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the pilot episode is unintentionally creepy as hell, if you think about it.
I just started re-watching episodes.. and I just never realized how massively creepy some of the pilot was for Smallville! Things that bothered me:
1. the fact that Clark was being a total creeper towards Lana Lang with the telescope bit. I do find saintly boys to be boring as hell, but I think there's ways to highlight that Clark is a normal teenager boy without resorting to this creepy behavior. If they had just skipped the whole spying on Lana with the telescope bit, Clark would had seemed like a very normal teenage boy who occasionally fantasized about his crush in a very pg way. Plus the way they went about this made it seem like this was a thing he did on a regular basis, even if they didn't show him doing that again.
Do you know how much of an invasion of privacy that is for women? Women can get stalked and sexually harassed this way, so for the writers to try to pass this off as some innocent, cute teenage boy behavior.... well that's just squicky and disturbing for me.
2. And then there's the whole Cruifxation bit. I think the writers wanted to do the whole "Clark Kent/Superman is Jesus" allegory, but they didn't really stop to think how creepy this made the entire town out to be. I mean, people have actually died from this kind of thing in real life. This is actually worse than your everyday bullying here, because Scarecrow boy looked like he had been up there for days when young lex found him. Now, maybe Scarecrow boy was more of a severe case, but this still doesn't excuse the fact that it happened at all. For all those who don't know, crucifixion can actually be quite deadly even if you build a support system on the poles for the human body. Now, when people say Crucifixion most people think of the cross-shaped pole that Jesus died on.
But there's actually different types of Crucifixion, and most of them are not only painful, but deadly. The one they used in Smallville here is what would be called a Crux Commissa. Crux Commissa was a capital T-shaped structure, also known as St. Anthony's cross or the Tau Cross, named after the Greek letter ("Tau") that it resembles. The horizontal beam of the Crux Commissa or "connected cross" was connected at the top of the vertical stake. This cross was very similar in shape and function to the one that Jesus died on.
Even if those Smallville citizens used ropes instead of the traditional large nails, being strung up like this can put a great deal of stress on the human body... more so if the person is left up there for extended periods of time. The majority of people who are left up there for days can die from shock, or by slow suffocation even if they are well-fed and given water.
let me describe how this could happen with a T-shaped cross:
As the arms fatigue, great waves of cramps sweep over the muscles, knotting them in deep, relentless, throbbing pain. With these cramps comes the inability to push himself or herself upward. Hanging by the arms, the pectoral muscles are unable to act. Air can be drawn into the lungs, but cannot be exhaled. the victim fights to raise in order to get even one short breath. Finally, carbon dioxide builds up in the lungs and in the blood stream and the cramps partially subside. Spasmodically, he is able to push himself upward to exhale and bring in the life-giving oxygen.Hours of this limitless pain, cycles of twisting, joint-rending cramps, intermittent partial asphyxiation, searing pain as tissue is torn from His lacerated back as He moves up and down against the rough timber. Then another agony begins. A deep crushing pain deep in the chest as the pericardium slowly fills with serum and begins to compress the heart.
The compressed heart is struggling to pump heavy, thick, sluggish blood into the tissues - the tortured lungs are making a frantic effort to gasp in small gulps of air. The markedly dehydrated tissues send their flood of stimuli to the brain.... so the person suffers before he finally dies.
So you can understand why I'm so horrified by this Smallvile tradition, right? I can't help but wonder how many times the town had to look the other way, saying "boys will be boys" when their star football players (unintentionally?) kill one of their bullied victims in this manner and they cover it up.
This is actually worse than anything I could have imagined... because this is basically favoring the star football players and tolerating their dangerous, dickish behavior just simply because they play a good game. And what's more, the fathers who used to play football most likely taught the players about this horrible tradition, perpetuating it all over again.
I'm kind of let down that they didn't do more with this topic here.... it was starting to seem like some kind of commentary on how football players tend to be idolized to the extent that people look the other way when the football players do highly illegal ****. It would probably had been too heavy for a first ep to cover that topic fully but having this topic be covered over a few eps would had been great.
But they basically acted like nothing happened after the pilot episode.. so it seemed like that whole set up was for nothing other than to paint Clark Kent as an Jesus-like figure. Which is really disappointing.
But the writers kind of glossed over this and acted like this was nothing.... and that's kind of disturbing in itself.
3. Then there was that whole graveyard bit with Lana Lang. I know the writers were trying to make her out to be this heroine with a tragic background so that we would feel sorry for her and think how wonderful she is. But... all they did was make her seem like she had an mental illness, which she was hiding from people by acting like a otherwise normal girl. Seriously, who goes to the graveyard on a regular basis to have Entire conversations with the dead... and acting like there were a person responding on the other side of it?
I mean, if you saw somebody talking to a grave like this:
"Hi, mom how are you?"
"That's great to hear! yeah I'm fine too..."
*pauses, and then laughs* "Oh, mom! you always had such a twisted sense of humor!"
you'd want to have her committed.
Yeah, that was kind of creepy and weird.
although, I do admit, it does catch your attention and the pilot ep was decent otherwise.
1. the fact that Clark was being a total creeper towards Lana Lang with the telescope bit. I do find saintly boys to be boring as hell, but I think there's ways to highlight that Clark is a normal teenager boy without resorting to this creepy behavior. If they had just skipped the whole spying on Lana with the telescope bit, Clark would had seemed like a very normal teenage boy who occasionally fantasized about his crush in a very pg way. Plus the way they went about this made it seem like this was a thing he did on a regular basis, even if they didn't show him doing that again.
Do you know how much of an invasion of privacy that is for women? Women can get stalked and sexually harassed this way, so for the writers to try to pass this off as some innocent, cute teenage boy behavior.... well that's just squicky and disturbing for me.
2. And then there's the whole Cruifxation bit. I think the writers wanted to do the whole "Clark Kent/Superman is Jesus" allegory, but they didn't really stop to think how creepy this made the entire town out to be. I mean, people have actually died from this kind of thing in real life. This is actually worse than your everyday bullying here, because Scarecrow boy looked like he had been up there for days when young lex found him. Now, maybe Scarecrow boy was more of a severe case, but this still doesn't excuse the fact that it happened at all. For all those who don't know, crucifixion can actually be quite deadly even if you build a support system on the poles for the human body. Now, when people say Crucifixion most people think of the cross-shaped pole that Jesus died on.
But there's actually different types of Crucifixion, and most of them are not only painful, but deadly. The one they used in Smallville here is what would be called a Crux Commissa. Crux Commissa was a capital T-shaped structure, also known as St. Anthony's cross or the Tau Cross, named after the Greek letter ("Tau") that it resembles. The horizontal beam of the Crux Commissa or "connected cross" was connected at the top of the vertical stake. This cross was very similar in shape and function to the one that Jesus died on.
Even if those Smallville citizens used ropes instead of the traditional large nails, being strung up like this can put a great deal of stress on the human body... more so if the person is left up there for extended periods of time. The majority of people who are left up there for days can die from shock, or by slow suffocation even if they are well-fed and given water.
let me describe how this could happen with a T-shaped cross:
As the arms fatigue, great waves of cramps sweep over the muscles, knotting them in deep, relentless, throbbing pain. With these cramps comes the inability to push himself or herself upward. Hanging by the arms, the pectoral muscles are unable to act. Air can be drawn into the lungs, but cannot be exhaled. the victim fights to raise in order to get even one short breath. Finally, carbon dioxide builds up in the lungs and in the blood stream and the cramps partially subside. Spasmodically, he is able to push himself upward to exhale and bring in the life-giving oxygen.Hours of this limitless pain, cycles of twisting, joint-rending cramps, intermittent partial asphyxiation, searing pain as tissue is torn from His lacerated back as He moves up and down against the rough timber. Then another agony begins. A deep crushing pain deep in the chest as the pericardium slowly fills with serum and begins to compress the heart.
The compressed heart is struggling to pump heavy, thick, sluggish blood into the tissues - the tortured lungs are making a frantic effort to gasp in small gulps of air. The markedly dehydrated tissues send their flood of stimuli to the brain.... so the person suffers before he finally dies.
So you can understand why I'm so horrified by this Smallvile tradition, right? I can't help but wonder how many times the town had to look the other way, saying "boys will be boys" when their star football players (unintentionally?) kill one of their bullied victims in this manner and they cover it up.
This is actually worse than anything I could have imagined... because this is basically favoring the star football players and tolerating their dangerous, dickish behavior just simply because they play a good game. And what's more, the fathers who used to play football most likely taught the players about this horrible tradition, perpetuating it all over again.
I'm kind of let down that they didn't do more with this topic here.... it was starting to seem like some kind of commentary on how football players tend to be idolized to the extent that people look the other way when the football players do highly illegal ****. It would probably had been too heavy for a first ep to cover that topic fully but having this topic be covered over a few eps would had been great.
But they basically acted like nothing happened after the pilot episode.. so it seemed like that whole set up was for nothing other than to paint Clark Kent as an Jesus-like figure. Which is really disappointing.
But the writers kind of glossed over this and acted like this was nothing.... and that's kind of disturbing in itself.
3. Then there was that whole graveyard bit with Lana Lang. I know the writers were trying to make her out to be this heroine with a tragic background so that we would feel sorry for her and think how wonderful she is. But... all they did was make her seem like she had an mental illness, which she was hiding from people by acting like a otherwise normal girl. Seriously, who goes to the graveyard on a regular basis to have Entire conversations with the dead... and acting like there were a person responding on the other side of it?
I mean, if you saw somebody talking to a grave like this:
"Hi, mom how are you?"
"That's great to hear! yeah I'm fine too..."
*pauses, and then laughs* "Oh, mom! you always had such a twisted sense of humor!"
you'd want to have her committed.
Yeah, that was kind of creepy and weird.
although, I do admit, it does catch your attention and the pilot ep was decent otherwise.
It's kind of hilarious when you see it this way. But I don't actually think she talked to her parents like that when she was alone. I think the conversation we witnesed in The Pilot was more for Clark's benefit. Besides, some people are just prone to talking to themselves (or 'imaginary friends'), and it's not necessarily a sign of mental illness. Mostly just loneliness and vivid imagination (I often 'talked' to my favorite cartoon characters when I was a kid! 
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