I’ve had a number of chats with friends about whether there are TV characters they empathise with, and many say that while they enjoy certain programs, they don’t see themselves in them. Perhaps as the result of an over-active imagination (I suffer from a condition I call “acute vicarious shame” where I feel the humiliation that people or characters on TV are too stupid to feel for themselves), I think from childhood through high-school and into early uni there were certain characters I always empathised with, possibly even modelled myself on. I certainly felt a “represented type”: the skinny funny guy on the sideline, who everyone likes well enough but doesn’t get the girl (cue the “ahhh” track of self-pity: I am fully aware that in high-school/early uni everyone sees themselves as not getting the guy/girl, even if they have one. I’m talking about perception here, not reality.) Anyhoo, here’s some thoughts on what certain fine figures of fiction taught me. (And strangely, not a one of them is a TV lawyer ...)
1. Giles (Antony Stewart-Head) in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”. I was a part-time librarian at uni, and I had a tweed jacket I was inordinately fond of wearing to work, often with cord trousers. Sad, but true. This man allowed me to pretend it might pass as “sexy, in a stuffy kind of way”. Or at least show some kind of style. Seriously, though, some people are obsessed with him. Must be the accent. Mr Stewart-Head seems a really nice person in interviews as well. I could also list Xander from “Buffy” too, I suppose. I loved him in the early series, before he became whiney, useless and marginalised. He was geeky, witty and his best friends were all girls. Tick, tick and tick. He lost major points for actually kissing his best friend though. (Even if you do think you’re about to die and suddenly decide to “go there”, it clearly (a) will never work and (b) you are so obviously going to be rescued by your respective dates at the last possible moment. Besides, I hate plots that succumb to the “When Harry Met Sally” view of male/female friendship.)
2. Kenny (Lee Ross) in the immortal BBC cult series “Press Gang”. Kenny was my great idol of high school. Here was a nice guy’s nice guy:
"Nice? Me, nice? Listen, you're talking to a world champion nice here. I'm so nice I get socks for Christmas and like it. I could nice for Britain. I'm so sweet and loveable that cuddly toys just sneer at me."
His best friend was also a girl, and he managed never to kiss her. He never quite got the girl, but achieved a certain amount of recognition through public performance – I could empathise with that, although not the bit about musical talent. He was also a patient, tireless, second-in-command behind-the-scenes type, which I think has an under-rated nobility. And, like Xander after him, he had a keen sense of humour about himself.
3. Nice guys with a cynical sense of humour, who are hopeless with women? Well, at uni I also felt I had a certain amount in common with, of all, people Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry) in “Friends” (come on! The first season wasn’t that bad! Was it?) “The world is my lesbian wedding.” Indeed, Chandler, indeed.
4. Tom Baker as “Doctor Who”. Tom was responsible, single handed, for imprinting a vision of fashion on my five-year old brain it took twenty years to escape. The Giles-tweedy look was really the toned-down version of what I felt was an appropriate way to dress. To those who remember - or have photos of - my university phase of wearing pressed shirts, long scarves, many-pocketed jackets with eccentric lapel pins and a dizzying array of waistcoats – I can only say, “I’m sorry, and I know where you live”. (I once went to a “children’s characters of the seventies” theme-party dressed, very convincingly, as Baker’s Doctor, and was recognised by not one person. The other guests were all born at the wrong end of the seventies, apparently.)
On the upside Baker’s “Doctor” was an impeccable gentleman – how many other men could swan around the universe for years with a pre-Xena leather-clad female warrior without his eye level slipping below Leela’s chin height even once?
And he had a robot dog, robot dogs are cool.
5. Diver Dan (David Wenham) in “Seachange”. Yup, I’m never going to be him, but he did make so-laid-back-you’re-falling-over a male attribute worth aspiring to. One of the first seriously outdoorsy male characters I got.
6. Finally, GIR from “Invader Zim”, just while we’re speaking of robot dogs. If you have Foxtel and have never seen this Nickelodeon cartoon, you are living a life half-lived. GIR is the hapless alien invader’s loyal robot slave who disguises himself in a singularly unconvincing dog suit (it’s green and you can see the zipper).
Well, GIR would be a loyal robot slave if he weren’t a terminally bewildered, childish thing that acts like he’s on a permanent, nasty sugar bender. His “Hooray! We’re Doomed!” joy in life every morning at seven a.m. was the only thing that got me through the dark days of corporate law. If you’ve never heard “the Doom song” – you need to, right now.
Invader Zim Quiz v2.0 @ Space Monkey Mafia
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