Collected Thoughts

I'm trying to decide how I feel about Lana Lang. I want to like her, I think there's potential for her character, I also think if KK would---act more instead of making reactive looks--I could like her better. And as much as I want to blame KK for making Lana dull the writers of the show have let her down. The whole Talon running storyline, there's something missing...like, oh---why isn't she in school? One line, one brief scene with her getting premission to do a work study deal and there's a reason why she's not in school. One freaking line about how old she is and what grade she's in would help to..IS she a freshman?

I figure Lana's been spoiled by Nell and I know Lana isn't happy with the way her life is going, she keeps trying to make changes and circumstances keep holding her back. She wanted to break up with Whitney and see where things went with Clark, but then she finds out Whitney's dad is sick and she stays with Whitney. Out of guilt? Out of a sense of obligation? That's a tough situation for anyone to deal with much less a 15 or 16 yr old.

I also don't see evidence on the show that she's very popular, sure she's pretty and she dates the star football player--but where are the references to her friends? I haven't seen all the episodes, but there doesn't seem to be any. Plus defensive reading? That's more of a shy girl's response to life (or at least it was my response to life).

She's pretty and she has money, but...I don't know...it doesn't seem like she fits in. In Hothead (or whatever the mutated football coach episode was) she tells Whitney that she needs to find her own thing. Nell pushed her to join cheerleading, she's pretty much defined by being Whitney's girlfriend, and the way she mentions her parents death she still defines herself that. It's hard trying to figure out who you are and how what you want to be like and it's doubly hard if there are labels already put on you. She's Whitney's girlfriend, she's the fairy princess, she's the girl next door. And while Lana did want to be a fairy princess when she was three, I doubt she still wants that.

I'd like to see her running the Talon as her trying for independence. Yes, it's where her parents met and yes she wanted to save that, but I think the Talon is one of the few markers that Lana has of her parents being ALIVE. The necklace is made from what killed them, she walks past the spot where they died, she goes to their graves and talks to them. But The Talon, that's a landmark of where they met, of the beginning of their relationship rather than the end of their lives. I can see why Lana would want to preserve that, I can also see her using the Talon as a way to break free of imposed identities and create one for herself. The Talon is hers, not in the incarnation of a movie theater, the place where her parents met, but it's an idea Lana came up with, her proposal saved the Talon, she's running it. I doubt that everyone in the town looks at the Talon and thinks "That's where the Langs fell in love". So Lana can keep hold of part of her past and still create an independent future.

Sometimes I think Lana and Lex are a lot alike, they are both very influenced by parental death and they held to stereotypes and ideals by the people around them.