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On the show Smallville, Clark Kent is vulnerable to kryptonite: It makes him weak and it takes away his powers
and I reckon it'd kill him, too, if he was around it too much. It brings him down a notch and, even though no one on earth
is really vulnerable to glowing rocks the way that Clark is, it makes him more human in a sense.
But Clark Kent has another weakness, one that's even worse. And that's Lana Lang.
Clark & Lana say that they love one another. They moon over each other and grope each other every chance they get.
But for some reason I, the viewer, have never really felt like they were supposed to be together, or that they were
meant for each other or anything stupid like that. Maybe I'm jaded and insensitive, but I don't really believe that people
are meant to be together, not in that way.
But the thing about it is, Clark Kent really has two weaknesses.
Kryptonite is hard to relate to, because like I said before, there is no frame of reference for regular people. Rocks
don't kill us unless someone beats us in the head with them; we don't just stand next to them and get weak and drop dead.
There is uranium and plutonium and radium and all kind of stuff that will kill us slowly, but no one is building death rays
or giant robots out of them to kill me. I don't watch Clark collapse from exposure to Kryptonite and think "I know how that
feels." It's hard to relate to, even though it's effects are easy to see.
Now, Lana is a different story.
Caring about someone makes you vulnerable, in the way that supervillians always threaten the hero's family or girlfriend,
but that's how life is, and it's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how Clark acts all stupid and neglects the
things he should be focusing on because he lets Lana distract him. It's not that he cares about her, it's that he's a dumbass
about it.
Clark is so freaky about Lana that it seems like he would do anything, endure any hardship, suffer any humiliation
for her. And she is hot, but even just on that one show there's hotter women than her. Unlike the effects of Kryptonite, I
know what that's like, to want to be with someone that badly.
So why is it, then, that when I think about how Clark is affected by Kryptonite, I feel bad for him, and even though
I have no idea what it feels like, his weakness makes him seem more like me - but that when I think about what a douchebag
Clark acts like around Lana, something I've done my whole life when hot girls are around, that I feel superior to him?
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