JANE
and the
LANES
A Long Look at the Lane Family of
Lawndale
©2006 The Angst Guy (theangstguy@yahoo.com)
Feedback (good, bad, indifferent,
just want to bother me, whatever) is appreciated. Please write to: theangstguy@yahoo.com
Synopsis:
It is
possible with a little math work and careful study of Daria show scripts to work out the approximate ages of Jane Lane’s
many siblings and the circumstances of their birth, feeding interesting
speculation about the Lane family’s history and the sources of their
interpersonal problems. More fanfic about the Lane family is called for. This
is the fourth revision of this essay and includes much new material.
Author’s Notes: This essay evolved from a
March 2003 investigation made into the Lane family as presented on Daria, for character details for the
fanfic, “There Beneath the Blue Suburban Skies” (about Penny Lane, of course).
It is hoped that fanfic writers will find value in this work for their future
stories.
This
essay has been often revised, with new information added from a fifth-season
episode, “Art Burn,” as well as information gleaned from the two official Daria books, The Daria Diaries
(Anne D. Bernstein, Pocket Books: New York, January 1998) and The Daria
Database (Peggy Nicoll, Pocket Books: New York, November 1998).
In
addition, semi-official material from two March 2005 interviews conducted by
Kara Wild with Glenn Eichler has been included throughout, plus a quote from
the MTV Daria website from Penny Lane
and data from Richard Lobinske’s highly detailed
essay, “The Daria Temporal Analysis
Project.”
Acknowledgements: Profuse thanks go to Outpost Daria
(http://www.outpost-daria.com) for carrying the valuable information that made
this essay possible. Thanks also to James Bowman and Ruth Margolis, who brought
up “Art Burn” and the information therein (and corrections to earlier versions of this work);
Robert Nowall, who reminded me of the two Daria
books and their contents; Kara Wild, for her incredible persistence in keeping Daria fandom alive; and Glenn Eichler,
for taking the time and trouble to answer the questions that keep Daria fans awake at nights (seriously—you
have no idea). Beta-readers for a previous incarnation of this essay (the fourth)
included Richard Lobinske and Gregor Samsa, bless you both.
*
Happy
families are all alike;
every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
—Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Because it is large, full of interesting people, and not well defined, the Lane family from Lawndale (living at 111 Howard Drive, according to The Daria Diaries) is a tempting subject for Daria fanfic. Not much has been revealed about this rather dysfunctional family and its history. However, with a bit of math and detective work (and a lot of flat-out guessing), some of the ages and the birth order of Jane Lane’s siblings—and some notes about her nieces, nephews, parents, and other relatives—can be deduced.
As noted above, a semi-official
answer to the sibling-age issue is given at the end of this article. It agrees extremely
well with the material that follows.
To begin with, I tend to agree with
the birth order given for Jane’s siblings on the “Lane Family” webpage at Outpost
Daria:
http://www.outpost-daria.com/ch_lane_family.html
Jane is obviously the youngest,
followed in ascending age by Trent, then (it is guessed) Penny, Wind, and Summer. This webpage is a good starting point for anyone who
wishes to become familiar with the Lanes of Lawndale (as it includes excellent
screen shots of the whole family), particularly when you combine this with the
given ages for Jane and Trent Lane from the 1998 MTV “Daria Day” marathon
script from Season One, which was aired just before Season Two began:
http://www.outpost-daria.com/ts_dday.html
The
relevant text follows:
====================
Daria:
Hey. We’re back with your questions from MTV Online. Robert of Vasleia,
California, wants to know how old we are. Should we tell him?
Jane:
You first.
Daria:
Bob, I’m sixteen.
Jane:
Yo tambien.
Daria:
My sister Quinn is fourteen and a half.
Jane:
My brother Trent is twenty-one.
Daria:
And my mother is—
Helen
[VO]: Daria!
Daria:
We’ll be back with more letters soon.
===================
Interrelated
Birthdays:
Jane, Daria,
and Quinn
The ages given previously apply to
the three girls’ sophomore year, assumedly right after Daria’s birthday in
Season One but before Jane’s (since her
birthday aired in Season Two, on “Pierce Me”). Daria is a Scorpio (October
24-November 21), per data obtained from a Beavis
& Butthead comic book.
Fan opinion varies as to whether Jane
or Daria is the older one. Jane’s birthday is mentioned in “Pierce Me,” a late
second-season episode during a time when school is in session. The episode
immediately before “Pierce Me” was “See Jane Run,” in which Jane runs track;
track is normally a spring sport, per Richard Lobinske’s essay, “The Daria
Temporal Analysis Project,” at:
http://www.outpost-daria.com/essay/rl_daria_temporal_analysis_project.html
High-school track-meet dates, per a
review on the same on the Internet, are held from January to early June, with
many tournaments in March and April. In Daria,
the weather outside was more like spring than winter in “See Jane Run.” This
implies Jane’s birthday was right before summer vacation, though there is much debate
as to whether most of the episodes were shown in true chronological order—e.g.,
“Road Worrier” likely occurs in the summer between Daria and Jane’s sophomore
and junior year in high school, as Alternapalooza takes place in mid-August,
per The Daria Diaries.
Jane is noted as driving with a
license before Daria gets her own license (“Speedtrapped,” when they are
juniors and Daria is assumedly 17). To be fair, Daria had a great deal of
trouble getting her own license, having difficulty just getting through a
subdivision when she is first shown driving as a high-school junior (“Through a
Lens Darkly”).
If Jane is older than Daria (since
both are 16 by the end of Season One, and Jane has a birthday late in Season
Two), she is about 16.5 when Daria turns 16. Richard Lobinske’s essay above has
Jane’s birthday in the spring as well, but it makes Daria the older by half a
year so Jane isn’t age 7 when entering first grade. Given the anomaly of “Road
Warrior,” dating any episode is tough. No official answer exists as to which of
the Cynical Duo is the older—yet. (FYI: Richard Lobinske’s essay also pins down
dates for many events in the series and is invaluable to fanfic writers for its
depth of research.)
If Jane and Daria are both 16 when
they are halfway through their sophomore year in high school (per the “Daria
Day” transcript above), they were each age 7 at some point during first grade.
With a November birthday, Daria would have been age 6 when first grade started,
the normal starting age for American children entering primary school. Why Jane
(if she is the older) entered at age
7 is an interesting question. Perhaps her parents forgot to register her the
year before. It doesn’t seem likely they would have held her back on purpose,
given their apparent obliviousness to their children’s welfare. (See later for
notes on Jane’s parents and their difficulties with parenting and housekeeping).
Quinn’s birthday was for some time assumed
to be about six months away from Daria’s, likely in the spring (a Taurus in
May?). If the year-and-a-half separation in birthdays was taken literally, they
were born 18 months apart. It is interesting that Quinn and Daria, so opposite
in temperament and nature, were apparently born at opposite times of the year. A
semi-official answer was obtained when Glenn Eichler was asked how many months
apart in age Daria and Quinn were, in an interview posted March 16, 2005, at:
http://www.the-wildone.com/dvdaria/glennfollowup1.html/
In
the interview, Mr. Eichler stated:
I
used to know this... I think they’re about 14 months apart, putting them one
school year apart. But I’m sure we cheated that whenever it was convenient.
In this event, Quinn was born in December of the year
after Daria was or in January of the year after that, if Daria is a Scorpio. If
Quinn was already 14 when she became a high-school freshman (and turned 15
later in the school year), she entered grade school at age 6, which makes
sense. This further suggests that Daria also entered school at age 6 and had
her birthday shortly thereafter.
However, how can one reconcile this with Daria at age 16
and Quinn at 14.5, per the 1998 “Daria Day” transcript? As Mr. Eichler notes
above, convenience tended to rule in show scripts. Also, there is this exchange
between Kara Wild and Mr. Eichler about the birthdays of characters on the show,
from the interview immediately above:
KW: A fan asks: Did you ever come up with specific
months for their birthdays, or is that something else you prefer to keep loose?
GE: Definitely want to keep that loose. I’d like to keep my OWN birthday loose
if I could.
In short, there is a bit of play here for fanfic writers
who want Quinn’s (or anyone else’s) birthday to be in a particular month.
In the episode “The Teachings of Don
Jake,” Jane talks with one of her relatives.
================
Woman:
And how’s your sister Penny?
Jane:
I think she’s a little disappointed in the Mexican job market. She may try
Nicaragua next.
Woman:
And how’s your brother Wind?
Jane:
He’s thinking of getting remarried if he can just figure out whether his
divorces were legal.
Woman:
How about your sister Summer?
Jane:
You know, the private detective found three out of her four kids.
================
http://www.outpost-daria.com/ts_ep112.html
This conversation completely sums up
the spin each of Jane’s oldest siblings gets in the series. Jane is obviously
in contact with her three oldest siblings on a more-or-less regular basis,
either directly (by phone or postcards) or through Trent or their parents.
In The Daria Diaries is a
postcard from Penny, who is in Nicaragua and unhappy with the job market there,
per Jane’s comments about her in “The Teachings of Don Jake.” Penny says she
plans to head next for Honduras. She comes home from Costa Rica in “Lane
Miserables,” doubtless having gone there after Honduras.
Penny Lane’s age can be deduced from
the second-season episode, “See Jane Run,” in which Jane and Ms. Morris, the
girls’ Phys Ed teacher, have the following conversation:
===================
Ms.
Morris: Jane Lane, you’re just like your sisters, aren’t you?
Jane:
We share certain chromosome pairs. Beyond that, I’m not supposed to say.
Ms.
Morris: You know what I mean. Can’t be part of a group. Always have to be
different. Your sister Penny never wanted to participate, either. I taught her
a thing or two about the American competitive spirit.
Jane:
You sure did. That’s why she’s spent the last ten years out of the country.
Ms.
Morris: I know what kind of upbringing she’s had. What’s your excuse?
Daria:
I’m just plain no good?
==================
http://www.outpost-daria.com/ts_ep211.html
Ms. Morris knew both Summer and Penny personally, and she apparently had
difficulty with the red-haired, anti-establishment rebel, Penny. (Penny’s
siblings might have had political issues with her, too.) For a sample of Penny’s
attitudes, see her Nicaraguan postcard in The Daria Diaries. MTV also has a webpage featuring a long
quote from Penny (introducing some webpages) that is high instructive in
getting across her left-wing world-view and poor business sense. It is
reprinted here in case MTV takes the page offline, as it has so many other Daria
webpages.
==================
Hi, I’m Penny Lane and I’ve
recently returned from yet another disappointing journey to so-called “exotic”
lands where the “colorful” poor are routinely exploited in the service of the
tourism industry. My time setting up a coconut-husk sandal cooperative was
fruitful, although I didn’t want to impose my imperialist idea of proper foot
measurement and now I’m stuck with a whole lot of size twos. Yet I still
believe that cross-cultural exchange is our best hope for understanding the
world around us and overwhelming the oppression machine that is
Euro-Caucaso-Phallocentric Capitalism. (And these days, I’m not too thrilled
with Extremo-Fundamentalist-Phallocentric Autocracy either.) So please turn your
attention to this month’s travel-themed installment of “The Definitive Daria.”
Too bad you have to support the wasteful, environment-fouling, worker-blinding
planned obsolescence of the computer industry in order to do so.
P.S.: Does anyone know a source
for American flags made out of 100 percent hemp-based fiber?
==================
http://www.mtv.com/onair/daria/chapter4/
Ms. Morris doesn’t think much of
Jane’s upbringing, either. Penny has been out of the country for 10 years at
this time, so if she left right after high school (average age at graduation is
17-18 years), then she was 27-28 when Jane was 16. We thus have Jane (16),
Trent (21), and Penny (27-28) pinned for ages in Jane’s sophomore year.
Penny registers in the “crafts” end
of the arts-and-crafts spectrum. She is fluent in Spanish and independent
enough to wander Mexico and Central America by herself. Jane knows some
Spanish, too, though she mixes it with her English. One wonders if Jane and
Penny get along together, as Jane appears to defend Penny in “See Jane Run,”
but this does not seem likely. Penny comes across as a cold, tense loner with a
bad attitude toward any and all authority, and a bad attitude toward her
siblings as well. In The Daria Diaries is a postcard from Penny, who
addresses her postcard to her parents only (“Mom and Dad Lane”), not to Jane or
Trent, though the parents are away from home for long periods of time. Penny
was not at all demonstrative toward Trent or Jane in “Lane Miserables,”
preferring to call a Costa Rican government official and complain about a
volcano eruption (as if it were the fault of the government) rather than talk
to Jane. Her first words upon entering the house in “Lane Miserables” are a
snide reference to Wind’s marriage problems. Summer makes a comment to Penny in
“Lane Miserables” suggesting that Penny has never been married, and she is
never mentioned as having any children.
Penny’s room is still maintained at
the Lane home, apparently in much the same condition it was when she left the U.S.
over a decade earlier. Her room is shown in detail in the fourth-season
episode, “Fire!” as Daria’s temporary residence, and the contents provide room
for speculation about her craft skills and activities on her trips. Given the “Santa
Fe Craft Fest 98” poster on the wall by the door, it is likely that when Penny
returns home now and then, she stays in her room (free rent!) and updates it
with things she brings with her. She might have done this after her brief visit
in “Lane Miserables.” The issue makes one wonder if Summer and Wind’s rooms
aren’t also kept available for their use when they drop by the house, too; it
seems more than likely.
Wind has been divorced at least
twice, which is confirmed in the third-season episode, “Lane Miserables.” Katie
(on the houseboat) was his third wife, and likely the person Jane spoke of as
Wind’s next spouse in “The Teachings of Don Jake.” Claudia was wife #1 or #2,
who threw out and divorced Wind “years ago.” The script for “Lane Miserables”
can be found at:
http://www.outpost-daria.com/ts_ep308.html
Wind, too, sends a postcard to “The
Lane Family” in The Daria Diaries, but here he says that he is about to
marry someone named Sheila who “isn’t like the other ones,” so she is likely
pre-Katie if the engagement was later broken off. The same postcard says that
the marriage immediately before the one planned to Katie was essentially
annulled because the person who officiated it was not legally empowered to
marry couples. Wind’s almost-marriages could be numerous, as he appears to get
carried away by his emotions. He does not appear to have ever had children,
however—and one wonders why. It is possible he has one or more children from
his many failed liaisons, but they aren’t ever mentioned. If he does, he
appears to have no involvement in their lives.
In the fifth-season episode, “Art
Burn,” the gazebo in the Lanes’ backyard is destroyed by a defective special
effect while Jane is filming Mystik Spiral. Wind appears unexpectedly and hugs
Trent and Jane (the latter of whom appears very unenthusiastic about this
greeting), then says Katie locked him out of their kitchen and he came over
because he was hungry. Thus, Wind and Katie are still married while Jane is a
senior, and they live close to Lawndale, if not in Lawndale itself. Wind thinks
for a moment that Daria is actually Penny, so he either rarely sees Penny or
has a terrible memory (the former is likely, as Penny is out of the country so
often, but one wonders).
Also in “Art Burn,” Wind becomes hysterical
when he sees the gazebo is wrecked. He claims it was the “naming gazebo” in
which the Lane parents named each of their children when they were born. This
is the first time Jane and Trent have ever heard of this story, but they see to
it that the gazebo is fixed. When the Lane parents reappear at the episode’s
end, Amanda Lane says the story was not true—she made it up to keep Wind from
(understandably) changing his name to Ronald several years earlier. Many fans
of this show suspect Wind was treated to a barrage of predictable jokes about
his name all through school and probably afterward. A transcript for “Art Burn”
appears at:
http://www.outpost-daria.com/ts_ep507.html
Despite Wind’s hypersensitivity and
fondness for hugging, he is narcissistic, needy, immature, and uninterested in
or unable to deal with the problems of others.
Jane’s Nieces and Nephews
(Summer’s Kids)
It is interesting that more is known
about Summer’s children than about Summer herself.
Indeed, most of what we know about Summer has to do with her (poor) parenting
skills. In the episode “Pinch Sitter,” Daria and Jane have the following
conversation at the Guptys’ home.
=================
Daria:
Where did you learn to baby-sit?
Jane:
I used to help with my sister Summer’s kids till they got old enough to run
away.
=================
http://www.outpost-daria.com/ts_ep108.html
Jane is thus older than the oldest
of her nieces and nephews by Summer, likely by several
years, at least. Was Summer living with her parents when she had small children
and Jane helped out? It appears possible; Summer might
have been recently divorced at that time.
If the oldest of Summer’s four kids is 12 at the show’s start, just to pick a likely age, Summer started having kids at about age 20. (These ages can be tinkered with to a fair degree, so it could have been earlier or later in her life.) It is possible that none of Summer’s four kids has the same father, given the suggestion of her history of divorces and the possibility of following in her mother’s footsteps for marriage and mating habits (see later, “Amanda and Vincent Lane”). A father figure seems entirely absent from her children’s lives, which sort of follows if you assume Summer had a strange, chaotic childhood, being raised early on in an anarchistic, unstructured hippie commune—or in the anarchistic, unstructured Lane home. As a child, Summer was allowed to eat nothing but Pez for a year, according to Amanda Lane (“Lane Miserables”).
It is certain that all of Summer’s kids have run away from home, possibly multiple
times and certainly all of them at once on at least one occasion, by the time
Jane is 16. It is likely that at least one of Summer’s kids is missing at any
given time. A postcard from Summer in The Daria Diaries announces that
Adrian and Courtney (see later) have run away from her, apparently while they
were at a cheap motel in Pennsylvania; Summer dropped the other two children at
the Lane home in Lawndale, perhaps before the trip. (“No one was home,” writes
Summer, “so I told them to wait.”) The two errant siblings send a postcard from
“Amish Country” (probably Pennsylvania), then a later card from the “Petrified
Forest” (Arizona), where they are earning small amounts of money selling chips
of petrified wood to tourists—a trade that is illegal under federal law, by the
way. The kids don’t appear to be distressed at being on their own, writing: “If
you hear from Mom, tell her to chill. We’ll call her in a few weeks.” The cards
are neatly printed in all capitals and correctly spelled, so the children are
quite intelligent.
Adrian and Courtney could be the youngest of Summer’s kids, given that Summer came to pick them up in “Lanes Miserables” without bringing any other kids with her. (Maybe the others ran away again, or were being cared for by neighbors or other family.) Adrian and Courtney seem to be about 10-12 years old. This is in the third season, though, assumedly in Jane’s junior year in high school, so in Jane’s sophomore year they would be about 9-11 years old. It is possible they are fraternal twins and tend to stick together; they play together and run away together, at least, and they seem inseparable judging from their postcards in The Daria Diaries. The two of them think highly of Vincent and Amanda, given that they often write to or run away to the Lawndale Lanes’ home and get presents from them (per a postcard in The Daria Diaries).
All of Summer’s
children thus appear to be skilled at running off, hitchhiking, stowing away,
or taking refuge with other relatives or distant friends. The potential for
child abuse on the road is substantial—sorry to say it, but there it is. Why do
they run away? Good question. Summer clearly has little control over her kids
and complains loudly about it. She seems to lack her mother’s easygoing
temperament and could be neglectful or unpredictable, even emotionally abusive.
If she dumped two children at the empty Lane house in Lawndale, she’s not much
of a mother. Jane (and possibly Trent) likely cared for these runaway nieces
and nephews on numerous occasions, a point rarely brought up in the fanfic
about either of them. In “Lanes Miserables,” Summer declares that the Lane home
is the last place on Earth she wants to be. Why?
A curious note about siblings,
nieces, and nephews: In The Daria Database (“‘While
We’re Away…’ Housekeeping Notes from the Lanes”) is a note from Amanda warning “Janie”
and Trent to be sure that if people are discovered living in the Lane home’s
basement, “Make sure it’s not one of your brothers or sisters or their kids
before you call the cops.” This appears to leave the door open for children by
Wind or Penny, but this does not seem likely. Still, Wind might have kids from
one of his many marriages or relationships. Who knows?
We do have a glimpse into Summer’s life while growing up, provided by Glenn Eichler in
an interview with Kara Wild (posted March 30, 2005, at:
http://www.the-wildone.com/dvdaria/glennfollowup1.html/
Mr. Eichler was speaking of Rita
Barksdale, Helen’s older sister, who had gone through a great deal of turmoil
in her formative years:
In
boomer families where the children came of age in the late ‘60s/early ‘70s, it
was very common for the oldest child to get swept up in the social changes of
the time, even maybe losing their footing a bit, whether that meant dropping
out of school, becoming a huge druggie, getting into a bunch of bad “all you
need is love” relationships, or having any number of other experiences that
their parents considered scandalous.
Mr. Eichler went on to say, “Summer
is the Rita of that family... but there’s no Helen.” The implication is clear
that Summer made many mistakes in her life and relationships.
It is my guess that Amanda Lane,
Jane and Trent’s mother, is about the age of Helen Morgendorffer. For the sake
of argument, let’s say Amanda is 48 at the time of seasons one and two (c. 1997-1998),
so Amanda was born about 1950, a nice round guesswork figure. Jane was thus
born when Amanda was 32, Trent when she was 27, and Penny when she was 20-21.
Nothing is ever said about the pregnancies being planned or unplanned.
If siblings Wind and Summer are older than Penny, Amanda was a teenage parent.
Lots of interesting speculation comes into play now. It is possible that
Vincent, guessed to be about the same age as Amanda, is not the biological
father of Summer, Wind, and Penny—this is per a comment Jane made about her
sisters in “See Jane Run”: “We share certain chromosome pairs. Beyond that, I’m
not supposed to say.” Perhaps she was just being her usual sarcastic self,
perhaps not. Vincent might have adopted the oldest three or acted as their de
facto father after Amanda and Vincent married, became handfasted,
or whatever. Perhaps they never bothered with formalities and have a common-law
marriage. Summer and Wind were born before 1970 if they are the oldest, and
thus were children during the hippie era, which explains their peculiar names
(and Penny’s, of course). That Trent and Jane have normal names further emphasizes
the difference in upbringing these two groups of siblings had.
The tale of the “naming gazebo” in “Art
Burn” does not negate this possibility, as Amanda reveals the story was false.
Wind’s parentage could still be an open question. However, for the “naming
gazebo” story to have been plausible to Wind, the Lanes would have had to have
lived in Lawndale at least since his birth. (See note below about Ms. Morris’s
memory of Summer.) Perhaps their end of the suburb is the “old” one, with much
added on in the years since they moved in. It is also possible that Wind is
simply very gullible.
For the sake of argument, it is
assumed that Wind and Summer were born about 1-2 years
apart, and Wind is assumed to be 1-2 years older than Penny. Amanda would thus
have started having kids at about age 16, 18 at most. She might have been
married previous to meeting Vincent and could have been divorced at least once.
Indeed, given a probable hippie past, Amanda might have raised Summer, Wind,
and Penny in a commune (centered in their home?) without ever being married,
and their biological fathers might be nearly impossible to determine at this
late date. Draw your own conclusions about what that was like for Amanda’s
kids—it doesn’t appear to have bothered her, however. The fanfic
potential here is enormous and almost untapped.
Given that Ms. Morris recalls both Penny
and Summer Lane, the Lanes have been in Lawndale for at least two, possibly
three decades, or even longer. If the “naming gazebo” story is discarded entirely,
Amanda and Vincent might have moved to Lawndale after the birth of Penny and
their own marriage, in whatever order those events came. In Daria’s second
diary entry from The Daria Diaries, she says of Jane, immediately after
they meet in their sophomore year at high school: “Her parents are out of the
country for a few months and forgot to leave the mortgage payments.” Long-term
home mortgages are typically for twenty or thirty years. Given that Wind,
Penny, Trent, and Jane—and possibly Summer—have their own rooms (“Lane
Miserables” and “Fire!”), it is tempting to assume the Lane parents purchased
the house after their oldest three children were born, when they knew they
would need the space. They might have anticipated the arrival of more children
later, too. It is reasonable to assume that the home was purchased in the early
or mid-1970s on a thirty-year mortgage, which explains why payments are still
being made in the late 1990s.
How they got the money to buy a big
house is a good question, too. Maybe they have hidden financial resources of
some kind. They apparently have been saving money for Jane’s college tuition,
if Jane’s daydream in “College Bored” is any indication. Are the Lanes
wealthier than they first appear?
At any rate, Jane’s parents forgot
to leave mortgage payments. They are thus more than a bit irresponsible. The
postcards from Vincent and Amanda in The Daria Diaries clearly show that
both are gone from the Lane home for extended periods of time of up to weeks
and months, and each is likely to have no idea where the other is on Earth at
any given moment. Only Trent and Jane are assumed to be at the house, and Trent
is sometimes gone on band tours. Amanda’s notes to “Janie” and Trent in The
Daria Database (“‘While We’re Away…’ Housekeeping Notes from the Lanes”)
reveal their home to be just short of a disaster area, with visits even from
the health department. Parental involvement is also a nightmare. In “Lane
Miserables,” Trent apologizes to the Morgendorffers for staying out too late while he and Jane are sleeping over, saying:
=================
Trent:
I’m sorry I broke the rules. We don’t really have any rules at our house.
Right, Janey?
Jane:
Well, there’s that one about not building a fire in the rooms that don’t have
fireplaces.
=================
The
Lane home appears in the lower left corner of the “Virtual Lawndale” webpage of
MTV’s “Daria” site, at:
http://www.mtv.com/onair/daria/lawndale/
If
you click on the Lane house (#2), a small blowup of the home appears on the
right of the page, with the legend:
=================
La Casa Lane
Where Jane and Trent were raised. By each other.
=================
Even Glenn Eichler mentions the
chaotic conditions of the Lane home in the interview with Kara Wild posted on
March 30, 2005:
KW: How can the Lane family afford such a large
house in a tony suburb like Lawndale when it seems as
though Vincent and Amanda Lane don’t have real jobs?
GE: The inside of the house is a disaster area. Did you ever read “Running With
Scissors?” It’s kind of like the doctor’s house in that book. I won’t even go
over there any more.
When did Vincent and Amanda begin leaving Lawndale for extended periods
of time, forcing their oldest children to care for the smallest siblings? Penny
might have gotten stuck with this job in particular, a job she may have
resented. If Summer and her children were at the Lane home during one of Summer’s
divorces, Summer probably ran things for a time, too, though clearly Jane was a
major help with the kids. Jane also delivered sandwiches to Trent when he lived
in a backyard tent for six months as a child, so Jane has always had
significant responsibility for others, which doubtless accelerated her
maturity. Does Jane resent her parents for running off on her so often? The following
conversation from “Lane Miserables” makes her feelings clear.
=================
Amanda:
You know, if you try to hold a butterfly tightly in your hand, it will die. You
have to let it go. And if it comes back, it is truly yours, but if doesn’t, it
never really was.
Jane:
How about if you tear off its precious little wings?
=================
It appears that Amanda’s three
oldest children form one conflict-prone, antagonistic group of individuals, and
Trent and Jane—following so far behind them in birth order—are the “out group,”
not well connected with the rest of the family. Several episodes in the series
support this. For example, in Is It College Yet?, only Trent is present
to see Jane graduate from high school. Trent is also stressed out at the
possibility of Jane going to Boston for college, as she is the only Lane he
knows who has consistently been around the house. Sibling rivalry and conflict
is a much-repeated theme in “Daria,” and the close bond that Trent and “Janey”
share is a rare and precious thing in the Dariaverse. It appears that Jane feels
more responsibility in running and maintaining the home than Trent does, given
how she saves the house from being repossessed (The Daria Diaries), how she manages Trent’s time and rebuilds the
gazebo with her own money in “Art Burn,” and her possession of her parents’ “Do
Not Resuscitate” orders in The Daria Database (“Under the Beds, Jane’s
& Trent’s”).
Summing up so far, early in Jane’s
sophomore year (first season), we have:
Jane, 16
Trent, 21
Penny, 27-28
Wind, 29-31 (assumed)
Summer, 30-33 (assumed)
By the end of Is It College Yet?,
all are about two and a half years older, closing in on three years older by
the start of the next school year.
The chance that Penny bonded with
Jane is low (as noted earlier). In fact, Jane probably finds her oldest three
siblings to be more strangers than family, and she obviously resents their
intrusions during “Lane Miserables.” None of the oldest siblings connect with Jane
in “Lane Miserables,” being consumed with their own problems. Note the scene in
“Lane Miserables” in which Trent does not want to become involved in the
relationship role-playing session between Vincent and Wind. Trent may feel
exactly as Jane does toward their three older sibs, as he and Jane both fled
their home for the Morgendorffers’ place.
Were the five Lane children ever home together as they were growing up? Given their sudden migration home as adults in “Lane Miserables,” in Jane’s junior year, this is possible, but it doesn’t seem likely they were ever together for a long period of time. The three oldest siblings simply don’t like each other that much; Penny and Summer have strong hostile feelings toward each other and others in the family, and Wind thinks only of himself. Their grand feud at the end of “Lane Miserables” is taken by all to have been predictable and typical—and useful to Jane and Trent in clearing away unwanted family members.
When Penny was age 17-18, Trent was
11 (fifth or sixth grade?) and Jane was 6. Jane was 7 in first grade, if she
was 16 as a sophomore; Jane was thus in first grade when Penny was 18-19, which
might have been Penny’s senior high-school year or the first year she was gone
from home. Tommy Sherman won the state football championship for Lawndale three
years before the first-season episode, “The Misery Chick,” which would have
been when Trent was 18—likely a senior who shared classes with Tommy—and when Jane
was 13, in seventh grade.) Summer and Wind might have left home by this time,
off on their first marriages.
One interesting option mentioned by
some fans of “Daria” is the possibility that Penny is the oldest of Jane’s
siblings. (Note: This was discounted by Glenn Eichler, but it’s your fanfic, so
write what you like!) If so, you could space the Lane children in the following
order in the first and second seasons of the series, giving a year’s time
between births.
Penny: 28 (29?)
Wind and Summer: 22-27 (probably 25 or older)
Trent: 21
Jane: 16
The problem here is that Summer has to give birth to four children (all capable of
running away from home at this time), and Wind has to get divorced at least
twice, then married a third time. It can be made to work, but it will get
crowded. Penny, Wind, and Summer still form a group of three dysfunctional
siblings who rarely interact with Jane and Trent.
The Lanes of Lawndale own two cats
named Zachary and Taylor, according to The Daria Database (“‘While We’re
Away…’ Housekeeping Notes from the Lanes” and “Under the Beds, Jane’s &
Trent’s”). The cats never appear in the TV show, but cats never appear when you
want them to appear. Perhaps they eventually ran off like so many of the Lanes
do.
Penny has a colorful parrot, Chiquito (Spanish for “very small,” a not-uncommon pet name
in some places), she was somehow, despite customs regulations, able to bring
home from Central America. Chiquito is “very
possessive,” sometimes screeching at or attacking other people (as does Penny
in a verbal way), or getting into mischief.
Courtney and Adrian wrote from
Arizona that they wanted their mother to pick them up in her van, as they now
have a dog. No other information is available on the dog, but if it became a
part of the family, it will likely run away with the two kids.
Jane once mentioned she’d like to be
filmed walking a poodle (“Monster”), but who knows what she meant.
What of the rest of the Lane family?
“The Teachings of Don Jake” is crucial here.
==============
Jane:
Do you know where I’ll be this weekend? The Lane family reunion. Dozens of
Lanes from all over the country converging in one Midwestern split level to
remind themselves why they scattered in the first place.
Daria:
Wow. I didn’t think your parents would be caught dead at something like that.
Jane:
They wouldn’t. We’re the black sheep of the clan. We’re only invited because
hating us brings them all closer together. My parents are much too smart for
that trick. So they’re sending me and Trent as their representatives.
==============
This situation sounds more than a
bit like what happens in “Lane Miserables.” As Jane calls it the Lane family reunion, we’re talking about
her father’s relatives, not her mother’s. It is interesting that Jane and Trent
obey their mother and father by going to the family reunion, and curious, too,
because the oldest three kids are out of the picture. Maybe Jane and Trent,
being children from a legal marriage (they have their father’s hair color), are
made slightly more welcome than the others by conservative members of their
extended family—though the rest of the family doesn’t seem to show them any
respect.
“The Teachings of Don Jake” contains
bits and pieces of information about relatives such as Aunt Ellie (and her
vacation pictures), Cousin Jimmy (and his modeling career), Aunt Bernice (and
her straw hats, from Middleberry), Uncle Max (the bum
who likes Trent), and the highly critical Grandma Lane, her father’s mother. We
have not yet met Amanda’s relatives, alas.
Jane does have a pile of
paint-by-number kits under her bed (per The Daria Database), all
identical and sent as gifts from one of her grandfathers. It’s an encouraging
sign of support, if not entirely on target.
And there you have it, the Lanes of
Lawndale. Fanfic writers—go!
ADDENDUM:
THE AGES OF
JANE’S SIBLINGS,
A
SEMI-OFFICIAL ANSWER
Courtesy of Michelle Klein-Haas,
Kara Wild was able to contact Glenn Eichler, one of the original creative
supervisor and scriptwriter for Daria, and ask a few questions of him regarding
the background of the show and its characters, in an exchange posted on March
30, 2005, at:
http://www.the-wildone.com/dvdaria/glennfollowup1.html/
Mr. Eichler was asked about the ages
of Wind, Summer, and Penny Lane on the show, circa Is It College Yet? His response was:
I
used to have a piece of paper on my bulletin board spelling out the ages of
Jane’s brothers and sisters so I wouldn’t forget them... unfortunately it’s
gone now. Penny would be mid-to-late ‘20s, Wind 30ish, Summer a year or two
older than Wind. Summer is the Rita of that family... but there’s no Helen.
Because Penny’s age can be pegged with a reasonable
degree of certainty, it isn’t clear if he was giving the ages at the beginning
of the show or at the show’s end. However, the above figures agree very well
with the suppositions given in this essay.
Original: 7/30/03, revised
8/6/03, 9/21/03, 06/02/05, 09/25/05, 10/05/06
FINIS