The goddamn Lois Lane
Sep. 19th, 2010 06:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficSo on tumblr, I saw a photo manipulation of Jon Hamm and Tina Fey as Clark Kent and Lois Lane (it's here, if you're interested) and obvious, Hamm as Superman, win. But I don't as much like Fey as Lois, and not just because expressing that thought puts me on grammatically unsound ground. Her humor seems a bit too self-effacing for Lois, who is pretty much the exact opposite of self-effacing. If she were on the Golden Girls, you would call her brassy.
So then I started thinking of alternatives. Okay, obviously you need a mature women, not only to capture the sizable MILF hunter demographic, but because she's a Pulitzer-prize-winning reporter. She should at least be in her thirties. And if you're going for a forty-something Superman (yes, please), then Lois should be at least as old as he is if not older, since by most origins she was already a seasoned reporter by the time he started out... hence the condescending to "Smallville." Fortunately, there are a lot of great actresses in their forties and fifties, because by that timeframe, if you haven't learned to act, you're not getting heard from. So there's Carla Gugino, Geena Davis, Lena Headey... all very attractive women who could pull off "eats Presidents for breakfast" reporting.
But the first thought I actually had was Sandra Bullock, and even though I kept going "no, that would never work, there must be a reason this would be the worst thing ever," I couldn't come up with anything. I know she's a very mainstream kind of actress, but what's wrong with that? Superman should be Americana and even a little pop music. There's no reason we need a deep, dark look into a man who flies around with his underwear on the outside. There's also no reason a summer blockbuster can't be populist and fun as well as smart and clever. I can't be the only one tired of these dumb, dreary summer movies like Clash of the Titans and Terminator Salvation, where a parade of generically anguished angry men fight against hordes of dark, depressing monsters so they can win a little winsy-betsy victory against the forces of evil. Ideally, a Superman movie should be something like Star Trek--just lots and lots of fun.
And with an A-lister like Bullock, you could bet the Lois and Clark relationship would be front and center, probably with a generous lack of any bullshit like "and then Doomsday kills Lois, because Superman is SRS BUIZNESS!"
ETA: Sigourney Weaver would work too, as long as you cast a really strong Luthor, because if you didn't, she would smack him around like a ping-pong ball.
ETA2: Yeah, she's a little old now, but if Superman Lives had gotten off the ground, "Galaxy Quest" Weaver would've been an awesome Lois. And Dennis Quaid as 90s Superman, final answer!
ETA3: I was about to say Val Kilmer would also be good, but then, he was Batman. But if there were a World's Finest movie... and Joel Schumacher was nowhere near it... a Kilmer/Quaid/Weaver team-up would've been 90stastic!
So then I started thinking of alternatives. Okay, obviously you need a mature women, not only to capture the sizable MILF hunter demographic, but because she's a Pulitzer-prize-winning reporter. She should at least be in her thirties. And if you're going for a forty-something Superman (yes, please), then Lois should be at least as old as he is if not older, since by most origins she was already a seasoned reporter by the time he started out... hence the condescending to "Smallville." Fortunately, there are a lot of great actresses in their forties and fifties, because by that timeframe, if you haven't learned to act, you're not getting heard from. So there's Carla Gugino, Geena Davis, Lena Headey... all very attractive women who could pull off "eats Presidents for breakfast" reporting.
But the first thought I actually had was Sandra Bullock, and even though I kept going "no, that would never work, there must be a reason this would be the worst thing ever," I couldn't come up with anything. I know she's a very mainstream kind of actress, but what's wrong with that? Superman should be Americana and even a little pop music. There's no reason we need a deep, dark look into a man who flies around with his underwear on the outside. There's also no reason a summer blockbuster can't be populist and fun as well as smart and clever. I can't be the only one tired of these dumb, dreary summer movies like Clash of the Titans and Terminator Salvation, where a parade of generically anguished angry men fight against hordes of dark, depressing monsters so they can win a little winsy-betsy victory against the forces of evil. Ideally, a Superman movie should be something like Star Trek--just lots and lots of fun.
And with an A-lister like Bullock, you could bet the Lois and Clark relationship would be front and center, probably with a generous lack of any bullshit like "and then Doomsday kills Lois, because Superman is SRS BUIZNESS!"
ETA: Sigourney Weaver would work too, as long as you cast a really strong Luthor, because if you didn't, she would smack him around like a ping-pong ball.
ETA2: Yeah, she's a little old now, but if Superman Lives had gotten off the ground, "Galaxy Quest" Weaver would've been an awesome Lois. And Dennis Quaid as 90s Superman, final answer!
ETA3: I was about to say Val Kilmer would also be good, but then, he was Batman. But if there were a World's Finest movie... and Joel Schumacher was nowhere near it... a Kilmer/Quaid/Weaver team-up would've been 90stastic!
