Gender Issues on Smallville

[THEOMYS]

Hey writers we get it: Males are bad, Females need rescuing. What is it with every male character on this show. No wonder Clark has only females in his life now. Think about it, all males except the kents are evil. First of we have the various FOTW's, then there are the Luthors. But even Pete turned bad when the writers gave him something interesting to do(Velocity, Rush, Nicodemus).

Lana's other boyfriends all went bad; Jason tried to kill Kents, Adam Knight was a Zombie, and Whitney began the series by him and his friends beating up Clark and hanging him in a field.

Even good characters in the DC Universe come to Smallville as bad guys. Perry White is a drunk working for a tabloid. Bart Allen(Flash) is a thief looking for a good time. Aquaman is an Ecoterrorist trying to blow up Luthorcorp Lab.

Smallville male officials are all corrupt. Mayor wants kickback from Lex and then is reveled as a murderer. State Senator who they all looked up to turns out to be a womanizer. Ethan the sherriff tried to kill Lionel and fram Jonathan. It took a female to finally not be corrupt as Sherriff.

Clark himself we are told repeatedly will make the right choices because of his upbringing by the Kents. So we are left with the conclusion that Jonathan Kent is the one righteous person in all of Smallville. Does this make sense?

[superhippie2000]

Well mr kent might not be as good as you think cause we still dont know what the picture are of. what about genvieve she was a female and bad and was around alot. what about lexs shrink and the lady who experimented on adam and helen bryce. all females all bad. clark also saves guys not always girls. he helped sirus out when he thought he was an alien he has helped lionel and lex out a million times. i wouldnt place aquaman in the same catagory as the flash cause thats what aquaman does he stops people from destroying the sea life he didnt do things to destory anything he did it to help when the flash did bad things cause he could get away with it. also chloe was evil at some points like when the parasite bit her and she was able to get the truth out of people in another episode and she did investigate clark for a while. also lana has had somethings happen to her to make her look bad. i think its just because you may see guys as more powerful then women so you see there bad things more worse then the girls.

[Vatusia]

You don't think Lana is evil?! :rotfl:

[SupermansNotDead]

A more accurate statement would be that almost any new character introduced into the show is evil (Lois aside). Be it a freak of the week (Zorro/Batman Girl) or a Season arc character (Jason or that dude that bled from his eyes or Professor Fine or Helena etc etc.

[JLA]

I think you are trying too hard to find a connection between gender and the virtues of the characters. Pete was not evil and was not a Kent. New characters, both male and female are almost always introduced as antagonists for Clark Kent, so it makes sense that they would tend to be evil. I haven't been keeping score, but I think the meteor freaks have been pretty evenly split between males an females.

[Vatusia]

Yeah, and Pete had his bad boy moments, but he was never the heavy - in Rush the effects of the evil krypto-bug were not his fault and also affected Chloe. I don't remember his being bad in Nicodemus, but I DO remember Lana's little bad-girl-vamp biz. Whitney wasn't evil, and he eventually apologized to Clark (didn't he?) for stringing him up in the cornfield. :lol: He ended up being a soldier and dying a hero in the line of duty. Perry White's alcoholism didn't make him a bad guy - are you expecting ALL males on the show to come on looking like heroes? Aquaman was hardly portrayed as a bad guy, it was only Clark's (jealous) perception of him in the beginning, which later changed completely.

Frankly, the foibles of other male characters are meant to make them foils for Clark, who in spite of being pretty foibly himself is supposed to be the hero of the story. ;) If you put a negative spin on everything bad each character does, then you can count ALL the females plus Clark among the evildoers! :lol:

[UpandAtom]

There have been some female villains like Tina Greer or Sasha from "Drone" or even Emily Dinsmore.

[ProudPenny]

There was also that crazy forever-young cheerleader in S2, and S1's Victoria Hardwick, and Lucas Luthor's mother, of course, MamaTeague.

[enamored]

Ryan was a good male character.

[UpandAtom]

as was Jordan Cross from "Hereafter"

[MyOwnSuperhero]

The verdict on the supposed gender bias? I give it a hearty PPPpppttbtbbtbb!:p And a bah humbug for good measure!

[freefall]

Originally posted by THEOMYS
Hey writers we get it: Males are bad, Females need rescuing. What is it with every male character on this show. No wonder Clark has only females in his life now. Think about it, all males except the kents are evil.

Even Jonathan Kent has his own deep dark secrets. Him persuading the Ross family to sell their land to Luthorcorp in exchange for Clark's forged adoption papers.


Originally posted by THEOMYS
First of we have the various FOTW's, then there are the Luthors. But even Pete turned bad when the writers gave him something interesting to do(Velocity, Rush, Nicodemus).

There have been quite a number of freaks who are good, and most of them are males too. Like Ryan, Cyrus, Jordan Cross, that unmentioned mechanic in Extinction, Kyle Tippet, Byron (he only went bad when exposed under the sun) and Tobias.

And how is Pete bad when he had valiantly suffered torture twice for protecting Clark's secret, and proven his worth as his friend?


Originally posted by THEOMYS
Lana's other boyfriends all went bad; Jason tried to kill Kents, Adam Knight was a Zombie, and Whitney began the series by him and his friends beating up Clark and hanging him in a field.

Whitney turned all right in the end, he admitted his mistakes to Clark and apologized to him. And he died as a hero. Along with Wes Keenan as well, his last words are about not wanting anyone else to suffer the way he did, when all he wanted is just to serve his country.


Originally posted by THEOMYS
Even good characters in the DC Universe come to Smallville as bad guys. Perry White is a drunk working for a tabloid. Bart Allen(Flash) is a thief looking for a good time. Aquaman is an Ecoterrorist trying to blow up Luthorcorp Lab.

It's unfair to simply outright say they're bad guys just because they started out that way. I'm not in any way justifying Bart's days as a thief or AC blowing up labs, but neither one of them is lucky enough to have the upbringing and someone to guide them like the way it is for Clark.

Bart got thrown out by his own family because they couldn't cope with him having powers, AC is a drifter and I highly doubt he has any family left. And he got his heart in the right place, he only wanted to save the world. Even Oliver who started out as a bully and a cheat in school redeemed his own self in the end.

As for Perry, he got blacklisted by Lionel Luthor. I see no crime in working for a tabloid to get money to pay for food and rent. MM and Victor are definitely males, and they're definitely the good guys as well.


Originally posted by MyOwnSuperhero
The verdict on the supposed gender bias? I give it a hearty PPPpppttbtbbtbb!:p And a bah humbug for good measure!

:lol: That's what I thought.