Comments | bop_radar: Are you calling me bird?

bop_radar

Are you calling me bird?

Sep 20, 2009 19:31

This post has a sneaky double purpose. It is the long-owed meta post I promised talitha78 on her masterpiece talitha78's That's Not My Name but it doubles as some pre-season-9 reflections on Smallville and, most importantly, Clark Kent. ( cut for a lot of gushy Clark love )

vid_meta, smallville_meta, vid_recs

Comments 19

alias_sqbr September 20 2009, 13:42:16 UTC

Not having seen past s1, this makes the vid much more meaningful (also I have very low vid-reading comprehension :))

bop_radar September 20 2009, 21:57:40 UTC

I'm sure you don't! Nearly all of us think that but sometimes it's just about how much a vid clicks with you and how much contextual knowledge and love of the source you have. I'm really glad this helped you understand the vid better--I know the Smallville canon a little too well! ;)

alias_sqbr September 22 2009, 03:52:27 UTC

I'm feeling particularly obtuse at the moment because I was looking for vids to rec for queerlygen and for like 3/4 of them I was watching more carefully to check it was gen and going "OMG this is ALL ABOUT relationships! How did I not notice! Every time the lyrics say "My love" they look deeply into each others eyes! The music swells and they kiss! I am dumb" :)

bop_radar September 22 2009, 08:06:32 UTC

Hee! Well that sounds like one of those grey areas... one person's gen is another person's ship sometimes, especially where subtext is concerned. :)

jeannev September 20 2009, 15:32:17 UTC

I love what you had to say about Clark. I, too, have struggled with protagonists in the past. I remember watching La Femme Nikita, and wanting to throttle Nikita most of the time. So, I get that it happens. But with SV, its always been Clark for me. I just find the character so very likeable and human. The writing on this show can drive anyone to drink, and I think we've all wanted to beat our favorite characters senseless more times then we care to admit. But I just really feel invested in Clark's story, and I remain so even with the changing cast around him. Because I've always felt that Clark was the sun in SV, and all the other characters are planets that orbit around him. They are a necessary part of the galaxy. But if one of those planets should disappear, the sun remains the same. But with no sun? No galaxy.

And besides, I adore Tom Welling. So solid, such a good leading man for a show, and so underrated.

bop_radar September 20 2009, 22:00:50 UTC

He's totally the sun! (Like that beautiful shot in the barn of him playing with the model solar system.) \o/

Definitely underrated! Tom can sell me on moments that in the hands of another actor would be meaningless. I don't think people realise just how hard it is to sell some of that craptastic dialogue. ;) After all these years I've never seen Tom 'phone in' a scene. If anything, he seems to give more and more.

beck_liz September 20 2009, 20:29:27 UTC

I love that vid SO MUCH. I've rewatched it a whole bunch.

I began watching Smallville way back when the first episode aired, back in the day. I loved the Clark and Lex relationship, and was quite a slasher for them once upon a time. So you would think that, with the deterioration of the relationship and finally Lex mostly disappearing from the show, that I would have left with the Clark/Lex folks who drifted off somewhere between Season 5 and 6. Not so; because although I always liked Lex, my character was always Clark. I suppose it helps that the Superman movie was something of a formative childhood experience, and although Gene Hackman as Lex was great, he's not a character you actually like or have much respect for, you know ( ... )

bop_radar September 20 2009, 22:05:27 UTC

Yeah, I totally know what you mean! Clark keeps us here, and I don't want to downplay how much the Clex and Lex meant to me. They were basically my entry point into fandom in an active sense and they were totally formative. But it's kind of brilliant to find out that Clark was a bigger part of that than I ever gave him credit for and Clark has proved to have the greatest longevity. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised seeing as Clark/Lois has been my ship since a young age, but for a long time I didn't really see 'that' Clark in Smallville's Clark. Now Smallville's Clark has taken over as my definitive inner Clark. To have seen him come so far is just awesome!

Bring on Friday! \o/

talitha78 September 20 2009, 20:51:10 UTC

Wow! What can I say to this? What a wonderfully astute reading of the vid. Actually, it's almost freaking me out how well you understood what I was doing--it's like you read my mind. Seriously, you have such a genius for teasing out what the vidder's intentions are. I'm in awe. Thank you for turning your insights in my direction.

Here are the bits that particularly tickled me:

One of the things I love about the vid is that you don't need to know the words to understand or enjoy it.

You don't know how glad I am to know that, especially since a good 20% of the time, I couldn't understand the lyrics myself. HAHA.

One of the things I love most about the vid is that it combines wry humour with warmth and love for Clark. There's irony in the line 'don't want to be a loner' cut to Clark's farewell letter to the Citizens of Metropolis.

Ahhh. So glad the love came through even as I was poking fun at Clark and his tendency to Super-mopedom. That letter was such a "Goodbye, cruel world" message. Oh, Clark!

This has a double purpose (at ( ... )

talitha78 September 20 2009, 20:52:13 UTC

...continuation of too-long comment...

It builds this wonderful density and complexity, yet energy to Clark's inner headspace. He may be repeating 'that's not my name' but he's also got this strong, underlying pull towards these heroic actions, and he's in a constant internal dialogue with himself about it. At least that's my reading. ;) I think Clark's head would be a pretty noisy place these daysAhhh. Thank you articulating this. The three-layered sections were definitely the most difficult to communicate visually. In the end, I went very free form. I knew I wanted a lot of circular, chaotic movement, but I didn't worry too much about cutting on the beat or uniformity of clip length. I just looked for the prettiest, most motion-intensive clips and threw them on the timeline in a very random fashion. If this were an art piece, I would say that this section is definitely a light, pencil sketch sort of thing. As I was working on the vid, I felt I could do a little better as far as pacing was concerned, but...I don't know, I just ( ... )

bop_radar September 20 2009, 22:15:23 UTC

Oh yay! You don't think I'm a fruitloop! :D *breathes sigh of relief*

especially since a good 20% of the time, I couldn't understand the lyrics myself.
It totally doesn't matter! I misheard some of the lyrics myself and am quite fond of my mishearings as well as the true lyrics. :D

hat letter was such a "Goodbye, cruel world" message.
It was! Poor baby! But yes, the love is so strong in this vid there's never any sense of it being critical of Clark--it reads more like Clark himself knows his own tendencies to mopedom. ;)

, I had a deathly fear that people would drop from boredom before they reached the end of the vid. I wanted the visuals to be what held people and entertained them.I think you succeeded tenfold and am in awe at your ability to do so! I find the journey with the lyrics really amazing because the chorus is so distinctive and when I first watched the vid I thought 'how the hell is this going to work?' But I find that you build up this awareness of what's going on and then in the later stages it's just one strand of ( ... )

jlvsclrk September 21 2009, 01:00:55 UTC

This was so wonderful to read, and as a bonus I got to watch Talitha78's gorgeous vid another few times - a total win. There are so many who love to pick apart Clark's every misstep or nurse a grudge about his treatment of their favorit, but he is and has always been my favorite character. Sure he messes up - he is constantly put in positions where there is no right choice, or where the right choice is inexplicably penalized (eg, not killing Lex in Vessel). But what I love is that he keeps trying. As you said so eloquently, "in Smallville's Clark Kent they have given me a hero I can understand and relate to, one that is not without faults (yay!) but who learns and grows through his mistakes, which is the best model of heroism." What more can I say to that except that I heartily agree, and bring on Season 9!

bop_radar September 21 2009, 02:49:23 UTC

It's true! Clark isn't perfect and I love that because his imperfections are always so human and make him a true hero, not a cardboard cutout. I do hate it when his good choices or plans are inexplicably penalised or dissed on the show. *flashes back to rage about how GREAT Clark's Doomsday plans were* Let's hope there is less of that in S9! ;)