark that Lana wasn't forced into the relationship but that she chose to be with Lex.
I just wonder what Lois will think of Lana now. She's always liked Lana and thought that Lana was too good for Clark.
According to daybreak777 I have Unconditional Love for Lois with a wee bit of Tough Love, which I think is true. I love me some Lois but I'm the first to admit that she has flaws as wide as the river Nile.