FINALLY MY TIME HAS COME!
I was younger than Lana when the show aired, had little knowledge of Superman, and I sort of grew up watching her journey and finding fandom a few years later… And boy what an introduction to fandom.
Some of her controversial characterization I will attribute to the writers not always having the clearest vision or writing the best plots for her… the show was often written to maximize the teen drama and increase tension and wrote around the plot for convenience. And of course, many people simply hated her because although Clark loved her, she was not l*is.
Generally, however, people seemed to hate her for one of two reasons: she was too “perfect” or “too weak” in the early seasons or she was too “dark” in the latter seasons. And some people simply grew tired of the on-and-off relationship or brought up the comics. If she is weak, why should I hate her? If she is perfect, why is she so clearly flawed? If she is dark, what has happened to make her so? I will defend her to the death. I love Lana Lang.
She is vulnerable but so strong and kind but also oh-so-angry and afraid but also so loving… She is complex.
When we meet her, she looks like the girl next door who has everything, but inside she is drowning in fear of abandonment and loneliness. Orphaned at 3, lost a friend who drowned at age 10-ish, disowned by her birth dad, lost her first boyfriend in the army, stalked by psychopaths, left in Smallville at age 16 by her aunt who raised her, and the list keeps going… And she just keeps going despite the list. She is a survivor who tries to hide her pain with a smile.
Instead of being bossy and brash and ending up in trouble needing to be saved, instead, she is kind and trusting to a fault. She ends up getting hurt and betrayed by people who use her, often those close to her (literally all of her boyfriends lie to her). Because of this, she sometimes trusts the wrong people and then distrusts the right people because she is kept in the dark about almost EVERYTHING that happens around her. Despite this, she falls in love, she forgives others, she learns from her mistakes, she runs a coffee shop, she learns self-defense, she stands up for herself, she goes to Paris, she survives, she studies, and she goes after the things she wants in life. Instead of meeting the bitterness of life with cynicism, she keeps trying to find the silver lining.
She’s like a Cinderella character to me. She may fail to “have courage and be kind” at all times, but even when it’s really hard she seems to try… which of course inspires Clark.
Except there comes a point in this story when Cinderella breaks. She is so devastated, so angry, so disappointed, and so disheartened that she adopts a darker approach. When Cinderella shatters on the floor next to her glass slipper promises, she loses her last bit of innocence. The prince who would save her wasn’t who she thought he was, the real prince never rescued her because she pushed him away and didn’t realize until it was too late…. The monster found her. So she picks up the gun and fights her way out. And when she gets out, she’s never quite the same.
Still, as she heals, she does remember what it was like to trust, to love, to hope, to be almost happy. And she wants to reclaim her innocence…. She does. But the monsters are still out there, and she is torn between revenge and healing… and afraid of being hurt. She’s never the same. But she can keep going, keep surviving, and grow past her mistakes and her pain.
And as a flawed individual who tries to make up for her flaws, she goes on to save Metropolis at the cost of her own safety and happiness.
