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 inside for Seinfeld, Weeds, Dexter...Hopefully you don't have to follow the shows to follow the post. )

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?
Tags:
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 inside for Seinfeld, Weeds, Dexter...Hopefully you don't have to follow the shows to follow the post. )

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?
Tags:
sistermagpie: Classic magpie (WWSMD?)
( Apr. 28th, 2005 04:56 pm)
I know you'd think I'd said all I could say--but no! There was a side issue I noticed while reading that thread, which, btw, is here, since I keep referencing it. There's one person there defending fanfic and doing a brilliant job staying polite despite everyone being rude and condescending. Yet I feel like her defense doesn't hold up somehow. )
sistermagpie: Classic magpie (Baby magpies)
( Apr. 24th, 2005 01:26 pm)
Yeah, I'm gonna write about the whole chan thing, my own perspective on it. There's been a lot of really interesting conversations about it lately. I haven't really felt very involved in the whole thing probably because I don't write fanfic and I don't look for chan to read anyway, but other things have come up that made me think. )
I should have realized in doing my last post that madness is one of those things that have one meaning in the real world and another in a literary sense...I've gotten into the exact same discussion before in XF fandom. Because if madness in fiction can be considered a kink, I've definitely got it!

Mad about madness. )

ETA: Happy birthday [livejournal.com profile] pippinsqueak!!!
I was reading through some essays today--can you believe I've never read "Draco Malfoy is Ever So Lame?" ::sigh:: Me neither. It's great. Anyway, I came across another post of Elkin's that struck me as even more interesting given OOTP (which it was written before) and the recent discussions we were having here about Gothic Lit. The incest ones. Incest is common trait in Gothic families like the Blacks and the Malfoys. So is madness. That's why it was so interesting to read Elkin's essay on Draco the Nutter

Synopsis and further thoughts inside. )
This thread turned out to be so interesting, it's gotten me thinking even more about incest in literature and what it stands for. Unfortunately I really haven't read any lit crit on the subject. I have a feeling I'll be surfing around today looking for some. The weird thing, too, is that the subject seems to tie in with other recent subjects on flist, like racism in HP and strangely enough, the South(eastern US).

For now, I'm just thinking about the subject based on the things I've read--long! )
sistermagpie: Classic magpie (WWSMD?)
( Jul. 22nd, 2004 12:20 pm)
Happy birthday [livejournal.com profile] naiasf!!!!! I hope you have a fabulous day out by that beautiful sea!

And I apologize for putting a birthday wish in a post about incest.:-)

The subject's come up recently and I'm kind of surprised by the emotional reactions to it--to me it seems like incest’s always been a popular Gothic convention and will probably continue to be so. Last night, reading [livejournal.com profile] ajhalluk's lj I was so happy to have one incest-related question cleared up. In my freshman year colloquial on Gothic Lit we were talking about Wuthering Heights and I referred to what I assumed was the commonly known possibility that Heathcliff was actually Cathy's brother. The whole class looked at me like I was crazy. What's more the teacher *told* me I was crazy--and this was a teacher I loved. I never mentioned it again-until last night, when [livejournal.com profile] ajhalluk said, "... if the informed reader wasn't supposed to assume Heathcliff was Earnshaw's bastard by a Liverpudlian half-breed whore, then colour me orange and call me a carrot."

Needing to tell someone about my vindication I told my roommate, who spent the rest of the night wandering around grumbling about feeling stupid for never thinking of that herself. I assured her the only reason I knew of it when I did (probably in high school) was because MY MOTHER told it to me. I just thought it made perfect sense, despite my class disagreeing.


I don't know what I'm going to say here, but I know it's the part where I confess I love incest stories. )
sistermagpie: Classic magpie (WWSMD?)
( May. 27th, 2004 07:01 pm)
Phew! My flist has exploded with all sorts of great stuff while I was spending the day at Jury Duty...which wasn't too bad, actually, though my butt hurts from falling asleep in a hard chair. (It was right out of The Breakfast Club, actually. Everybody around me had zonked out and the guy came in and said into the microphone, "Who wants to go home now?" and the whole room raised its hand.) They even gave us a two hour lunch so I had a nice time walking around Little Italy and Chinatown and bought a flying pig. I haven't gotten called for voir dire or anything yet, and I have to go back tomorrow. If we're not on time our time today doesn't count and we have to do it all over again. We were threatened pretty severely with having to watch the movie again if that happened. In general the place was run in the very New York way, with the woman in charge giving us instructions on what they would do, what we would do, and what we would think of doing that we should not do. The basic attitude is always, "The deal is we won't treat you like idiots if you won't act like idiots."

Anyway, it seems like the controversy about the young HP actors is still going strong and I figured I'd stick my own thoughts out on it. I'm one of those people who does get uncomfortable with it, but it doesn't seem like this is because of the same reason most other people do...Me on this stuff... )
sistermagpie: Classic magpie (Default)
( Dec. 17th, 2003 11:17 am)
Since I haven't seen ROTK yet, I'll stick with the other major topic on my flist, chan! Only this isn't really about chan but a side issue of underage characters and slash...

Why it's not a problem for me, by me. )
.

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