On a Lighter Note...

For Those That Wrinkle Your Nose in Disgust Whenever Someone Lights Up Near You Whilst You Quaff Your Cola or Starbucks Concoction?

It’s your turn.

National Caffeine Awareness Month.

And when all the persnickety people have removed all the cigarettes, caffeine, alcohol and porn in the U.S., we’ll be the most healthy, happy well-adjusted mass murders around.

Obnoxious Characters

My brother is the typical Libra: quiet, urbane, witty, polite, indecisive, aesthetic, avoids conflict like a Senate Confirmation Committee... ;)

Yet his current favorite fictional character? Futurama’s Bender. Bender supplanted the long time favorite Crow of MST3K fame. So now instead of walking around mumbling “e-mail me at crow@biteme.com” and giggling, he mumbles, “Bite my shiny metal ass” and giggles.

So inside his civil exterior, my brother has a misanthropic android sitting in the depths of his soul that Bender resonates with. And is he the only one, really? I think we all have “inner Benders” in some way shape or form that make the outer ones so appealing to us in fiction, be it literary, film or T.V. Hence the reason characters like Bart Simpson became so wildly popular. They appeal to and represent some part of our personalities that says and does the rude, obnoxious things we wish we could say and get away with it.

Thinking about it, this trend of “jerks we love” goes back a lot further than modern popular culture. If you look at most pantheons of Gods on the planet there is a Trickster in the family. He is one of the most universal Archetypes. The Navajo have Coyote, an amoral mischief-maker who tricks the Gods, often helping mankind and creating some of the most beautiful form in nature like the Stars. Loki is the most famous trickster God in western culture and probably the darkest in causing the death of Balder, the most perfect and good of the Norse gods, simply for the challenge of it. Hermes/Mercury is famous for his tricks as a youngster. In India Hanuman the Monkey God keeps things lively. There was also a Monkey God Sun Wukong in China who was that culture’s Trickster. The Link to the Wikipedia article above contains links to a plethora of entries for Trickster Gods in various cultures.

The Trickster's purpose is two fold: One, he (and it usually is a he, though some of them can change genders when they feel like it) is the element of chaos in the world that keeps it dynamic and growing, as well as the element of randomness in various legends that keep the audience on it's toes. But the Trickster is also the one being that pull the Gods tails and can show human beings how silly their society can be. In short, the cultural pressure value for the people living under the Gods will. Some cultures have taken this a step further in including laughter in their religions. Hopi, for example, have Sacred Clowns that take part in their rituals.

Now, not too many people really believe in myths anymore :(, but we still create Trickster characters just as we create Heros and Villains. So Bart Simpson and characters like him not only have an important place in human culture, we apparently actually need them.

(I have to wonder if the late Hunter S. Thompson was trying to fill that basic human need in some way.)

So here are a couple of my favorites. As obnoxious as many consider me, I too have an inner Bender or three.

One is Bucky Katt of Get Fuzzy. He is so deliciously and utterly self centered, probably they way we wish we all could be sometimes. “I’m not close minded, you’re just wrong!” (Though I was glad to see Satchel standing up to him at last.) So occasionally if I get in a mood among my various other bitchings “I WANT TUNA!” pops out.

Hawkeye Pierce. Because Alan Alda is such a nice guy and Hawkeye spouted much of the anti-war message of "M*A*S*H", people tend to forget the Hawkeye as a character (as was observed by several characters early on in the show) while charming, witty and deep feeling was also self-absorbed, cynical, occasionally cruel, controlling (remember the difference in his relationships between Trapper and B.J.), immature, commitment phobic and random. In short, a Trickster. Yet his antics to amuse himself and his commitment to his work that stretched far beyond "duty" into "passion" combined with his complete disregaurd for the rules often did the people around him more good then he did for himself.

Alan Shore of "Boston Legal" has many of the same qualities. He goes out of his way to ensure that no one take him seriously or even thinks well of him. On the surface he is self-absorbed, cynical, black humored, sexist/misogynist, rule bending (if not breaking), utterly irreverent to the point of being quite rude and witty/funny as hell. But he, like Hawkeye, very much has strong ideals & moral standards (behind every cynic is a disappointed idealist) that while they may not match up to what society at large considers “ethical” or “moral” there is a system and he is very (stoically) disappointed when something falls short of it. He has come to expect it, yet it obviously hurts him all the same. Alan is the off-side approach to ethical and moral quandaries the show presents and keeps the pot stirred to keep things interesting.

Now I just wish they would stop messing with the show’s time!

Jyane Cobb of Firefly. (Now we’re getting into heavy geek-ness). Firefly was a show filled with Joss Wedon’s (formerly of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame) wonderful diverse characters (and witty dialogue), but Jayne stands out. On the surface Jayne is a machismo, violent, stupid, greedy mercenary. However, in the direst of circumstances Jayne is the one who kept his head the best, he diligently sent money home to his mother and had a larger vocabulary then he let on. He's probably one of those guys who is much smarter than he, or anyone around him, gives himself credit for. Jayne is capable of great evil (turning an innocent teenage girl over to torturous scientists for the cash) but he was also capable of good, such as his rejection of worship at Jaynestown. Not much is known about Jayne, including on whose side he will decide his interests lie.

The Firefly series was short-lived, but the 13 episodes that were made showed great promise with the incredible writing of fantastic characters involved in some really mysterious and compelling subplots. That promise hopefully will be realized in the Firefly Movie: Serenity.

Garek. I only saw the first couple seasons of "DS9" (Sorry "Deep Space Nine"), but the station had been owned by the Cardassians before they yielded it up to the Bajorans and Federation and the one Cardassian left behind was Garek “The Tailor”. What Garek actually was was one of Cardassia’s best spies who had pissed off his superiors and been exiled to this outpost to spy on the Federation and Bajor. It was a shit assignment and he knew it and so while he might remain loyal to his assignment, he also didn’t have many qualms about screwing the Cardassian military over either. The character was completely amoral, lied as easily as he breathed (“It’s all true Doctor.” “Even the lies?” “Especially the lies.”), killed as easily as he lied, was as charming as a snake and smooth as silk. Probably the biggest wild card and most risqué character ever thrown into a Star Trek series, Garek was just a brilliant creation and quite frankly, one of the saving graces of the show.

If anyone is interested in info on the Trickster and other Archetypes in Myth and Mythology's presence in our lives even today, read the Works of Joseph Campbell, I suggest starting with the Power of Myth, it’s a good over-view of his work and as it’s actually an interview conducted by Bill Moyers, delightfully readable (I’ve seen some his lecture tapes, as fascinating as his work was, he was terribly dry).