Coming back to my plea to "judge Lois" by the same standards we use for Clark.
Darcy's take on IGaCOY rationalizes everything that Clark did - it was all either reasonable or someone else's false. Thus he did very little wrong.
So to be fair to Lois:
Darcy wrote:
He was UNDER COVER. His cover was a sailor who had just lost his job-
True he was undercover - but it was Lois who had *been* undercover up to that point - Clark shows up later, without having told her what he was planning, let alone consulting with her about it back at the Planet. If he genuinely respected her as a colleague, he would not have acted so unilaterally.
So what is going on here when he decides to go undercover? How to interpret it? That's when our biases kick in - is Clark arrogant here? Is he horning in on Lois's story? or is it that he doubts her ability to get the story? Or does he want to protect her ? A patriarchal notion, but let's face it, Lois is trouble-prone.
-the coming on to Toni Taylor bit was PART OF HIS COVER.
True. His flirting with Tony, kissing her later was all part of that- it was false and so, by definition, it was exploitative.
So what matters here -how do we look at it? It was exploitive but was it 'okay'? He suspects Toni is part of the Toasters and, also he wants the bartender job. So okay to use Toni because his motivation, to bust a criminal gang, is good? Did he need to cross the line into flirtation to accomplish his goals?
(Lois, btw, was also prepared to use her "sexual wiles" as Clark once accused her of doing (or was that "teased"? )
True, what he did say (blowing Lois's cover) was a major faux pas, but we all know how much trouble Clark has with thinking of excuses/cover-ups under pressure (Cheese of the Month Club, anyone?).
'Faux pas' is a very gentle term. So adorable that Clark Kent, with his difficulty coming up with excuses.
We could also say it was stupid and thoughtless. He screwed up, but then used his mistake to remove his so-called partner from the front lines of the story. Maybe very clever on his part after all.
Anyway, i could rewrite Darcy's post , "spinning" it all from Lois's point of view .
Which has been my point all along. Let's try not to be so one-sided. Clark wasn't a saint.
That whole episode was a case of crossed signals.
Yes, it was.
I enjoyed it. Although not the Toni taylor bit
. (nor Clark's goatee!!) and throwing Lois in the dumpster was more force than was necessary. It was one of those moments of disconnect for me - he seemed to enjoy tossing her. (the other disconnect was the stalker stuff that he occasionally did)
But there was a lot of fun in the ep plus some good L & C banter - old movie, battle of the sexes, screwball comedy.
Nancy wrote:
Good to know. Somehow I had the idea that you wanted to see one of these.
lol - It's the reasons for the imbalance that interested me.
But death-fic and moving on fic are not for me, regardless of whether it's Lois or Clark. I stated this a couple of times earlier in the thread.
Some folks have mentioned that Lois thought it was okay to steal others’ stories. And that does seem to be the case. But yet she was crushed because Claude did the same to her. Shouldn’t she have learned something there?
When? Aside from the incident I mentioned above and about which Lois was very upset afterwards, I can't think of any. So she had learned from Claude. (or perhaps it was something she knew all along?)
I'll repeat something else I've said before in the thread - I don't think Lois was perfect, either in S1 or in any other season. Nor was Clark. And it was that imperfection that made the show interesting. S1 Lois did a couple of things in S1 that appalled me; but so did Clark, although Clark's most appalling moments would come after S1
And what do words mean? One person's "assertiveness" is another person's "abrasive" and another's "feisty".
And I believe that these parts of our brains read LnC fanfics too, and when they do they tell us that Clark can easily be forgiven for perhaps treating Lois dismissively, but Lois can't easily be forgiven for being dismissive of Clark.
Yes, I think you have a point there, Ann. For example, we beat up on Lois for her insensitivity in asking Clark, after he's confessed his love for her, to find Superman. Yet, we don't beat up on Clark for dismissing Lois's love for Superman, something he's known for some time. Why the difference in treatment? ( Imo, neither were at their finest in these examples:) )
Looking back over this thread, I see that a lot of posters are Lois fans as well as Clark, but they're not the majority. Most posts in this thread reflect either an indifference or a hostility to the character of Lois Lane, and aren't prepared to cut her any slack at all. I wonder if that's true for most of the people on these boards? Anyway, I fold. it's been interesting reading people's posts.
c.
