On the appeal of bad boys and girls

[sistermagpie]

A discussion I was reading brought up the question: "Is having a character you can relate to/identify with/root for necessary to your enjoyment of a show?" in the context of some viewers saying that they no longer enjoyed Weeds because there were no longer any likable characters and they could no longer root for Nancy. Other people listed shows that they watched where they never felt like they identified with anyone--The Sopranos, for instance--and didn't want to, but still loved the show. One person said they felt it was a particularly American thing to base enjoyment of a show on the show fitting into their own moral beliefs. I'm not sure if that's true or not. It's probably more a sign of a particular personality than a nationality.

There are probably more shows on now than ever before with explicitly "bad" characters. One would think these shows required an audience who liked characters who didn’t share their morality, but they seem to also attract a large number of people who think the characters do share their morality until they do something really bad and the illusion is broken (and the writers may be accused of making the character rape the dog/cross the moral event horizon).

More concrete examples within.

Probably spoilers to follow for Seinfeld, Weeds, Dexter...Hopefully you don't hav eto follow the shows to follow what follows.

I wasn't thinking of Seinfeld when I started this, but now I remember it was a great example. Whenever George Costanza was with his girlfriend Susan he felt trapped; but when they broke up he panicked and fought to get her back. He directly or indirectly constantly brought destruction into her life. Finally George, in a passive aggressive rebellion against their upcoming wedding, insisted on a box of cheap invitations. Susan was poisoned with defective envelope glue and died.

I remember an angry article written probably by that guy in TV Guide who's name I can't remember but whose opinions always seemed completely wrong to me--about how this behavior and the aftermath was so OOC for these sympathetic Seinfeld characters who we rooted for because they were just like us. It was hard not to let out that fandom cliché: What show have you been watching? Susan's death *exactly* followed George's pattern with her. He had to either kill her or die a metaphorical character death.

In this article the writer included sentence-long descriptions of the way these characters "used to be," painting George, Jerry, Elaine and Kramer as vulnerable people blown around by fate (and who needed to have children--he thought everybody should have children). Interpretations vary for everything, but I honestly think the show had been very clear that these characters were self-absorbed and saw themselves as victims when inconvenienced in any way. They considered themselves well-meaning (Elaine never foofed her hair when she went to the movies so the people behind her would have an unobstructed view) but their main motivation for caring about others came out of social expectations and wanting to see themselves as good.

The characters on Showtime's Dexter and Weeds are even more blatantly flawed.

Dexter Morgan kills because he likes to cause living people to be dead. Enjoys cutting them so that blood spills from their bodies. Enjoys chopping them up. His adopted father saw this in him early, and created a code. The main purpose of the code is Dexter's own survival. A secondary result is that Dexter's code mimics what we would call morality: he only kills people that he has proven to himself with evidence are killers of others. Breaking the code by killing on impulse, killing a stranger, killing a person who might have committed crimes but isn't a murderer, is a thrilling but dangerous temptation for Dexter—into which he sometimes gives. This makes morality a central question of the show in all sorts of ways. If one roots for Dexter--and rooting for him is part of the appeal of this show--it's not primarily out of a sense of him being right but about wanting him to survive. It's like that scene in Psycho where Norman Bates is sinking Marion Crane's car in the swamp. The car stops sinking for a second and in that moment we worry *with* Norman, sympathizing with him covering his tracks. We want him to get away with a crime we knew was wrong.

But I have regularly read responses to Dexter where people talk about Dexter as someone they root for *morally.* Not in the sense of his "taking out the trash" (an opinion the show examines) but as a victim. Dexter's character arc is described as curving towards healthy human. His killing is the fault of other people--his father should have sent him to a therapist who would have cured him of it, he's just confused in thinking he doesn't have emotions and doesn't love because he needs help. When he is healed he will stop killing and past killings then shouldn't be held against him.

Likewise with Weeds. Nancy Botwin is described as a woman in desperate circumstances trying to take care of her kids and/or protect her middle class life. But this season has made it more and more explicit that she's always been a danger junkie, a force of chaos, an Imp of the Perverse. Her husband's death was an excuse to make those kinds of choices and drag her kids with her. She regularly makes choices that endanger her survival and is rarely shown enjoying wealth.

Nancy and Dexter's conflict seem in some ways to come down to the same thing: can you be a good person while doing one very wrong thing? And that conflict depends on accepting that there is willfully bad behavior the characters choose and enjoy for itself. This is what makes them a successful serial killer and pot dealer. These "professions," either by definition or due to current laws, demand a taste for cruelty or callousness. One must disregard most things Dexter says and does for him to not really be a serial killer. Any time Nancy finds a place of calm that stalls her on her road towards the corrupted heart of her profession she destroys it and demands to be taken further. Nancy has always chosen the same way, it's just the choices she's offered that have changed.

I'm using these shows as examples because it seems like the whole appeal of the show as stressed even in advertisements is that they're about transgression and the fun being bad rather than redemption and learning to be good. So it kind of fascinates me to see it turned into the opposite kind of show. Instead of daring to step over the line and take us with them, the characters are pushed over the line and crying inside to be allowed back.

Short version: do you prefer characters you can stand behind as good, even if you have to overlook some of their behavior to think of them that way? Are there certain characters you've liked where this worked and other characters where it didn't work? And if so, why do you think?

Comments

[pauraque]

I've never seen Dexter or Weeds, but I can speak to the Seinfeld thing. I totally remember articles like that back when the show was on, and I wondered the same thing -- what show are these people watching?

their main motivation for caring about others came out of social expectations and wanting to see themselves as good.

Exactly! In fact I think you've nailed exactly the line the characters stand on, where they're not "bad" people, but they're ultimately motivated by shallow factors -- appearances, revenge, avoiding embarrassment -- as opposed to, say, justice or honesty or love. And I do think we relate to that in the sense that everyone acts on shallow impulses sometimes. It's not what we aspire to, it's what we succumb to, and we can recognize and laugh at that, while also liking the characters.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

The descriptions of the characters he gave were the thing that sealed it for me. And also that he was asking why they hadn't all gotten married and had babies yet because...you'd think that would be obvious!

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Well, I'll just speak to the Seinfeld bit first: Up until Susan's death, they were all self-absorbed in the way that some people I know are. I might not want to be close friends with them, but I'll go to the movies with them, or a party, sure. But Susan's death and their reaction to it, while it may just have been revealing how callous the characters were the entire time, was the moment when I couldn't really watch the show anymore. I think you have to have a certain forgiveness for the exaggeration of fiction, especially comic fiction, but there's being callous about someone's feelings, or parking space, or house, and there's being callous about someone's life—particularly when they are a recurring character we got to know. The entire thing, for me, was odd and unsettling.

I think I'd rather watch a show about a charming or likable but immoral character than an unlikable moral character, or indeed an unlikable immoral character as in Curb Your Enthusiasm or the later Woody Allen movies. I think that kind of "people behaving badly" comedy requires a lightness of touch and the lack of any truly awful consequences in order to be funny. And by this I don't mean, say, the comic moments in Tarantino films, which often come out of the violence, because while those moments might be funny, the movies aren't comedies, so they can get away with more, in a sense, which explains The Sopranos and any number of other things.

So with Weeds, I think there were things everyone could let her get away with, and then things they couldn't, some line that gets crossed. Like, Six Feet Under—any amount of bullshit going on between Nate and Brenda I could forgive because they both gave as good as they got. But the whole Nate and Lisa thing was much more of a mess, because Lisa was much more vulnerable to Nate than he ever could be to her, whatever else was actually going on with her at the time. And toward the end of his life, Nate's drama seemed worse mostly because Brenda was getting her shit together (a great deal for the sake of her kids) and Nate was still behaving selfishly. So I think that circumstances have a LOT to do with it—what might be excusable in one space isn't in another space, even if the character is behaving the same way.

But I think that happens in life, too. Like, you have a friend who's bitchy about people behind their back, and it starts out sort of funny and catty, until you realize that they're probably like that to you with someone. But they aren't at first, so you don't think about it. Or, you have a friend who is sort of unreliable, but being late for a movie or a play, and being late for a flight to Paris, are two different things. So when you say, Nancy has always chosen the same way, it's just the choices she's offered that have changed. I think that's hugely important, because for many regular people, the choices offered are the whole point.

I don't need a character to be someone I can relate to, or someone whose morality I share, or likable in order to watch. I don't feel like I have to defend their actions; their actions can be indefensible and I might still be interested in what they're doing. But they have to be someone whose life and actions I can get something from. What does watching this person do these things tell me about my life, or the life of the people around me? Or, is it merely entertaining (which is totally fine!)? If it feels pointless, or just doesn't speak to me, that's when I distance myself from it.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I should be clear about the Seinfeld example re: the article I read because it doesn't sound like you'd really had the wrong idea about the characters beforehand, you just accepted one level of self-absorbtion and had no interest in following it to the next level. The guy who wrote the article seemed to be more about being mad that they weren't role models like they were before. Like before that he kept considering it a flaw of the show that Jerry and Elaine didn't get married and have a kid "like the rest of us" when there was really nothing on the show that said they should do that. And that made me see this guy as projecting to begin with. Like I think your description is a much more honest description of what happened on the show and your reaction to it.

For me--while I can completely understand it being odd and unsettling, it wasn't very different from what came before because I saw it as something where they didn't really know how to react it was so strange. (Especially with Kramer saying, "Poor Lily" because he kept getting her name wrong.) Yet to be honest, I tend to feel like it was also a jump the shark moment. The show almost couldn't go anywhere after that because even if you found it funny, it changed the nature of the characters and upped the ante.

But those kind of shows always walk a fine line. I actually had a very similar reaction to the CYE when Larry David appeared to die and his family members seemed to totally not care. It seemed like a tipping point for me. I could take the Susan version because she was periferal in their life all along, but if Kramer had died and they hadn't cared that would have been different. (Which is why the show could never have sustained Kramer dying, because we wouldn't want them to be crying either.)

So with Weeds, I think there were things everyone could let her get away with, and then things they couldn't, some line that gets crossed.

Absolutely I think that's the way it really is. Jacob on TWOP (who asked the question) mentioned that he was always fascinated by what things people found to be their breaking point. Like, would the things she does be fun if she didn't have kids getting hurt by it? But I think that's partly why I get frustrated by people writing it off as writing her OOC instead of wanting to think about their different reactions and consider that she's always been this way to an extent, at least. Like, that the change from acceptable to not isn't that they changed the character, but that you have a different reaction to the different circumstances. Or asking what exactly about the character changed.

Which I think in a show like Weeds is really very central to the show because her choices were always choices that put her kids in danger by exposing them to drugs and criminals and violence, so the question of "what's different now" is revealing. The signs of the darker stuff attached to the drug trade were there early on so it's like...is the problem that now there's no plausible deniability that if it gets really bad she'll stop where she didn't before because it wasn't bad enough?

If it feels pointless, or just doesn't speak to me, that's when I distance myself from it.

Yeah, me too. And in the Weeds conversation I think that pov was respected (as I think it should be). There's no reason to watch a show where you don't care about the characters and not caring because you don't like them is just as good a reason as any. I guess with these kinds of shows it just seemed like that was especially significant because it's the question of when an unlikable character actually became unlikable. And some interpretations for how likeable she was before don't actually hold up-like if somebody said it was different in the beginning because she had no choice but to sell pot, that's just not the case.

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

For me, I think, I can like characters who are immoral or who do terrible things, but I need there to be a clear acknowledgement on the part of the writer/show that they *are* terrible things. I think Seinfeld was very clear that they were self-absorbed, fairly terrible people, for example, as was the Sopranos. I felt for Tony Soprano because I understood his family life - it was recognizable to me - even as I recognized that he did terrible horrible things both to his family and in his business. Or take a lot of the characters on The Wire. I had a lot more disgust for the reporter who faked his stories and sucked up to management or the cops and politicians who cared more about securing their posistions than I did for the drug dealers or hitmen who were doing their jobs (well, except for Marlo - I never felt for Marlo, but I don't think I was supposed to, either).

It's when a text shows characters behaving awfully - whether it's being bitchy or cheating on their spouse or killing people - but wants me to think they're not, when it holds up their behavior as okay or excuses it as not their fault, that I can't stand it. The best example - and this is nowhere near serial killing or even drug dealing - is McDreamy on Grey's Anatomy. This is a guy who sleeps with his underling, neglects to tell her he's still technically married, then decides he's going to get back with his wife, even though he hasn't forgiven her for cheating on him, and then while he's back with his wife, is emotionally unfaithful to her with the girlfriend (still his underling!) and then when the girlfriend tries to move on with another guy, he gets angry and calls her a slut, even though they are no longer together and he is the one who broke up with her. And the show held him up as, and I quote, "an honorable man." That made me want to stab him, and the showrunner, in the face.

You see this in fanfic a lot, I think. For example, I don't mind if a story makes Sam and Dean out to actually be the sociopathic killers the FBI thinks they are, but I have a problem with a story like that which holds them up as *heroes* or *good people*. You know what I mean? I feel like I am not explaining it well. You can make them natural born killers, a real Bonnie and Clyde, and I can root for them even in that incarnation, but don't pretend they're not actually bad guys in the story, you know?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

That was totally my first thought on the subject actually--that it had a lot to do, a lot of the time, with how the writer saw their behavior. Like, even if the writers see their behavior as bad it still might not work (as Clio describes above with her reaction to the Seinfeld example) but I think viewers are often way more willing to follow the writer down that path if *the writer* shows they understand just how much this person is hurting other people and why and gives that the right amount of respect. The "it's not their fault" is especially galling. Though a good writer can do some of that in a more honest way. Like as you say, on the wire with a lot of drug dealers and hit men. The show isn't so much saying "it's not their fault" but presenting their circumstances in a way where you can really see how their choices make sense.

I do know what you mean about the holding up people as "good people" when they just aren't (god, that's quite an "honorable man" you described there--ick!).

[alula-auburn.livejournal.com]

LOL, this so much about Grey's Anatomy and "McDreamy." (You left off his end-of-season 3 asshattery; you must have been smarter than me and stopped watching. But yeah, when your girlfriend's stepmother has just died, her father has literally slapped her in the face at her place of work, AND she has to take a career-altering test, that is TOTALLY the time a dreamy boyfriend flirts with a girl at the bar and tells his girlfriend it's because he's not getting enough attention from her. ) This season Eric Stoltz was on as a serial killer on death row, and at one point in the plotline someone says they need to page Shepherd and Eric, bleeding from the head, says calmly, "Please don't; he's a terribly unpleasant person," and I laughed until I cried. You go, evil serial killer.

The other time "honorable man" came up on that show was when Dr. Burke left Cristina at the altar and three weeks later sent his mother to get the keys to his apartment back. Shonda has issues.

[godspoodle.livejournal.com]

I... don't know what the point of 'goodness' in characters is, but I can guarantee you it's not because most readers are so blindingly good that they can't IMAGINE what it's like to be a little (or a lot) less so. Ugh. No, it's not that. Even thinking about this makes me want to slap people around the head with a dead fish. I mean... it's because people are judgmental and moralizing creatures who like to think they're better than X because if they're not, then what excuse do they have, so... ugh. People are frustrating.


Umm... I'm sure that's not the response you were looking for. Um... so...

I generally like multidimensional characters who have normal human impulses rather than morally-driven storylines of any kind. I like stories of transformation and growth, and often I think it's growth for 'good' but I don't actually care and in fact quite enjoy it if it's morally ambiguous growth (haha) if it's believable development. The important thing is to deal with a character's issues, not to make them into some 'thing' like a 'good person' or a 'hot person' or a 'successful person'. Ugh. PEOPLE. Ack. For some reason this is getting to me right now.

Anyway, a 'good person' is dependent on definition; I mean, I personally think you can be a good person while doing any number of bad things, because there's no way to avoid that and be a human being. But. Lots of people wouldn't agree because they have a different concept of what a standard 'human being' is like. At the same time, what I enjoy is intelligence in characters and human connections made between people-- so the way I personally would enjoy a really 'bad' character, serial killer et al, is if he/she loved someone passionately (even as a friend) and was really smart. To me, 'goodness' is nowhere near as important as that. So... uh, where do I fall? haha. People who do bad things for fun aren't any more intrinsically interesting to me than people who do good things for guilt-- it's just sort of obvious and boring on some level. Now, say, doing good things for money if you don't care and/or would as easily do bad things for money-- that's interesting to me. I also am interested in people who do bad things for honor, or bad things for loyalty, or bad things for country, or bad things for love-- it's that conflict, that inherent growth-- not towards goodness, but towards drama...? If that makes sense. Whereas 'good things for guilt/love/family/country' and 'bad things for fun/greed/anger/etc' is sort of the default and therefore pathetic and boring to me. It's the character that makes it interesting; and a character who'd do anything on a lark (kill, raise a puppy, scam a grandma, save a baby) is interesting to me, whereas a character who's predictable is less interesting unless their predictability is built on some inherent inner conflict (loyalty vs righteousness, say).

As for sympathizing with a character, for me it's totally rooted in their inner conflict and personal vulnerability. A killer that's invulnerable isn't someone I can identify with, but neither is a hero who's invulnerable. Transgression without some measure of guilt is boring as well. Like, blah, if you're going to be super-kinky, say, you have to keep a model of 'normal' sexuality in mind on some level to inspire you to rebel, or it's just like-- well, BDSM, watching TV or sleeping, who really cares? At least that's how I feel, haha. I suffer from over-acceptance, haha. I suffer! :D

[godspoodle.livejournal.com]

Anyway, to transgress you need to transgress *something* that you're keeping in sight, which is probably why people can't stop keeping up this moralizing dichotomy; all the fun leeches out of things if you forget how you're 'supposed to be good' (personally, I forget all the time, but don't kill anyone anyway... I'm a boring-- or possibly overly normal person). So the line is intrinsic-- you can't enjoy yourself on the other side if you forget that it's important that you've crossed it, or something, and/or stop dealing with the repercussions. Blah. Personally I prefer to forget about social expectations and repercussions, but then I don't care about transgressing them, either. That's the real rebellion in my mind, though. :D


Anyway, you can be a good person not only if you do one wrong thing, but no matter how many wrong things, as long as you do a right thing. Of course, you're also a bad person. But people are like that. And yeah... I overlook some characters' behavior & not others, but usually when they're pathetic/whiny/etc rather than 'bad'. ^^;;;; haha

[ptyx.livejournal.com]

I plead guilty in the case of Weeds: I stopped watching the show because I didn't like any of the characters anymore. But I won't say that I would never watch a show in which I didn't like any of the characters. It's just that... there wasn't much left in Weeds to interest me anymore.

I don't follow Dexter.

I could never stand Seinfeld, perhaps exactly because all the characters were so cynical, and the show seemed cynical to me, too.

But I like House, in spite of high doses of cynicism... Perhaps I believe that, deep inside, House is not a bad guy. Besides, there is Wilson, and their love is so pure friendship is... lovely.

As for The Sopranos, ha ha, I love Tony. I totally identify with him. I know this is crazy, because I'm not a killer, or (hopefully) a racist, or an adulterer, yet I feel like Tony many, many times.

I'm also watching the second season of Mad Men, and I can surely say that I don't identify with any of the characters. The show intrigues me, in spite of that. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why this show intrigues me!

To sum up, it's not true that I can't watch a show if I don't identify with any of the characters, but this is surely a factor.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Totally nothing to feel guilty about! I didn't articulate it well, but I wanted to say the opposite that there is *nothing* wrong with not being interested in characters for any reason including that you just don't like them (ever or anymore). I hate it when people use what somebody likes to watch as like a judgment on them--as if you're just not cool or hip enough to like it or get it.

So I think it's totally good that you watched the show until you didn't enjoy watching it anymore.:-) I was thinking more of specific things people were saying where it seemed like these were shows where they were sometimes sort of denying everything the show said about itself. Like with Dexter, needing everything he said about himself to be false. It was a little like back in the day when some people assumed that all of Snape's nastiness would be revealed as an act. Even though as their favorite character you'd think they'd enjoy that aspect of him.

[seven31.livejournal.com]

I never liked Seinfeld. Rarely watched it unless others had it on. But I couldn't articulate why until that episode with the cheap glue envelops. They are horrible, shallow human beings. I think Jerry said it was a show about nothing. I infer that to mean the vapid characters.

I don't mind a despicable character. The most contemptible character in tv history is also one of the most loved: Eric Cartman. He does some reprehensible acts, but I couldn't watch South Park if it was only him. I need the interactions of his more humane peers to balance out his wretchedness. Especially when it's with his greatest foil, Butters.

I've only watched the first season of Dexter. I love the character, but I think it's because he practices being human. Dexter says he's not normal, but he shows others he is by going through the motions of being normal: getting girlfriend, playing around with her kid(s). What I find unbelievable about the show is the supervisor who is creeped out by him, only because we (the audience) don't see the action of what he does to creep him out. It's just a feeling the supervisor has, and then states. Show me Showtime!!!

I haven't seen Weeds, but from what you've described I don't think I'd like it because no one seems to be holding her accountable. Or am I reading that wrong?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I think they were shallow characters, definitely. The whole "nothing" idea was sort of them going in search of little things that they wanted that in the scheme of things weren't that important but became these big battles. Luckily (or not) they usually went up against people who were the same way, just with different desires, so they weren't usually hurting people who seemed to have much higher goals. Though of course, that was also because they made quick judgments about people based on what they saw on the surface.

And oh god, Cartman, yes.

Also agree on Dexter--I think his behavior--apart from when he's chopping people up (if you're thinking of Doakes who was creeped out by him, poor Doakes eventually wound up dead and thought guilty of Dexter's own crimes!) his behavior is actually quite good, it's true. He acts like a good friend, a good brother, a good employee, a good father. He is genuinely likable--and certainly often does things for others.

On Nancy being held accountable, this week there was a great moment where she said armageddon was falling down on her again and why did this always happen to her and her brother-in-law said seriously, "You know it's all you, right? You do all this."

It's not so much that she doesn't get held accountable by the people around her--many people call her on her shit (her sister last week: "She plays the victim, but she always has time to put on mascara"--go Jennifer Jason Leigh), but the narrative usually has Nancy getting herself into trouble when she probably could have avoided it and then we watch her wriggle out of it while leaving a trail of people behind her who are dead. So yeah, Nancy getting away with it is a big part of the show, as it is with Dexter.

[dumbledore11214.livejournal.com]

Oh LOL, it is so not just american thing IMO. As you know I arrived in America in my late twenties and I soooooo need the character I can relate to in the show in order to be attached to the show in the long run.

I feel that I will be rambling and probably not directly responding to the questions you posited at the end of your post, but I will try to do so.

So, first of all yes, absolutely I need a sympathetic character, but I am not sure if I need it for the moral reason of any sorts. For example, I did not watch an episode of Dexter, but I have had a general idea what the show is about and I am just not interested in watching a show where killer is the main character. I have a strong guess that I will not be feeling what you are describing some people feel - that he needs therapy, that his killings are not his fault, etc. I have a strong guess that I will be thinking that show does just that, talks about bad character for the fun of it, examines his life, etc (sorry if my idea about what the show is about is wrong).

But that's precisely what I am not interested in and find boring. I once quoted a great quote in my lj and if I find it later I may come back, the writer was saying something along the lines that she totally does not mind in the shows that she likes if the heroes do bad things, but she just does not like the shows where heroes are main characters **because** they do bad things.

In a sense I am the same way. In the short run I can totally find such show funny, but I never liked satires much, you know?

Again, do not get me wrong, let me have my characters so so flawed, as you also know my favorite literary works DO describe extremely flawed characters (russians of 19 century) and very very few of them talk about redemption of such characters, really. Most of them stay as they are, but to them I can at least relate, they have flaws, which I think of flaws of real people, not psychos.

I find the examination of the mind of psychopath, killer, rapist, etc, etc, to be extremely boring (and I also get scared easily lol), because I just cannot relate to such state of mind.

Unfortunately I did not watch Weeds, so I cannot discuss it with you, but now I think I understand why I did not care for Seinfield much either, even if I only watched it sporadically.

Not sure if what I wrote makes much sense :)

Alla

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

No problem on not answering the question--I love rambling! And yeah, I suspected it was more of a personality thing because it totally is!

That is a great quote about the heroes being heroes because they do bad things. I will say, like I said to the person above, there are good things that he does. Like, there are times when he tries to be a good friend, brother, boyfriend, etc. But he's also a monster. I remember once somebody referred to it as a vampire show and it is very much like that. And when it's him vs. somebody else the other person's going down.

Like, I think the arc of the show is mostly about him being tempted to bond with somebody honestly, wanting somebody who would like him knowing what he truly is, but anybody who would like him is inevitably a killer themselves, so that's wrong.

Just mentioning that not to get you to try out the show, but just to agree that I pretty much find the whole psychology of a serial killer pretty boring too so whatever I like in the show I assume it's not that. (Also I like a lot of the other characters too.) It's more interesting watching Dexter try to be good and have healthy relationships than it is watching him kill somebody if that makes sense.

[dumbledore11214.livejournal.com]

I guess I did not answer your questions at all, huh? I do not prefer the characters which I can think of as good, especially if I have to overlook their behavior lol, but I certainly want to have the characters which I can relate to at least somewhat and need them to do some good things sometimes, if that makes sense. And if they just start doing only bad things, well, I just start hating him. Say Shield, I watched sporadically, but knew the story and was so so so happy that a lot of main characters ended the way they did, you know?

Great Post :)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Ha! No problem. But yeah I agree with that and I think a lot of people are the same way. It's not so much that you have to look at the person and say "they're just like me!" but you have to be able to understand them enough to empathize with them. Like Humbert Humbert is despicable but you can get into his pov without relating to him. I love the movie LA Confidential but when I read the book I had a hard time understanding characters a lot of the time. It seemed like James Ellroy's idea of human nature was so basically depraved that people would do stuff I couldn't understand at all.

[ava-jamison.livejournal.com]

Do you happen to watch Breaking Bad?

(I have more thoughts, but am still thinking.)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I didn't! But I read a review of that show Hung recently that lumped them all together--Weeds, Dexter and Breaking Bad. It said something about them that I didn't agree with (saying that the shows were showing people crossing legal lines and questioning if they were drawn in the right place, but I wouldn't say that Weeds or Dexter ask that question. I doubt Breaking Bad does either. Or Secret Diary of a Call Girl, come to think of it!)

[horridporrid.livejournal.com]

I know I have to have at least one likable character for me to enjoy a show. I remember with Seinfeld (and this was before Susan died) realizing that I pretty much disliked the entire bunch except for Kramer. Not in any sort of passionate way, but they were all people I'd avoid if I knew them in RL. But because of Kramer I was able to enjoy the show. Because the quality he had played off against the rest of the gang enough that it felt acknowledged that these were not the nicest of people.

But what it is that makes a character likable to me (what quality did Kramer have, exactly?) is not an easy thing for me to pin down. It's not a simple "good person" or "moral person". I quite liked Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer before he started down his redemption road. I recognized him as a villain of course but, like your Norman Bates reference, sometimes I'd find myself rooting for him when in RL (I'd hope!) I wouldn't root for him at all. I'm not sure there's a formula... or maybe there is! :) I'm just not entirely sure what that formula is as of yet.

Like porn though, I know it when I see it. ;D I got rather sick of The Sopranos after a couple of seasons because there were no likable characters for me. Or at least, the main guy we were watching, Tony, was so completely unlikable I could care less if his family stuck by him or whatever. (Frankly, they shouldn't have, so why the hell was I supposed to care about his trials and tribulations?) Which means I guess I do need a character I can get behind.

Hmmm... You know, I don't think Spike would have been enough, now that I think of it. I mean, if BtVS had been about the vampires and Spike was the "good" one or something. I very much liked Buffy, after all.

Ooh! You know, I think I have to care about the goals of the character I'm watching. I have to want them to achieve whatever the thrust of the show is. (This is where Seinfeld was clever. I don't think we were supposed to hope George got his girl. It was always funnier when he didn't. Watching the Seinfeld gang fail was half the fun.) I didn't want Tony to achieve his goal of balance and inner peace so I didn't enjoy The Sopranos. Spike was safe to enjoy, and therefore like, because I knew the thrust of the show was for Buffy to win. If it'd been the other way around, I doubt I'd have liked him as much.

[montavilla.livejournal.com]

I confess that I liked post-redemption Spike, but I liked him a lot better on Angel than with Buffy, because he was much more of a foil then.

I think the appeal of Spike is similar to the appeal of Cartman. They were (and Cartman is) so awful as a person that you can't quite believe they get away with it, and yet they also keep running up against obstacles. I think it's the struggle against obstacles (or, gasp! fate) that we tend to identify with.

I think I liked Spike the most when he first had that chip in his head and he was constantly getting frustrated because he could no longer kill people.

With Cartman, there are an infinite number of obstacles for him to fight against, and if there aren't, he'll make them up. So, we always get to enjoy his frustration and his few triumphs, even if they involve feeding the flesh of their parents to his enemies.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Even though it was a comedy, I always felt like Seinfeld, especially in its first few seasons, was one of the most brutally realistic shows on television. It's not so much that Jerry et al were awful it's more like they were...what an awful lot of people are really like. Well, what I'm really like, anyway. George Costanza may be the only fictional character that I've ever truly related to. I AM Costanza (and a little Elaine without all the boyfriends). At any rate, anyone who ever thought these characters were supposed to be good or lovable or anything like that is off his rocker -- even Larry David has said that if there was one rule for his "show about nothing" it was "no sharing, no caring."

Regarding whether a character has to be likable in order to enjoy a show, that really depends upon what sort of show it is. In a show that's complex and honest and pulls no punches, I'd say definitely not. I love Mad Men but almost every single character in the show is flawed, some of them to the point of being despicable -- they're human, in other words. We're not necessarily supposed to like them or not, we're just supposed to immerse ourselves in the drama of their lives.

When a show is a sort of fairytale, like Gilmore Girls, it's unsettling when characters that we know we are supposed to like do terrible things. Rory's treatment of Dean was horrible and yet she just sort of flounced away from that whole situation and we the viewers were supposed to go on loving her because she was the fairy princess of the story (one of them, anyway). I can handwave that because there are other things I like about the show but whenever I watch those episodes I always wonder if the creators knew how awful they were making Rory look or if they were too enchanted by her to see it. If Gilmore Girls had had less to offer, I probably would have been turned off just because I couldn't keep watching a show where I felt like I was supposed to go on liking a character who behaved so terribly and suffered no consequences at all.

I sort of feel the same about Supernatural which is a fairytale in its own way. I think that's a show where liking the two leads is key to enjoying the show and that's why I think they're really going to have to do the work of redeeming Sam's character in Season Five, of making him admirable again.

Finally, for an example of a show I could never watch, just because I hated all the characters? Sex and the City. Hands down winner. God, they all deserved to be shipped off to a third-world shantytown. Is there a fourth world? Because that would be even better.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I'm watching Mad Men as we speak--I've always only seen it sporadically and accidentally slipped the first disc into the run of The Wire I'm watching on Netflix. I like what Betsy said above about the goals of the characters--I think there's also underneath that the question of the point the show is trying to make. Like in Mad Men even if many of the characters are jerks you can see why they're written by the world they're in. Like, not that it's somebody else's fault how they act but they're living in X world where you do Y to be successful and I can accept those values to watch the show. If I spent the whole time saying "who cares if people buy Right Guard?" maybe it wouldn't work. (My dad was in spot sales at this time so it's also fun for me thinking of him working with these guys--and my mom totally dated them.)

I could relate to Seinfeld that way too. They were dreadful people but usually driven by the need for little conveniences. It wasn't so much that they were malicious, they just couldn't bring themselves to really care too much. Sometimes I thought of them as sort of a modern Saki story. In his stories the characters are usually the upper classes because they're bored and have the freedom to alleviate their boredom with little schemes that manipulate other people.

[lucky-sometimes.livejournal.com]

I need decent people on a show - I can't really enjoy the endless wins of a cock. Nor can I sympathize with the endless whining of a shiftless loser.

I couldn't stand BSG when there was no longer even one tolerable character on the show. I never liked Seinfeld. I don't watch shows steeped in humiliation humor.

Which is not to say I only watch or read or whatever happyhappyjoyjoy items. I just need to be able to say 'yeah, I could feel like that' and 'yeah I can get behind that' to the characters or I'm not interested.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

That makes sense. Sometimes it depends on how they're presented--like if the writer knows the person's a whiner whining it can work. Not for everyone--sometimes you're not interested even if you get it's a joke--but it can make it more palatable. But maybe it is just a "I can feel like that." Understanding why the person is doing what they're doing is probably the first step--and then it doesn't work if you don't agree with what they're doing. It's like I said about reading the book LA Confidential. Both the movie and the book had characters that did unlikable things but in the book it seemed like people were almost crazy unlikable so I couldn't even buy them.

[montavilla.livejournal.com]

That point about if Kramer died, it would have ruined Seinfeld reminds me of what happened to Newsradio. I really enjoyed the show, although really none of the characters were likeable. Even Maura Tierney and Dave Foley, who are both extremely likeable actors, played characters that were meant to be off-putting.

The murder of Phil Hartman tore away comic potential of the characters. I thought the writer and performers did the best they could with the situation, but it was strange to see the characters/actors struggling to get through the episode that dealt with "Bill's" death without crying.

And the characters couldn't sustain the surrealism of the show after that. Suddenly the stories had emotional consequences that they hadn't had before and it just didn't work.

[montavilla.livejournal.com]

Oh, I guess I never answered your question!

I guess watching Seinfeld and Newsradio (and liking what I've seen so far of Dexter) means that I don't really need to morally support characters to enjoy their shows.

But I think it helps if I do like a character, and I think it helps if the liking sneaks up on me, rather than being signaled by the writers or forced. There's so many shows that do that. Like... well, almost all of them.

The only example I can think of right now where a character snuck up on me was Louie from Taxi. He was a total jerk from the beginning, and I don't think that that ever really changed, but I came to have great sympathy for him.

[strangemuses.livejournal.com]

If a story is compelling and well told I'll generally watch it even if there are no characters that I "like"/sympathize with. I like the show "The Mentalist" although I don't actually 'like' the character of Patrick Jane very much. If I'm understanding the story correctly (and I think I am) the point of the series isn't supposed to be about how glib and charming and charismatic Patrick Jane is on the surface, the point of the show is to reveal how damaged and un-self aware he is underneath. That is the arc that is threading its way through all of the superficially glib 'murder of the week' stories, and I'm interested to see how it resolves itself.

I didn't like any of the characters in "The Godfather" but I thought it was a well done story. The characters did terrible things but they also had to live with the consequences of their actions and of the choices that they made. The vast majority of the characters in "I: Claudius" were utterly unsympathetic, but the story was compelling and well done. Livia was a brilliant character, utterly unsympatheic, but beautifully drawn.

I've seen a few episodes of the first season of "Weeds" and I'd say the same about Nancy. I don't think of her as a sympathetic character at all. I never had the sense that she was forced into drug dealing as the only way to support her family; in fact, just the opposite. She seems to be attracted to it because it's such a lazy way to make a lot of cash. She seems to feel entitled to having an easy, edgy life. She only has qualms about it when she sees herself reflected in other dealers and doesn't like what she sees (like the kid she sold to who started dealing to other kids). She seems astonishingly self-absorbed. She's not giving her kids what they really need and she seems to be setting herself up for a character arc that spirals more out of control. It's written very well. IMO, the writers aren't in any way trying to hint that the audience is supposed to approve of Nancy or what she's doing.

I couldn't bear Seinfeld. I found the characters all to be a despicable, which is fine for one or two episodes, but there was no arc, no purpose to the show other that to say, week after week, "Hey, aren't these people horrible? Ha. Ha." Yeah, they're horrible. Boring now. What is the point of watching people be horrible week after week in such a static fashion? I felt the same way about "Absolutely Fabulous." What was the point?

OTOH, perhaps you could say the same thing about "Fawlty Towers" and I adore that show, so probably I'm just a hypocrite. ;>

The show "Dexter" crosses a line for me though. The very notion that a serial killer is the protagonist of the story is so off-putting to me that I don't care how well crafted the story is, I'm not going to watch it. It seems to me that the writers are portraying Dexter in a sympathetic light and that they want the audience to root for Dexter, and that bothers me on a fundamental, moral level. IMO, serial killers are so far off the scale of normal human psychology that to call them 'flawed' don't nearly do justice to what they are. I can't put Dexter Morgan and Nancy Botwin in the same category and call them both 'flawed' people. For a tv show to glamorize one in such a way that causes people to "root for [him] morally" as you said, is far too cynical for me. (And several people who watch the show have voiced their opinion to me in just those terms,and my reaction is always 0_0.) I doubt these people would have the same reaction if they watched "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" and yet "Henry" is a far more accurate view of a serial killer.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I love this comment because it so encapsulates the mystery of the whole thing with the "But then I liked Fawlty Towers and they were also unlikable so...hmmm." It's almost like you have to just go show by show. Because I think you really nailed eveyr show you described here that I've seen. Especially Weeds--your predictions from the first season are absolutely correct. She keeps making the same kind of choices on a worse and worse scale, and she keeps being bothered by the same things.

As I think I said above, one of the best descriptions I heard of Dexter was when somebody was talking about a vampire show they didn't think really worked and said for a good vampire show, watch Dexter. Because it's totally not a good portrait of an actual serial killer but if he's like a vampire it totally works. Which is the language he uses as well--he always speaks of himself as a monster. Which sounds like semantics but it's an important difference in how the character's presented. A serial killer is a sick human being. A monster or a vampire is a healthy creature who just isn't humans. Which is why the interpretation of him as a damaged man who needs therapy makes him totally unsympathetic to me if that makes sense.

[http://www.ferretbrain.com/contributors/27 (from livejournal.com)]

Hi, Jamie here from Ferretbrain. What an interesting question.

I recently commented on this review of V For Vendetta (http://arkan2.livejournal.com/44878.html) by another Ferretbrain regular (yes, I've basically been stalking everyone who says interesting things there!) and remarked that I didn't have a problem with V being reprehensible because he wasn't the moral centre of the story anyway. I wasn't sure at the time what I really meant by that, but reflecting on your post I think what I mean by a 'moral centre' character is one who isn't necessarily 'good' (whether by reference to the moral values of the character and his or her peers or by reference to those of the individual audience-member) but is sufficiently sympathetic and sufficiently sensitive to moral questions that we (the audience) both want him or her to do the right thing in any given situation and believe that he or she has the potential to be a good person in general. I'd say a good way of recognizing a character like this is that, when that character seems to be able to do something 'bad', you find yourself thinking, "Oh no, don't do that, oh god, I can't bear to watch / listen / read" - not because you fear the consequences of that act (e.g. you don't want A to kill B because you like B) but because you're upset by the thought of the character doing wrong (e.g. you don't want A to kill B because you don't want A to be a killer).

My example in V For Vendetta was Finch. In The Wire, which I'm watching at the moment, some examples might be Bubbles, or D'Angelo in the first season, Nicky in the second, Dennis ('Cutty') in the third. I haven't watched enough of The Sopranos to be able to confidently choose examples from there. To retreat to more classic fiction for examples, I'd say Hamlet is one, or Achilles, Frodo, Michael Corleone, and so on. In a story with a single hero or viewpoint character it's often that character, for obvious reasons; but in more 'ensemble' type stories it may not be (as with those examples from The Wire).

I suspect a story probably does need at least one character like this in order to be compelling. Individual characters can, of course, be compelling without being moral centres: to take another example from The Wire, Stringer Bell is a riveting character but not one you seriously hope will do the right thing (also the Joker in most incarnations; Lady Macbeth); equally the character of Gandalf holds our attention but not because we fear he may do the wrong thing (also the Doctor in Doctor Who, Death in The Sandman); and there are characters whose moral sensibilities are so opaque or irrelevant that we just don't relate to them in this way at all (Rorschach, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Lord Summerisle). But could you have a gripping story consisting entirely of such characters, without any character who we want to be good, who believe can be good, but who we aren't sure will be good? I can't think of an example, and I suspect it wouldn't work.

[Continued in next comment - sorry, I'm long-winded!]

[(Anonymous)]

[Continued from above]

I referred earlier to a character being good "whether by reference to the moral values of the character and his or her peers or by reference to those of the individual audience-member", and I think a disparity among those different sets of moral values can make for very involving story-telling. We can easily root for a character who shares our own values; we can also often root for a character who adheres consistently and sincerely to a moral view that we don't accept, provided it is at least based in feelings and values that we can recognize; and we can often root for a character whose behaviour is morally erratic and questionable as a result of his or her understandable confusion, emotional problems, or difficult circumstances. This open-mindedness of ours can create extremely compelling dramatic situations where we're simultaneously rooting for characters who are odds with one another. In stories like The Sopranos or The Wire featuring a criminal community with a clear moral code based on recognizable values of loyalty, mutual support, and respect, we can to some extent get behind a character who follows that code even if his or (rarely) her actions offend our own values (e.g. killing a group-member who has betrayed the group); on the other hand, we'll also root for a member of that community who wants to 'go straight' (i.e. reject the group's values in favour of ones closer to our own). The first two Infernal Affairs films explore this sort of tension marvellously.

So, to answer your question: for my part, no, I don't need a story to feature any characters whom I'd be prepared to endorse as good according to my own values. I do need at least one character who I want to be good and believe can be good (a 'moral centre'); this 'good' can be according to my own values, or it can be according to a set of values that I reject but recognize as somewhat coherent and overlapping with mine. And, as long as I can find a 'moral centre' character, it won't stop me enjoying the story if that character ultimately fails morally. (In fact isn't that what happens in many classic tragedies?)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Hi! Good to see you here.:-) I absolutely love the way you've framed it here, using that definition of moral centre as someone that you want to see do the right thing whether they do or not. And I agree that doesn't have to be morality by my rules. D'Angelo vs. Stringer's a great example (I'm just watching The Wire for the first time now and I'm just getting to the end of Season 2. I like watching both of them even though they sort of represent completely different goals morally. Stringer's working on being a good drug dealer, D eventually tries to move towards something else. They both sometimes have exactly the opposite responses to the same moral dilemma sometimes, but rather than needing to pick one of them you can have both. You need both to understand the full scope of things going on in the story.

Also I like the mentions of characters whose moral choices aren't relatable because they're almost too good, bad, or strange. They're just never something we can really make along with them.

[ava-jamison.livejournal.com]

I like a conflicted character and I like to watch the character grapple with his or her own conscience.

I LOVE Breaking Bad. I love it more than I've ever liked any show, and I LOVE watching the character arcs. Not just for the main character, but for all the others. I think it's brilliant with trying to both build empathy and horrify the viewer at the same time. Watching the moral disentigration and making me care about it, watching other characters gain morality, watching how they make decisions and the way they do... it's full of gimmicks and twists that I am consistently (so far) truly surprised by and work beautifully, in my opinion.

So in theory, I don't mind not being able to morally agree with everything about a character. On the other hand, I like Walter more than I could ever like Tony Soprano. Even though both are ostensibly very bad men now.

Tony was just so icky, you know?

On the other, other hand, do you think there's a strong possibility that readers and viewers want a story to fit within their own philosophies of life? To be sequential narratives that overall, in the end, support their own world view. And I have to wonder if the prevailing world view (not just Americans, Heh) is that you tend to reap what you sow/Karma will get you/life is what you make it, etc.

I wonder how much of it has to do with the ultimate ending of the story or show and whether or not the ending meets our expectations.

For example, have you ever seen the movie 'Kind Hearts and Coronets'? In it, Alec Guinness (I think that's who it is) commits all of these murders so that he can advance in the family lineage and gets caught for the one he didn't do. Which is a great twist in the movie but only works because it goes against what we'd expect as far as crime and punishment.

Maybe. I think. I'm still thinking. It's actually something I've been thinking about for a while. A prevailing theory at least used to be that if a character didn't get justice in the end, the story wouldn't be satisfying enough for viability. I don't know if that's still true or now old-fashioned, but I tend to think it might still be true.

I mean, you only want that once every hundred movies. Maybe. I'm thinking about the endings of stories of 'immoral' people right now. Casino, Goodfellas, even The Sting, in a way. Crimes and Misdemeanors?

Struggling people are definitely interesting, and there's a lot to identify with just in the aspect of struggling. I have no idea where I'm going with this:)

Interesting topic!

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about this, since there's a lot of movies where the heroes are bad guys and good guys. Especially in something like The Sting. I saw it not that long ago, but the idea there is that they're sort of pulling a scam on a bigger scammer, aren't they? There's an underdog thing going on. There's even a big of that in Bonnie and Clyde even though they're very different.

I have seen Kind Hearts and Coronets...you know, another thing that tends to appeal to me personally in crime movies is skill. If somebody puts together a really good crime I kind of want them to succeed just because I'm impressed! So something like Matchpoint, not only did the murder victim sort of annoy me even though it was completely morally wrong for her to be killed basically for money, I wanted that planned crime to work.

In KHaC there's also a lot of work involved in what he's doing that I can get behind, but maybe that's why him getting accused of the one crime he didn't do makes sense. It's less like him getting his comeuppance and more like fate just being better at being clever even than he is.

[azuresquirrel.livejournal.com]

Interesting observations. How people react to the fictions they enjoy and why is always something that interests me. However, be prepared for another long and rambly comment a.k.a., my thoughts on yaoi characters.

Firstly, the "American" comment is one I find interesting as I'm an American who is constantly trying to be aware of other points of view, as well as what exactly being American means to people. While I do agree with you that the need for characters to be morally good people is a personal thing that can be found in other countries, and that there are probably plenty of Americans who don't need their characters to be "moral", I do think there is a certain Puritanical tradition that makes people brought up in America more susceptible to such an idea. We seem to live in a judgmental culture, and in such a culture there are many who don't seem to understand the difference between what one enjoys in fiction and how they act in real life. Therefore, some people cannot separate the morality of the main characters of a television show and the morality of a person watching it (i.e. "if you enjoy violent video games then you will shoot all of your friends and neighbors someday"). I think this is also a major reason why many fans of a morally ambiguous character (like Spike or Snape or Dexter) defend their lvoe by claiming that the character is "really" good and nice and a paragon of virtue fi people would only give him a chance! *tear* when most of the evidence points to the contrary.

While I think this is a byproduct of an older time, as most of the people I know who "need" their favorite characters to be "good" are usually rather older than me (I'm 22), old habits do die hard. But maybe this is just what I've observed in the enviroment I've grown up in, but being in the theatre, I've hard many arguments with other people in my company about what shows we should put on because they didn't seem to grasp that portraying something in fiction is not the same as endorsing it (i.e. putting on "Cabaret" should not equal "Abortion is awesome! :D").

With that said, on a more personal note, I certainly don't need the characters in ficiton that I enjoy to hold to any "moral" standards, nor do I always need to relate to them (although that helps a lot). Mainly I need them to be likeable, and failing that, interesting. Unfortunately, I can't really describe what I mean when I say "likeable." There are some characters I like that are very moral and that I can relate to and there are others that are not moral in the least that I like. So I don't know how morality connects to likeability.

For example, one of my favorite TV shows is "Arrested Development." While I wouldn't say these characters are as "bad" as those on "Seinfeld," I certainly wouldn't call them moral characters, and the show recognizes them as being severely flawed individuals (even the "good son" Michael is shown to be petty and hypocritical at times). I certainly don't relate to them. And yet I can't help rooting for them, even when most of their motivations are shallow. So . . . yeah. Although I think it being a comedy helps. It's easier for me to deal with characters that I can laugh at and that morality probably becomes more problematic for people in more serious shows.

[azuresquirrel.livejournal.com]

And I also would be inclined to agree with musesfool that it depends on the show being consistent in regards to characters actions (recognizing bad actions for what they are and not trying to "justify" them too much) but I contradict that myself with Harry Potter. Even though, as you mentioned, the complete writing-off of Slytherin was something I found distasteful and contradictory to the messages stated earlier in the series, it wasn't enough to turn me off of the series completely like it has with other people. I see J.K.'s blindness in how she treats the actions of "villainous" characters versus the actions of "heroic" characters, but I still read the books and watch the movies because the characters (both the "good" and "bad" ones) are ones that I'm still invested in.

So, long story short, I'm not entirely sure why I like the characters that I like. But one thing I do believe in very much when it comes to fiction is that telling stories is entirely about being able to relate to/understand other people even in circumstances we do not normally approve of, and thus I don't believe that people need to justify liking a morally bad character.

Sorry that comment was so long. :P

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

Such an interesting post! I have never actually watched Seinfeld or Weeds, and I stopped after the first season of Dexter because I felt they had trapped themselves: such an interesting concept and character, but so hard to arc for! I recall in the pilot he said 'sex, I don't see the point' and in a later episode 'sex, I can't have it because women recognise the monster in me' - which is a much more relatable problem, being scared of sex and being judged unworthy, and one that has a solution - Dexter has sex with Rita, she doesn't see the monster, everyone is happy - and that's the thing, as TV has to move on and develop the characters so much, it had to undermine its own character. Whereas I thought a movie of Dexter could have been excellent.

But I did like Dexter the character in the show, at the same time as not finding him at all morally okay, so I would say I don't have to find characters morally okay.

One thing I do need apparently is to know the creators of the character don't find the character morally okay either. (See also - loving the Slytherins because they were the narrative underdog.) I do not like the text trying to guide me on the subject of a character: let their actions speak for them! I will rebel if pushed too hard.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Ha--I remember that sex evolution in Dexter and I thought it was more gutsy when he was like "Sex, what's the point?" I still like that first version better.

I know for sure that you can like characters who aren't strictly "likeable" or "good" by general standards, and definitely how the author is presenting them is important. You never want to feel like what's happening is a set up to make a character look good or bad--I really do think that's a big reason the Slytherins were so popular. They just always felt like they were designated bad guys who didn't really get their own voice. Naturally fandom stepped in to give them one. Or more accurately, fandom stepped in to say the voice that they heard between the lines.

Of course, I also want to point to, ahem, Nick Ryves as a character who presented as he is with the audience able to decide what they think of him. He's not trying to gain sympathy, but he's also not trying to be repulsive to scare the audience away.

[kerosinkanister.livejournal.com]

That Seinfeld reviewer sounds like he really missed something. I enjoyed Seinfeld but wouldn't want any of them to be friends of mine. They were were self-absorbed and narcissistic, and blamed everyone for their own failings.

I was actually hoping George would get married to Susan and end up in a life of domesticity with no escape. (He was my favorite character!)

Your question at the end got me thinking of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Some friends are really into it so I've watched quite a few episodes. The characters are, IMO, vile and have no redeeming features whatsoever and ultimately I decided aren't ones I want to spend my time with. Despite sharing many qualities with the Seinfeld characters they seem to be missing some aspect of charm or something. But I think part of it's getting older. I probably would have found that show much funnier had it been on ten years earlier. I have much tolerance for mean for the sake of mean than I used to.

[kerosinkanister.livejournal.com]

much less tolerance!

[franzeska]

I think the characters I like best are ones who always obey their own moral code even at great cost to themselves, but who other people see as amoral, irresponsible, untrustworthy, etc. (The most typical example would be every fake-badguy ally of action hero guys--the sort of person who turns out to be an undercover secret agent at the end or something. Any unpopular character suspected of being a mole who then foils the real badguy while nearly dying is also of this type.)

Generally though, I'd say I like characters who are just plain good in anything that is badly written or badly acted. CSI: Miami, one of my favorite shows, springs to mind: If Horatio isn't the moral center of the universe, the show doesn't really work. Never mind the fact that he's been known to enjoy a spot of extrajudicial killing: the show carefully finds ways to excuse even the diciest of behavior. There isn't enough moral complexity in most cop show universes to handle anything beyond the purely good, the hammily evil, and the secretly undercover. I haven't seen much of Dexter, and I've only read the first book, but it kind of strikes me as the ultimate extension of this type of aesthetic--or maybe a parody and critique of it.

I do like Weeds, and I don't care if the characters are bad people, but this is because it has significantly more artistic merit than the various CSIs. I think these characters can be fun, but they're much harder to pull off. Deadwood is another great show with a lot of very horrible but interesting people. They all murder and do other horrible things, but you can still sympathize with them because they're complex enough to seem like actual people and their surroundings are violent and lawless enough that this behavior isn't out of the ordinary.

I also have no trouble sympathizing with awful people as long as they're in something farcical enough.

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Reading this it's like a blueprint for good characters in general. I mean, since obeying a moral code they can't help but follow is a lot like all the other characteristics somebody should have. We should understand who they are and why they do what they do--or if not why they do it at least see how they do it and have to do it even when it's not the best thing for them to do. And that's especially interesting when they're in a situation that enforces a really different moral system.