Mini-manifesto and recs for Lana Lang
In the still ongoing unpopular woman love post I made a thread for Lana Lang from Smallville because she's perhaps the most hated female character I've ever seen. This is what I wrote about her.
Lana Lang: The Tribute
Lana, Lana. Aside from Relena Peacecraft from Gundam Wing I can't think of any other female character who would be more hated than Smallville's Lana Lang. Yes, it was frustrating to see her get stalked all the time. It was frustrating how both the writers and the characters treated her more as an idea and an object than a real person. She did wear a lot of pink. Writers never really seemed to know what to do with her and as a result viewers never seemed to know what to think about her.
Does this mean that she has nothing going on for her as a character? Hell no.
The thing is, Lana is aware of her objectification and idealization from day one, and she doesn't like it one bit. From day one she says that she doesn't want to be the crying girl from the front page of Time for the rest of her life, and for the rest of the series she keeps looking for her own place in the world. She learns to fight so that she doesn't have to be saved all the time and is indeed capable of kicking ass when necessary. She runs her own business as the owner of Talon and relies mostly on herself, leading an independent life. She falls in love hard and has trouble letting things go, but she also has a thing for honesty and makes it clear that she wants it from her relationships too, and she's willing to walk away from things that don't work. (Yes, that translates to selfishness very often, but I do think it's important that she can indeed walk away from bad things.) She's victimized constantly and over and over again, and in S6 she finally has enough and goes over to the dark side for good, blackmailing and spying on people and even delivering vigilante justice to those who have wronged her. One constant through all her changes is her love for Clark, and while their relationships suffers from both of their issues she never stops loving him, and eventually puts his and the world's welfare above her own and leaves him.
Lana Lang was inconsistent, frustrating, overly glamorized and never quite came together in a way that would have done her justice, but beneath the writers's bad choices there was a character with huge potential and a story of a woman who was trapped in other people's assumptions and expectations and wanted to become her own person. We saw her very little in the end, but she was there and she had her moments, and she deserves better than to be dismissed as worthless.
Recs
Before I rec anything else a special mention must be given to keewick's vids Sugar and Sorry, which are easily the best character portraits of Lana that I've ever seen. Even if you never got Lana on the show you will get her in these vids. Fortunately they're not the only fanworks out there that do Lana justice.
Fic
I wasn't always as Lana-sympathetic as I am today, but even back when I didn't like her I still loved her in Paperkryter's fic. Her Clark and Lana are just so wonderful together, and are perhaps at their best in the adorable The Art of Laughter, in which Clark winds Lana over by flunking art and making her laugh. A great little get-together. All For Believing and Real by supacat aren't connected to each other, but they're both fics about Clark/Lana-relationship during S5 and give great insight to how things were like for Clark and Lana both.
As for non-Clark/Lana-pairings, thamiris's Unlike Dead Butterflies is a charming, beautiful story that brings Lana and Pete together (with a bit of Clark/Lex thrown in), while Acetone and Displacement by carmarthen are two lovely fics about Lana and Chloe. For more gennish Lana, there is also carmarthen's Crimson, which is an excellent short about Lana and her image. For more gennish and also smutty Lana, there is Seule et Amoureuse, which is an excellent longish short about Lana and sex.
As a bit of self-pluggage, I must also share my own Lana-ficlet Cage And A Bird, a small character study about Lana after the S6-finale. Obviously the deepest Lana-fic EVER.
Vids
Samson by bop_radar was probably the first Clark/Lana-video that I ever saw, and it's still the one closest to my heart as it really captures the emotional intensity and tragedy of their relationship. Another beautiful Clark/Lana-vid is Sundrenched World by talitha78, which is about why Clark loved Lana as much as he did, so if you ever wondered about it you'll get your answer from this vid.
talitha78 also did a wonderfully fun and steaming hot Lana/Chloe-vid called Faster Kill Pussycat, which also does an excellent job of illustrating why so many people had lots for Lana in the first place. bohemianstar13's Lana-gen vid Snow White Queen is about the same thing, only in much darker way; it's a vid about Lana and her various stalkers, and it really underlines just how creepy all the Lana-obsession is. For Lana, that is.
Other
I said that Lana had her moments on the show, didn't I? tasabian's picspam lists ten of them in the community sv_char_love. On the same comm there is also serenography's lovely post about why she likes Lana and Clark/Lana. There is also the Lana-friendly community in LJ called lana_is_ok, of which title sums it up very neatly.
As an extra I must also give massive props for Kristin Kreuk, who started out clumsy and for whom it took some time to grow into her actress shoes (not unlike Tom Welling. what, it took him time to grow to his actress shoes? yes, it did!), but who nevertheless made Lana soar in the end. And even if you don't agree with that you can't not agree with the fact that she's extremely, unreally beautiful. Excuse me, I have some swooning to do.
Lana Lang: The Tribute
Lana, Lana. Aside from Relena Peacecraft from Gundam Wing I can't think of any other female character who would be more hated than Smallville's Lana Lang. Yes, it was frustrating to see her get stalked all the time. It was frustrating how both the writers and the characters treated her more as an idea and an object than a real person. She did wear a lot of pink. Writers never really seemed to know what to do with her and as a result viewers never seemed to know what to think about her.
Does this mean that she has nothing going on for her as a character? Hell no.
The thing is, Lana is aware of her objectification and idealization from day one, and she doesn't like it one bit. From day one she says that she doesn't want to be the crying girl from the front page of Time for the rest of her life, and for the rest of the series she keeps looking for her own place in the world. She learns to fight so that she doesn't have to be saved all the time and is indeed capable of kicking ass when necessary. She runs her own business as the owner of Talon and relies mostly on herself, leading an independent life. She falls in love hard and has trouble letting things go, but she also has a thing for honesty and makes it clear that she wants it from her relationships too, and she's willing to walk away from things that don't work. (Yes, that translates to selfishness very often, but I do think it's important that she can indeed walk away from bad things.) She's victimized constantly and over and over again, and in S6 she finally has enough and goes over to the dark side for good, blackmailing and spying on people and even delivering vigilante justice to those who have wronged her. One constant through all her changes is her love for Clark, and while their relationships suffers from both of their issues she never stops loving him, and eventually puts his and the world's welfare above her own and leaves him.
Lana Lang was inconsistent, frustrating, overly glamorized and never quite came together in a way that would have done her justice, but beneath the writers's bad choices there was a character with huge potential and a story of a woman who was trapped in other people's assumptions and expectations and wanted to become her own person. We saw her very little in the end, but she was there and she had her moments, and she deserves better than to be dismissed as worthless.
Recs
Before I rec anything else a special mention must be given to keewick's vids Sugar and Sorry, which are easily the best character portraits of Lana that I've ever seen. Even if you never got Lana on the show you will get her in these vids. Fortunately they're not the only fanworks out there that do Lana justice.
Fic
I wasn't always as Lana-sympathetic as I am today, but even back when I didn't like her I still loved her in Paperkryter's fic. Her Clark and Lana are just so wonderful together, and are perhaps at their best in the adorable The Art of Laughter, in which Clark winds Lana over by flunking art and making her laugh. A great little get-together. All For Believing and Real by supacat aren't connected to each other, but they're both fics about Clark/Lana-relationship during S5 and give great insight to how things were like for Clark and Lana both.
As for non-Clark/Lana-pairings, thamiris's Unlike Dead Butterflies is a charming, beautiful story that brings Lana and Pete together (with a bit of Clark/Lex thrown in), while Acetone and Displacement by carmarthen are two lovely fics about Lana and Chloe. For more gennish Lana, there is also carmarthen's Crimson, which is an excellent short about Lana and her image. For more gennish and also smutty Lana, there is Seule et Amoureuse, which is an excellent longish short about Lana and sex.
As a bit of self-pluggage, I must also share my own Lana-ficlet Cage And A Bird, a small character study about Lana after the S6-finale. Obviously the deepest Lana-fic EVER.
Vids
Samson by bop_radar was probably the first Clark/Lana-video that I ever saw, and it's still the one closest to my heart as it really captures the emotional intensity and tragedy of their relationship. Another beautiful Clark/Lana-vid is Sundrenched World by talitha78, which is about why Clark loved Lana as much as he did, so if you ever wondered about it you'll get your answer from this vid.
talitha78 also did a wonderfully fun and steaming hot Lana/Chloe-vid called Faster Kill Pussycat, which also does an excellent job of illustrating why so many people had lots for Lana in the first place. bohemianstar13's Lana-gen vid Snow White Queen is about the same thing, only in much darker way; it's a vid about Lana and her various stalkers, and it really underlines just how creepy all the Lana-obsession is. For Lana, that is.
Other
I said that Lana had her moments on the show, didn't I? tasabian's picspam lists ten of them in the community sv_char_love. On the same comm there is also serenography's lovely post about why she likes Lana and Clark/Lana. There is also the Lana-friendly community in LJ called lana_is_ok, of which title sums it up very neatly.
As an extra I must also give massive props for Kristin Kreuk, who started out clumsy and for whom it took some time to grow into her actress shoes (not unlike Tom Welling. what, it took him time to grow to his actress shoes? yes, it did!), but who nevertheless made Lana soar in the end. And even if you don't agree with that you can't not agree with the fact that she's extremely, unreally beautiful. Excuse me, I have some swooning to do.