RedKryptonClark's Smallville Clois Fansite!

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Introduction

This is a three part essay that will explore how each of the three leading ladies of SMALLVILLE fulfill specific roles in the show and will go in depth in examining their relationships with Clark Kent. Focus will heavily revolve around the two canonical figures, Lana Lang and Lois Lane however we will also explore the show’s original character Chloe Sullivan. Although these will be essays, feel free to pop in and initate discussion

Lana Lang and Lois Lane may share having the exact same initials for their names, but that is where the similarities between these two female leads for SMALLVILLE end. Lana and Lois are both written, intentionally to be opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to how each of their characters are depicted.

We know from SUPERMAN canon that Lana Lang ends up with Lex Luther and Lois Lane is the future wife of Clark Kent. SMALLVILLE sneakily picks these two characters apart to explain to all who watch the show why it is that Clark should one day end up with his pain-in-the-butt reluctant houseguest Lois Lane rather than his dream girl Lana Lang.

Part 1 Lana Lang

Lana Lang- The Damsel in Distress of SMALLVILLE

Lana Lang is the archetypal Damsel in Distress of SMALLVILLE, she is also the good girl gone bad.

Here is the definition of Damsel in Distress from Wikipedia: The subject of the damsel in distress or persecuted maiden is a classic theme in world literature, art and film. She is almost inevitably a young, nubile woman, who has been placed in a dire predicament by a villain or a monster and who requires a hero to dash to her rescue. She has became a stock character of fiction, particularly of melodrama.

Some claim the popularity of the damsel of distress is perhaps in large measure because her predicaments sometimes contain hints of BDSM fantasy. The helplessness of the damsel in distress, who can be portrayed as foolish and ineffectual to the point of naïvete, along with her need for others to rescue her, has made the stereotype the target of feminist criticism.

Lana enters into SMALLVILLE lore as the epitome of this archetypal character. From the opening sequences of the PILOT episode we are introduced to her and learn that her parents were both killed during the Meteor Storm that brought a young alien boy, Kal-El into the lives of the Kents, thus changing Earth’s history forever.
Lana is orphaned in a highly tragic and public way. Her bawling young face appeared on the cover of an issue of TIME magazine as the poster child for the victims of the natural event. As the girl grows into a teenager, she wants nothing more than to escape being seen as the sad fairy princess from that cover. Lana is the Kent’s next door neighbor and from the moment Clark first laid eyes on her, his heart immediately went out to her and claimed her as his one true love.

We learn from early on that even though Clark Kent lived next door to Lana Lang he didn’t even TALK to her until High School. Clark’s love for her was that of unrealized fantasy, a dream that he created in his own mind and fostered and nurtured for many years culminating in a highly unrealistic view of who Lana Lang really is as a person. Can anyone live up to the perfect person image that a lovesick young teenage boy would create in his head?

As High School begins and Lana and Clark meet, a series of events plunge these two together and ignites a star-crossed lover’s storyline that continues to exist even in SUPERMAN lore today. Lana spends much of her time in Smallville becoming the object of interest from Chloe’s so titled “Meteor Freaks.” Maybe it’s because she’s a freak herself (she did wear a piece of Kryptonite around her neck for many years – the same stone that killed her parents – a bit morbid don’t you think?) or because her ‘beauty’ lures them to her like flies to honey, but Lana becomes the fixation of strange and unusual outsiders from all over SMALLVILLE. Each encounter with one of these freaks chips away at Lana’s self confidence and she embraces her own inner fears against anything that’s not normal or natural.

Clark is constantly called in to help Lana get herself out of impossible situations. Like every great Damsel in Distress, in these situations Lana is always passed out or knocked out and never witnesses any of Clark’s miraculous saves. Instead of knowing Clark’s secret or accepting that he just wants to keep a part of himself secret she accuses him of dishonesty and lying to her.

Early on Lex teaches Lana some skills to defend herself in a physical fight situation, however more oftentimes than not Lana resorts to running away and ends up finding herself in dangerous situations. The episode CRISIS from season 3 is the ultimate “damsel in distress” Lana episode of the series. The synopsis of the episode is Clark receives a panicked call from Lana and hears a gunshot before the line goes dead, but when he arrives at the Talon he is stunned to discover she is alive and well. Clark realizes the phone call came from the next day. In the episode everyone works to try to figure out what happens to cause Lana’s near death experience phone call. The next day Clark ends up running around like a chicken w/ his head cut off trying to save her. He risks getting electrocuted by electrically charged Kryptonite just to figure out where she is and why she’s in danger.

The end of the episode results in Clark taking a bullet for her (which of course she doesn’t see) nor does she seem to accept the fact that Clark just magically appeared in time to save her after being half way across town one second earlier and realize that there must be something special about him. Instead of appreciating the uniqueness of her friend she continues to question and harass him about his honesty. Clark turns the tables and asks why didn’t she call the POLICE instead of him? She replies, “Because you’re always there for me.”

This rather bi-polar insight to Clark and Lana’s relationship exemplifies why Lana is not the woman for Clark. You have to think that after everything she’s witnessed or at least experienced with Clark that she’d just accept that he’s unique and move past her fears of the unknown; however doing that would require her to have a stable view of the world. Being an orphan Lana has a lot of self-esteem issues. She spends the entire series complains because everyone “leaves her.” Her aunt moved to Metropolis and Lana blamed her for abandoning her in Smallville. Let’s not forget that Lana CHOSE to stay behind and live with Chloe Sullivan so that she wouldn’t have to leave her hometown. It is her “I’m a victim” philosophy in life that taints all of her relationships and makes it impossible for her to ever love herself.

With her first boyfriend Whitney in Season 1 she feels obligated to stay with him well beyond when the relationship has played out because she feels sorry for him. What’s interesting is that she doesn’t do this with Clark when they’re together in Season 4-5. After RECKONING and Clark loses his father, Lana basically disappears from his life. She moves to Metropolis…she starts going to Lex whenever she needs anything, she even abandons him at his father’s gravesite.

Clark and Lana spend their entire relationship getting away from each other. Season 2/3 right when they’re getting close, Clark runs away to Metropolis. Season 3/ 4 Lana moves to Paris. Season 4 /5 they’re together as a couple, but when Clark’s powers are restored after being mortal Lana moves away to Met U. This happens directly after HIDDEN, the episode where Clark’s powers are restored after his rebirth. On his deathbed, instead of crying for the loss of her loved one, Lana laments that she knew Clark would “leave her one day.” Again, her insecurities about being abandoned are reborn and she takes the victim role in the event instead of being proud that her boyfriend died trying to be a hero. Everything is always about her and how things affect her life. There’s a wonderful deleted scene from JINXED where Clark confronts Lana on his porch and she asks if he’s taking steroids for football, ultimately Clark discovers that really Lana is looking to find out if he’s revealed to anyone that she’s dating the school’s football coach. Clark gets angry and says, “Oh so that’s it, this isn’t about me, it’s all about YOU. How about we have a relationship where you keep out of my business and I’ll keep out of yours.”

The deleted scene was probably considered a bit harsh for the episode, but it shows the growing disenchantment that these two feel for each other and the fact that even when they’re not dating, the trust issue is always there and comes between them, even preventing them from being friends.

Growing Darkness

Lana’s insecurity issues cause her to step off of the moral line. She finds herself going to Lex for advice – a man who admits to anyone around him that he’s emotionally unstable. If any further evidence of this is needed, simply look over Lex’s struggles in Season 3 with his father needing to commit him into Belle Rieve Mental Institution after having a complete breakdown.

Lex often provides her with solutions that are less than honest and Lana never once questions him or his motives, unlike Clark. She does however use any opportunity to jump to the quick and easy path for finding a solution. In “Vessel” and “Zod” when Lana overhears Clark and Chloe talking that they might have to Kill Lex, she’s of course horrified that Clark would consider doing that to Lex. However, when faced with ZOD, she’s the first one to jump to the conclusion that he must die and offers to do so. Clark won’t kill anyone. Instead of killing his former friend like he was ordered to do, he killed Fine which opened up the Phantom Zone and released ZOD. Clark’s moral center will NEVER allow him to kill a human being.

Lana’s morality is blurred. When possessed by the evil Isobel she killed Mrs. Teague using the piece of the magical stone of power which ultimately caused the meteor shower, initiated the arrival of the Kryptonians, and provided Brianiac’s access to Earth to allow him to initiate ZOD’s rebirth. One could forgive Lana for this act had she admitted to it; instead she let the Luthers cover up the circumstances around Mrs. Teague’s death and she then shrouded herself in her victim’s robes and professed her undying love to Clark instead of confessing to murder. Clark who follows his heart instead of his head ignored the bloody stone and conveniently forgot about Jor-El’s warning that the stone had been tainted by murder.

For all that she constantly challenges Clark and his honesty, she herself entered their relationship having covered up the biggest lie of all – one that Clark would have never have approved of had he known the truth. Even worse, this secret was kept and protected by Lex Luther.

Trust Issues

Lana likes to see herself as a highly moral and trustworthy person. People probably assume this to be true because of she always appears to be such a sweet and responsible girl. You have to think that had her parents survived the meteor attack that she might have turned out that way. Instead she was raised by an Aunt who painted a rosy picture of her mother to her instead of the truth that her mother was lonely and angry. One of the only times we really saw Nell was in the PILOT when she was acutely jealous of Jonathan coming into her flower shop with his wife Martha.

You have to think that some of Nell’s bitterness and jaded nature towards love must’ve rubbed off onto Lana growing up. You have to wonder if this stemmed her inability to be alone for one day in her life. Because Lana doesn’t know who she really is as a person, nor does she love herself, she identifies herself by jumping from boyfriend to boyfriend and needs a man to create her identity. The fact that Clark won’t show her who she truly is further muddies her own insecurities. How can she be Clark Kent’s girlfriend if she doesn’t even know who he is? By his inability to trust her, she can’t trust herself to make any decisions on her own.

Clark spends his time in SMALLVILLE wrestling with whether or not he can trust Lana with his secret. Although he tells himself that the reason he doesn’t tell her is that he’s worried what other people would do to her if she did know that he was from another planet, he has deeper concerns and reasons for wanting to keep this truth from her. These concerns pop up frequently in their relationship.

Clark has a dark side to his nature that he knows is something that Lana would never understand. In RED we get glimpses of Clark’s more assertive Kal-El personality and it scares Lana to death. When Clark takes off and abandons everyone in SMALLVILLE at the end of Season 2 in EXODUS, he leaves her tearfully behind knowing that she can never understand the man he feels he has become and would never be able to contain the pain that he was feeling in his heart over the guilt of causing the accident that lost his mother’s baby.

In EXILE when Lana seeks out Clark she calls his parents behind his back to let them know where he’s hiding out. A Red Kryptonite infected Clark seethes a very angry response to her pitiful declaration of love to him, “Do you always betray the people who you love?” At the end of PHOENIX he maturely tells her that they can never be together because he knows that he’s not the man who she thinks he is and that she’ll never accept the darker side of his personality. That side disgusts her. Clark knows that he can’t be with anyone who can’t accept all of him, not just part of him. He does, of course, forget this truth that he faced early on in their relationship which ended up being the core of why their relationship ultimately fails.

In ARRIVAL Lana witnessed first hand how the two Kryptonians single-handedly destroyed the entire police armada who arrived to try to secure their arrival into SMALLVILLE. All of Lana’s fears of anything different than herself and abnormal to nature returned in spades and her deep seeded racism towards freaks resurfaced. When in ZOD she learns that Lex is possessed by the spirit of an Alien and takes her to his ship, she seethes “You’re one of THEM!” Her racism for those who’re different runs deep and when she reveals parts of this hatred towards Clark, it immediately puts him on high alert considering he is abnormal himself.

Clark gave away his powers to be with Lana after sending the two Kryptonians into the Phantom Zone. In his moments of humanity when he didn’t have to worry about Lana and his secret, he was happy. But that was short-lived. In MORTAL Lex Luther sent freaks after Clark in order to see whether or not he was human or alien. Lana was again put in danger and Clark was utterly defenseless other than using his and Chloe’s brainpower to help her out.
When his powers were restored, Clark again knew that he couldn’t reveal his secret to her and their relationship spiraled rapidly downhill.

By mid-season 5 Clark realized he was at a cross-roads, it was either tell Lana the truth or let her go. He decided to tell her the truth in RECKONING. The results were disastrous. Not even 12 hours into knowing his secret Lana went to Lex and he knew that she knew Clark’s secret. The encounter between them resulted in Lana dying. Devastated, Clark returned to the Fortress of Solitude and demanded that Jor-El turn back time so that she would live.

Jor-El knows at this point that Lana was responsible for opening the portal for ZOD’s arrival and appears to deem Lana unworthy of his son’s love, but he leaves the decision to his son. The second time around, he breaks Lana’s heart w/ more lies and creates a chasm in their relationship that they cannot mend. Instead of losing his childhood love, Clark loses his father, a man of immense morality and honor. You can look at how differently Jonathan and Lana acted towards Clark at the deaths of the other in their alternate realities. Jonathan squeezed his son tightly in a loving embrace to help protect him against the rages of pain that his heart was experiencing. Lana on the other hand grabs Clark’s hand at the gravesite for Jonathan’s funeral and then lets go and walks away from him leaving him alone in his absolute time of need.

Throughout season 6 and the end of 5, Lana continues to approach Clark and dangle the trust issue in front of him like a carrot. She passively tests his waters asking if he ever regrets anything, but continues to stay with Lex, using her billionaire boyfriend to get even with Clark. In the beginning of the season we see Lex set up an elaborate ploy in ARROW to find out if Lana is loyal to him or not, Lana employs the same sorts of techniques against Clark. Ultimately they fail because Clark doesn’t fall for mind games.

In Season 6’s HYDRO, Lana realizes with crystal clarity that Chloe is completely in on Clark’s secret. She’s not only in on it, but she has adopted all of Clark’s evasive techniques needed to protect whatever Clark is hiding. Long ago Lana complained to Chloe that she never understood why Clark trusted Chloe over herself and Chloe astutely responded, “It’s because he’s not in love with me.” After Clark rejects her for one last time in the barn after she tearfully begs him to trust her, she gives herself entirely to Lex and accepts his marriage proposal. Considering the audience knows that Lex is hiding a multitude of sins and dark secrets (freak-fest hidden floor 33.1) from Lana we can only guess at how she will react to such deceptions. If she marries Lex before she finds out, she will learn to hate him and long for the rosy lens colored life that she always dreamed of with her idea of the perfect Clark. We will only know as the rest of season 6 unfolds, for the producers of the show promise that the Clark/Lana/Lex triangle angst is not yet finished.

We can only hope that things that happen will cause Clark to want to move towards embracing his destiny to one day become Superman and be strong enough to destroy Lex’s evil plans once and for all. He certainly won’t be able to do that with a woman at his side who he doesn’t trust.

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Part 2: Chloe Sullivan

Chloe Sullivan – SMALLVILLE's Mary Sue

Another fellow Cloiser, Biaaly, believes that Chloe Sullivan is in fact the real Lana Lang from the comic books. Lana in the comics worked on the school newspaper but never got the boy. It's possible that the shows creators took elements from the original Lana Lang and incorporated them into creating Chloe Sullivan. However, from a literary standpoint, we'll just assume that Chloe is 100% an original character for the show.

A problem exists whenever you venture into creating original characters and incorporating them into established literary/comic/movie-genre related settings – the urge becomes very strong to create a character who can magically 'fix' everything and solve all of the plot holes that the established series seems to leave behind. Fanfiction writers battle constantly with the original character angle in their writing. In most fan based genres the problem of creating a Mary Sue is hotly debated however as I've discovered such a problem doesn't exist in SMALLVILLE. Why? Because the shows creators have already infused the show with the ultimate Mary Sue and she goes by the name of Chloe Sullivan.

Don't know what a Mary Sue is? Well here's what a Mary Sue is from Wikipedia:

“Mary Sue (sometimes shortened simply to Sue) is a pejorative term for a fictional character who is portrayed in an overly idealized way and lacks noteworthy flaws, or has unreasonably romanticized flaws. Characters labeled Mary Sues, as well as the stories they appear in, are generally seen as wish-fulfillment fantasise of the author.

The term originated in criticism of fan fiction. It usually refers to characters created by the (fan) author of the work, but can also be used in reference to characters from the original canon source who are characterized in a way perceived as Sue-like. Many original characters in play-by-post gaming are also perceived as Mary Sues (or the male equivalent).

Mary Sue may be used to describe a character of any gender, but male Mary Sues may also be called "Marty Stus," "Gary Stus," "Gary Sues", or similar names. Authors of such characters (of either sex) are sometimes referred to as Suethors, a portmanteau of Sue and author.

Characters labeled as a "Mary Sue" have what are seen as exaggerated and annoying (and sometimes impossible) levels of superiority, especially in comparison to the other characters, to real people in similar situations, or both. While "Mary Sue" is a subjective term, there are nonetheless many traits commonly associated with the concept of the "Mary Sue".

Typically, characters most commonly labeled as "Mary Sues" are set apart from others in the story by their unique and exceptional skills and traits.

Many Mary Sues have skills remarkably like the canon characters, often considerably more advanced than what would be expected of their age group in canon or the real world. These skills are usually received without need for practice or experience.Mary Sues are usually presented as highly moral, sometimes sacrificing their lives or happiness for the sake of other characters, even when this Western viewpoint would be uncommon for the setting of the story.

Tragic backgrounds are also common among Mary Sues, which frequently include family abuse or neglect, or, in fan fiction, relations to major canon characters through blood or strangely contrived family ties.

Mary Sues sometimes display a degree of self-insertion, especially in fan fiction, where they often cause things to happen that the author wishes would occur in canon. They may mock and humiliate characters the author dislikes, or recognize generally disliked characters (e.g. villains) that the author likes as merely misunderstood or troubled. Mary Sues may bring together characters the author thinks should be romantically involved with one another or become romantically involved with characters to whom the author is attracted.

To further emphasize Mary Sues' superiority to the other characters, authors will frequently describe their looks, life, and aptitudes not only in great detail, but frequently, have other characters notice their looks even when they usually wouldn't, and make them admired and praised by other characters in the story. Mary Sue characters typically never display any of the dysfunctional psychological profiles often associated with tragic backgrounds. If these characters have flaws or limitations, they are either minor and/or endearing quirks (such as a fiery disposition), or yet another hardship for them to effortlessly overcome (e.g. paraplegia, depression, an eating disorder)."

Chloe the Over Idealized Heroine and her BDA

One might be able to argue that Chloe doesn't 100% fit into the description that I've painted above and that assumption would be correct. Chloe isn't your typical 100% perfect, cookie cutter heroine that more accurately describes Mary Sues in Fanfiction however, more oftentimes than not Chloe does disturbingly fall into patterns that reek of Mary Suedom.

Throughout the course of the show, Chloe has become the superglue in patching together impossible situations in episodes. From when we first meet Chloe, we see that she is simply a newspaper reporter who happens to be good at Internet Surfing and digging up dirt on people. As the seasons progress, she leaps from surfing to becoming a world class hacker. Hacking is a criminal offense and yet the show somehow writes this off as simply belonging to Chloe's magical skills at perusing the Internet. In UNSAFE, Chloe brings up Alicia's medical files that are complete with the doctor's specified notes about Alicia's treatments and final analysis that leads to her release. Medical files are confidential and hacking into them would/should be considered a criminal offense. In SMALLVILLE such things are never accounted for. Chloe doesn't bat an eye twice about breaking into confidential files, nor do we ever see our mighty intelligent young snoop ever worry about the consequences that she might face for doing something that is so obviously illegal.

Season 4& 5 further launched Chloe from being smart girl to SUPER geekette by having her toting her laptop around and not only being able to access confidential files, but she's now able to access/break into highly secure firewalls of large corporations and plan subterfuge in order to assist Clark on his missions. An example of this is when she and Clark break into Luthercorp to steal the drugs in MORTAL. Chloe is able to access the Luthercorp security mainframe and cut the power without detection. Any normal company would have been immediately alerted to a power fluctuation in their security network and would've sent men out to investigate. Clark (who is mortal at this point) is the one who ends up setting off an alarm, not Chloe.

The real question that remains is how the world does Chloe learn all of this stuff? Does she spend hours surfing hacker sites? Does she have a network of online hacker geek friends who help her out? If we knew she did these things, her magical skills would cease to be Mary Sue related and they would show real character growth. Instead, we're lead to believe that somehow, Chloe just magically knows the right answer to any riddle that comes her way and has the right solution to the problem every time.

One might think when reading this that I must hate Chloe, that's not true. Chloe is a fun character and she's entertaining to watch on the screen, but that's the point of Mary Sues they're there to pretty up the storyline and help to nicely tie up loose ends. I'm also not going to complain any time that a show wants to create an ultra smart female lead for young girls to look up to however the execution of her character up until now has been flawed and drastically needs an update if they wish her to be believable.

The problem with Chloe in the show is that in the end she becomes the real hero in the episodes. It's because of her quick intellect and masterful computer skills that Clark is able to run in and save the day. One could say that Chloe is simply his Q or his control center resource, but again, that doesn't really help with the overall story arc. Clark Kent aka the man who will be Superman is supposed to be highly intelligent and is able to rapidly process answers because his Kryptonian mind can work faster than a humans can. Perhaps superspeed intelligence is a power that the shows creator's are holding back on, but I think instead they've decided to dummy down Clark and let Chloe be his brains.

Wouldn't it have been more heroic in EXPOSED if when Clark arrived at the penthouse looking for Lois, he saw the computer, hit the print button himself, then used his super hearing to detect the sound of the helicopter, and XRAY vision to see the helicopter on the roof? Instead he called Chloe and she pointed those things out to him. By patching Chloe into the scripts and having her come up with even the most simple observations, it only further helps to maintain the current fan base perception that Clark is a big dumb alien (BDA.) The show has gotten to the point where it's rather shocking when Clark actually comes to a realization about anything on his own, we find ourselves amazed that he actually CAN think for himself.

Chloe – The Unrequited Best Friend & Secret Keeper

If Miles and Gough ever actually have Chloe and Clark start dating they will 100% fulfill my prophetic words that Chloe is SMALLVILLE's Mary Sue. The pretty, perfect girl who everyone thinks should get the boy will end up victorious. I say, how unoriginal and how boring. Of course, Chlark fans should be ready for a tearfest if that does happen, for usually this means the imminent death of the Mary Sue and everyone will be tragically upset by the final act of bravery that will lead to her death, however, fear not, for she will miraculously be reborn (as no Mary Sue can ever really die.) This is another repeated Mary Sue plotline that is used repeatedly over and over again. It actually appears something like this will happen in LABYRINTH – so it's safe to say that the writers appear to be following this charming pattern quite nicely...alternate universe or not.

Realistically Chloe is the gal pal of the story who has long standing unrequited feelings for the main hero of the story. She's the pining secretary or the spinster friend from stories of old who'll never pursue her own personal happiness because she's forced her heart into a place where it's doomed to be crushed. She dates other guys to try to make the object of her affection jealous but it never quite works out for her.

Seasons 1 & 2 we see Chloe as the ultimate lovesick friend to Clark Kent. She endures seeing him pining after Lana but still holds out hope that he'll see the light and realize that he loves her and not Lana. She even writes down all of her feelings for him and professes her love for him when he's unconscious only to have him whisper Lana's name instead in season 2's FEVER. Throughout season 1 Clark is finally let in on the big secret that Chloe is in love with him and you can almost feel his discomfort at being cornered into asking her to the formal in TEMPEST. Although he takes his date in stride and even nearly kisses her, his heart is elsewhere and Chloe is left again alone and second fiddle to Lana Lang. In Season 2's VORTEX she begins her lifelong pattern of masking her feelings for him by burying herself deep in denial and lets him off of the hook for leaving her stranded. She'd rather be Clark's friend than nothing.

As if Chloe had enough fellow female competition problems in Clark Kent's life, the boy wonder always manages to find more hot babes who are happy to make the moves on him. In SKINWALKER Clark discovers the Kiwatchi caves and their hot and attractive Native American caretaker Kyla. He also has a very steamy love affair with fellow teleporting freak Alicia Baker, a mentally unstable girl who always manages to get all of the women in Clark's life upset.

Season four rolls around and in enters Chloe's cousin, Lois Lane. Chloe is of course confused by her gorgeous cousin's appearance in GONE but is alarmed in FACADE when she sees exactly how much chemistry she and Clark are creating outside of the classroom. Chloe is further forced into her unrequited shell by being Lana Lang's best friend and roommate and constantly having to endure seeing she and Clark together.

By season 6 here, it begins with Chloe, once again, brushing off her big smooch that she planted on him in VESSEL and turns to Jimmy Olson she lost her virginity to over the summer in season 2 at her internship at The Daily Planet. Chloe managed to miss her chance with Clark as he was vulnerable and feeling very alone in ZOD and was obviously taken aback by her abandoning him for another guy. In a recent interview Allison Mack seems to believe that Chloe is over Clark and that he's now pining some for her. She also revealed that Chloe is about to make some tough choices in her life – does she want to forsake her own happiness and give up her entire life in order to help Clark to protect his secret?

Other than being in love with Clark, Chloe has spent her life being fixated upon being his greatest confident. In EXILE she let's it slip to Lana that she's known where Clark's been hiding out all summer in Metropolis, she did it not only because she liked being the only one who knew the secret but because it meant that he trusted her with his whereabouts (not that he had a choice in the matter.) Other than Pete, Chloe is the third person to learn of Clark's powers other than his parents. Alicia Baker decides that Clark would be better if the whole world knew who he really was so she set things in motion in PARIAH so that Chloe could first hand witness Clark's superpowers. The plan backfired, after talking things over Lois who convinced her that it would probably be best to not let reveal that she learned this secret, Chloe remains quiet and supportive of Clark and his hidden abilities in the dark.

COMMENCEMENT and ARRIVAL mark the point when Chloe learns the complete truth about Clark's powers. Her long standing love for Clark gets blown into full scale hero worship as she realizes that her friend is Super charged and always puts other people's needs ahead of her own. In episodes to come, we will see Chloe taking on an even grander role as the oracle for the underground Justice League and help spread the word of the good that they do in the world.

COMMENCEMENT and ARRIVAL also mark the exact moment in the shows history when Chloe Sullivan ceased to be interesting. Chloe no longer argues with Clark Kent for she is in constant fear that he will up and leave her. Seasons 2&3 Chloe battles constantly with Clark Kent and they go through rounds where they don't talk to each other. Chloe even choses to goto Lionel Luther and spy on Clark in exchange for a job at the Daily Planet. This was painful to watch, but it was also some of the last times that we actually saw Chloe grow as a character. She made huge mistakes and learned from them. She's ceased to making any mistakes now and seems to simply exist on the show. HYDRO had the possibility for Chloe and Clark to have a huge blow out over her protecting the secret of Lana being pregnant, instead of arguing and taking out his frustrations on Chloe like he would've in the past, Clark immediately forgives her. Is that growth on his side or have the writers just gotten lazy?

In HYDRO Lana finally realized that Chloe is in on Clark's secret, that dark vacant hole that he refused to let her shine a light into. Chloe has nothing to say about it for she knows that if given the choice, she'd rather remain friends with Clark than with Lana.

According to recent talks to the shows producers they seem to believe that SMALLVILLE has one more season left in it before it's over. If they get to that seventh season (which shouldn't be difficult w/ it maintaining it's ratings & DVD sales have been very strong) there's a very real chance that Chloe and Clark will hook up at some point before the series is over. Why? One simple reason – closure. This show has so many Chloe/Clark fans out there that if they didn't at least explore them trying to have an adult relationship and having it fail miserably the fans of those characters would probably go ballistic. The fans of Chloe/Clark together are so vehemently supportive of their pairing that they come up with the wildest theories including the infamous Chlois theory where at the end of the series, Erica Durance's well developed Lois Lane character will magically disappear and we'll find out that Chloe is in fact Lois Lane. Even though the producers have laughed at this theory and shot it down, it still thrives today because these folks are too blind to see what's right in front of them.

Tom Welling and Allison Mack have great chemistry on the show, but never once have we really been shown that their chemistry is anything beyond being great friends. Clark smiles when he's around Chloe, he cares for her, but that real passionate SPARK that Clark needs for his one true love doesn't exist with Chloe – the Kiss in HYDRO between he and Lois showed the whole world where that spark exists and it isn't between any of Clark's childhood friends. Perhaps things will lead up and we'll get a rather Rachel/Joey moment where Chloe and Clark finally face things but realize that there really is nothing left between them but friendship. Jimmy is supposed to break up with Chloe, perhaps she'll realize she's been taking him for granted and want him back. Who knows? It's pretty certain though that in order for Clark Kent to be able to move on and to be ready to turn into that sweet mild mannered citizen who pines after Lois Lane that he needs to move aside all obstacles that will lead him down that path and Chloe is one such hurdle that he needs to jump.

In HYDRO we saw a glimpse that Chloe might in fact be ready and willing to champion the cause of getting her cousin and Clark together. But this won't happen entirely until all questions about any romantic feelings existing between Chloe and Clark are fully and permanently extinguished.

Chloe's role in this show has been to help point Clark onto his path and his destiny. As the reporter she's shown him the merits of working at a newspaper, showing it to be the place where he'd be surrounded by folks who're only interested in pursuing the truth and that the newspaper possesses resources that are vital to assist him to track down leads on cases. She also pointed Lois on her path to the Daily Planet as well – a woman who didn't seem to be slightest bit interested in journalism until her cousin threw her into the arena. If by next season we start seeing Chloe working her magic to try to get Lois and Clark together she will complete her task of booting Clark onto the final leg of his journey in becoming Superman.

Perhaps Chloe Sullivan will find her own superhero one day who's better suited for her...maybe Kid Flash or someone else. Time will only tell as DC Comics has purchased the rights to her image. Although Chloe will not remain as the leading lady in Clark's life, at least Miles and Gough have managed to leave their mark in the legacy of Superman by giving the series another intelligent female character who was highly influential in helping Clark Kent towards becoming the Man of Steel.

********************

If you’re wondering about the first part of the essay here, when I was in college I earned a BA in English (emphasis on late 19^th/ early 20^th century American Lit- Hemingway, Faulkner, Twain, Steinbeck, Henry James, Fitzgerald, and Willa Cather being my fav authors) and also earned a minor in History where I took several history classes that focused entirely on examining the roles that regular American’s played at home while the men were off at war. The first part of the essay holds a dear place in my heart for being one of my favorite, most fascinating subjects/eras to study and examine :D

 

 

Part 3: Lois Lane

 

Lois Lane the Modern Woman/ From the Mythos

 

Lois Lane cannot be qualified in one tidy archetypal classification. She is the incarnation of the modern strong woman heroine in literature and film who emerged from the ashes of the Great Depression. Lois Lane has the wits of [i]Pride and Prejudice’s[/i] Elizabeth Bennett, the grit to go against public perceptions of feminine acceptable roles like Scarlett O’Hara, and the feisty fire of Katherine Hepburn’s acid tongued strong female characters who dominated the screens in the forties.

The Modern Woman appeared during World War II as women headed into the workforce while their men were shipped overseas to war. During WWII one time traditional roles for sexes became blurred. Women known as Rosie the Riveters performed duties that were always exclusively reserved for men that ranged from welding to carpentry, to heavy industrial manufacturing jobs. Women pitched in to help build the war machines that allowed their men to fight overseas. For the first time women were allowed to be something other than just homemakers and for many of them going to work gave them a sense of direction and pride that they’d never experienced in their lives.

When the war ended old prejudices returned and women were sent back to the kitchen and expected to happily return to pumping out babies. (The over abundance of women abusing speed and alcohol in the “perfect 50’s” is the dark side affect of the women being forced back into the homes after World War II – their depression spawned their children to lead the charge and change the way that women are viewed in the work world. The angry yet trapped housebound wives of the 50’s produced the women’s libbers of the 70’s and the Free Lovers of the late 60’s.)

It was during the late 40’s that Lois Lane first made her appearance in comics. If you look at the culture of the times you can see traces of Lois Lane in cinema from Rosalind Russell’s hard nosed former newspaper reporter in “His Girl Friday” to the multitude of working women characters portrayed by Katherine Hepburn (like her lawyer in ADAM’S RIB – one of the best “I love to hate you” couple films ever produced BTW.). The women from the 1940’s worked to fit into a man’s world and still maintain their femininity in the process.

The clothing of the 40’s mirrored the nation being at war. Silk was needed for parachutes and the war effort and women wore clothing that was tailored in styles mirroring military uniforms. Harsh slim lined suits, suit jackets, and tailored pants were introduced to women’s wardrobe and today are the basic styles of work women everywhere. These are the wardrobe choices of Lois Lane through the decades.

From her appearance in DC Comics, Lois Lane was a symbol of strength and independence during a time when society believed that women belonged only in the kitchen and home. Lois was career driven and opinionated. Her brass and bold attitude is viewed differently throughout the decades. In today’s day of “political correctness” she often gets labeled as a bitch for daring to say what she feels and refusing to consider other people’s feelings when she believes in pointing out the truth. She’s a woman of facts and doesn’t sugar coat them for anyone.

Over the years the comic books have slightly altered her role but the core of her personality remains in tact. Generally Lois does not require having her life saved and uses her wits and pluck to get out of dangerous situations. She generally requires Superman’s help because she’s thrown herself head first into danger without thinking things through first. Lois Lane takes care of herself for the most part and only ends up needing Superman’s help when she’s too deeply in over her head.

 

Lois’s introduction to SMALLVILLE

SMALLVILLE’s introduction of Lois Lane into their growing re-imagined mythos came at a time of cross-roads for the main characters on the show. Clark and Lana were apart, Chloe was “dead,” and after a season of darkness, Lois arrived to brighten up the otherwise dreary landscape of Smallville.

Lois is hardly perfect, if anything, she’s a mess. After three seasons of Clark dealing with two young women competing for his affections and demanding to understand every aspect of his emotional state, Lois enters the scene as a refreshing change of pace and doesn’t give a crap about what he’s feeling. The fact that she doesn’t place Clark onto a pedestal confuses and intrigues the hell out of him.

Born as a military brat to Three Star Army General, Sam Lane, Lois was raised to be street smart, tough, opinionated, feisty, and brave. She’s not afraid to back down from a fight nor express any and every feeling that she’s experiencing the moment that she’s feeling them – consequences be damned. SMALLVILLE’s Lois kicks ass right along side Clark and even oftentimes ends up saving him (FAÇADE, GONE, CRUSADE, and PARIAH.)

Unlike Lana who’s usually perfectly coiffed and well dressed, Lois bites her nails, throws her hair into a boring and time economical ponytail, runs around with dirt on her face, and maintains the same wardrobe for years on end. She’s a creature of comfort and convenience – not one to give easily into feminine entrapments. This comes from the fact that she lost her mother when she was 6. Her mother died of lung cancer, leaving Lois alone with her baby sister, and overbearing father who was unable to cope with being left alone with two young girls who could’ve used a woman’s touch to raise them.

In a deleted scene for the season 5 Episode FADE, Lois and Martha spend a few minutes together trying to figure out what Lois should wear on her big date w/ Graham. Martha perfectly picks out a nicely complimenting top and jacket combo and Lois bemoans the fact that she missed having a real mother figure in her life to help teach her even the smallest of things like coordinating her wardrobe. In many ways a part of SMALLVILLE’s Lois Lane’s character growth involves coming to terms with a part of herself that she ignores and is terrified to explore – her feminine sexuality. In season 6 when she’s dating Oliver Queen, a billionaire who travels in posh circles, Lois is a fish out of water – she speaks out of turn at parties (Martha’s fundraiser party in ARROW) and is uncomfortable being dressed up to the nines. In RAGE when she arrives at the Kent house to tell them that Oliver wouldn’t be coming to Thanksgiving dinner that they had broken up, she kicks herself for ever believing that “a nail biting tabloid reporter” could ever fit in with Oliver. Soon after she and Oliver break up, she’s back to her comfortable wardrobe and is more than happy to put aside the grooming regiment that she had put herself on while dating her high society boyfriend.

Lois’s introduction on SMALLVILLE was ominous and inspiring – we meet her investigating the death of her cousin. Even though she’s not a reporter, our first glimpse of her shows her future career at [i]The Daily Planet.[/i]  What’s even more important we learn a few things 1) she likes to get to the bottom of the truth 2) she is devoted to helping her loved ones 3) she has a fierce desire to pursue justice.

We next find her on the road driving recklessly. She’s lost trying to find the Kent farm in the middle of a thunderstorm, is nearly struck by lightning, drives into the middle of a cornfield, and finds a naked Clark Kent.

Lois is one of three people to share in this similar unique experience. Along with the Kents she happens to get into a vehicular accident after something fell out of the sky and wound up in the middle of a corn field only to discover a naked, wide eyed Kal-El patiently waiting there to be picked up and taken care of.

Lois finds Clark to be incredibly strange and rude and can’t for the life of her understand what her smart cousin Chloe sees in him. At the base level, she meets Clark when he’s at the core of his personality, the confused and confident Kryptonian who’s been stripped of all humanity. Unlike Lana and Chloe who never know what to do with Clark when he’s in touch with this side of his personality (that emerges when he’s on Red Kryptonite) Lois simply writes his behavior off as a character quirk and accepts his Kal-El side as a part of his entire personality.

This is something that sets her apart from both Chloe and Lana. Neither of his two childhood friends fully understand or can get through to him when he’s tapping into the confidence that will one day make him Superman.

At the hospital in CRUSADE, Lois manages to keep Kal-El at bay from leaving his hospital room longer than any other person can control him when he’s alien. Another interesting thing to note is after she hands Clark off to his mother and walks away Kal-El continues to stare at her and watches her leave. From the moment he lays eyes on her in the cornfield, Kal-El is fascinated by Lois and literally requires his mother jerking his head around to get him to pull his eyes off of her.

Lois blurs into Smallville like a sandstorm abrasively leaving skid marks in her wake. She respects no one’s privacy as we found out in GONE, from barging in on Clark mid-shower, to borrowing his clothes, to taking credit for disasters averted, to interrupting private family conversations, Lois just wants to get a job done she doesn’t care about common courtesy towards others. 

This behavior seems to be a common trait with Lois which will likely come in handy for future investigating that she’ll need as a reporter.

 

To be continued....

A lot of people seem very confused over the dream sequence in NOIR and are taking the dream sequence to be too literal – you all are looking at the characters and thinking that they ARE the show’s characters and they’re not – the characters in the episode are symbolic of how the characters on the show currently exist. I have to confess the English major in me LOVES this episode, it was meant to be ripped apart and analyzed to death.

The dream sequence I thought was done really, really well and should more be viewed from an interpretation angle rather than a literal one. I also think that there was a HELL of a lot going on in it and that both Brian and Kelly used it to vent their own frustrations over the direction of show. Remember, they’re huge Clois shippers – they’ve always written Lana to be weak and disgustingly annoying, whereas they always pimp Clois when they can…they wrote GONE, EXPOSED, HYDRO, and CRIMSON.

Their hands were tied w/ writing this and PROMISE. I think that they utilized Jimmy’s dream to try to point out a bunch of stuff to us that obviously went over the heads of Gough/Millar in the dream sequence but was highly critical of where the characters all currently stand in the show. This is probably why I like the episode – it’s subversive. I mean how could they willingly write for this crap storyline when they got to write HYDRO and CRIMSON this season????

Here me out.

Chloe

Dream Chloe - They show Chloe being at the Daily Planet – but she’s nothing more than a secretary so they’re showing that really she’s of little consequence to the overall story-arc. In the end they show that Jimmy was the one w/ the brains to unravel the Lana mystery because he could see through her deceptions, Chloe can’t think objectively which is why she’ll never be an ace reporter. The whole Clark being the bumbling reporter around her shows that Clark is still too much of a distraction in her life for her to ever advance in her career.



This is mirrored in real life where she’s back to babysitting the obit hotline late at night. In the end of the episode Jimmy is the one who gets commended for figuring everything out and is the front news story – Chloe wasn’t involved in it at all even though she was the first reporter on the scene. This only further shows that she’s NOT destined for greatness as a reporter because she lacks the killer instinct and lets her emotions override her desire to track down the truth.

They also firmly showed that Chloe has moved on from Clark. When he caught her she didn’t moon over him (the scene could’ve come RIGHT out of Rush,) she played the victim and got to run into Jimmy’s arms. I think they proved w/o a doubt that Jimmy and Chloe are deeply in love with each other and Chlark is dead and buried.

Lois



Dream Lois was nowhere to be seen at the Daily Planet, why? Well TPTB seemed to have decided that Lois has no real purpose on the show for this last story-arc so why bother showing her as the star reporter that we all know she will eventually become? I think that they left her out of the DP team because at this point Jimmy doesn’t have a real inkling of her destiny – so why would she be there?



We got to see Clark staring lustfully at her at the bar which shows that Jimmy is still well aware of the heat between them – but again their relationship is elusive to everyone on the show and thanks to the complete 180 of the overall story-arc that’s been dictated by TPTB it’s on the backburner AGAIN. The flicker though shows that Jimmy knows there’s still something there between them and that even if Clark can’t identify what it is, he’s staked his claim on Lois – that’s evident in the “get in line” comment he makes. He spends the time Lois is on stage staring at Jimmy with absolute amusement, you can see him fighting back cracking a smile knowing that Jimmy would be absolutely ZERO competition for Lois if he ever decided to actually make his move. His line has a rumble of challenge to it that is VERY threatening, this shows that Jimmy is truly aware that Clark deeply is connected to Lois but doesn’t realize it.



Who else could be a flame for Lex then other than Lois? I really don’t think that their “relationship” had any other meaning other than in films of that era there’s always a sultry woman and Lois filled the bill.

So we don’t (seemingly) get her to be of any real importance in the dream - instead she’s being sneaky in real life and ends up w/ an unexpected gift horse from Lionel in getting a scoop on the possible biggest story of her life. Lois snagged the key piece of evidence that gave her the story of a lifetime. We all know Lois, threats aside she’s a pitbull on a pants leg and will take down the senator if that means getting her a HUGE byline.

Clark



Jimmy still doesn’t know what to think of Clark; but judging by the exchange he witnessed between Clark/Chloe at the DP, he sees Clark’s obsession w/ Lana to be unseemly. In the dream sequence he sees Clark’s obsession w/ Lana – the married woman - to be disgusting and dishonorable. It’s why he’s so confused over Clark and his seemingly dual personality in the entire dream sequence “Don’t worry, I’m one of the good guys.”



I think they put that line in there as a cry to the fans to not give up on Clark. Brian and Kelly know that the current storyline is crap but eventually Clark will get turned around and get sent back on his path. He’s not there though, it’s why they pulled out their favorite line from EXPOSED, “There are no heroes in METROPOLIS.” Yeah, there aren’t any BECAUSE CLARK WON’T GET OFF OF THE FREAKING FARM AND COMPLETE HIS TRAINING!

**Sigh**

The dream ends w/ Clark putting Jimmy in jail even though Jimmy is a good guy who was played by Lana. We ultimately see that with Clark, there is “no grey area” when it comes to his morals. I’m hoping that they’re giving us some sort of insight that whenever Clark wakes up and realizes that he’s being played by Lana that he’ll wake up from his fantasy of her and be set back on his right path. That happened in the dream – he shot her because she was corrupt. He even was rather dispassionate about it in the end which leads me to believe that at some point the light will go on for him – or at least Brian/Kelly are making a bit of a promise to the fans that they will do everything that they can to make it happen.


Lana

Once again in usual fashion, Brian and Kelly painted Lana in an unsavory and unflattering light and BWHAHHA! Got to get devilish delight in having CLARK kill her!



Lana was painted as the deceiving woman. Jimmy even found himself ensnared by her charms and it nearly cost him his life. By believing in her lies, in his dream he ended up going to jail. By learning that she could play him in the dream, Jimmy was able to realize in real life that she probably wasn’t behaving like a saint when she was at the DP that night. He was able to crack the case because he was able to be objective. This is something that both Clark and Chloe are completely unable to do at this point. It’s why Clark is nowhere near his iconic self or on the right path to becoming a reporter. Developing that objectivity will be the final step that will make Clark iconic along w/ his getting a backbone.

Clark’s obvious deep obsession w/ Lana’s problems at the moment shows us all how far away he is from becoming closer to his destiny; she’s still twisting his perceptions and warping them, and preventing him from moving onward and forward.

Lex

Lex seemed to be nothing more than a pawn or patsy in the episode, but the Lois character was a symbol for 33.1. 33.1 and Lex’s project is the problem w/ his marriage not another woman and his evil doings are what stand between him becoming the villain we all know he will be and the self-sacrificing man from LEXMAS who he could’ve become had he learned to let go of his greed and insecurities.

Dream and Real Life collide and Lois finds herself suddenly in possession of key evidence that will crack wide open the 33.1 project. Lois is the glue to link all of these tangent storylines together and LOIS will be the one to end up cracking things wide open because just like Jimmy – she’s the only remaining character on this show who is completely objective and fearless and this can be done because she hasn’t been in the last few weeks of episodes and hasn’t been caught in the web of Clark’s ongoing drama.

And Lionel siding w/ Lana in the dream is Jimmy’s subconscious connecting the dots that the rest of our cast will have to figure out by the final end of the season.