Meredith Grey. When they almost killed her during Sweeps I was like; “Yes, please do die.”
Wow, I thought I was the only one! I cannot stand Lucy!
While we’re at it, what’s there to like about Ralph Kramden and all the other annoying people who lived in that building?
Eloise, from the Kay Thompson books. I know she’s supposed to be a pompous Hollywood diva in a five-year-old’s body, but I wouldn’t be able to stand a little girl like her. The mischief I’m okay with, it’s her way of speaking (which I imagine in a Katherine Hepburneque voice, only high-pitched) that gets me. “Oh dear, I absolutely adore it!” and so forth.
I always thought that Mickey Mouse’s character was “an Everyman who does his best, but often messes up- but is able to laugh at his own mistakes.” But it is true that Mickey is the dullest of the major Disney characters- though it isn’t his fault. In the '20s and '30s, Mickey’s character could be described as “the little guy who is able to save the day, no matter what the odds.” But then Disney animation became more “realistic” and Mickey became too famous to put in violent circumstances. Nowadays, Mickey is only good for one of two things: a symbol of the goodwill of the Walt Disney Company, and a straight man for Donald and/or Goofy (who are much more developed characters than Mickey) to play off of. Mickey’s role is kind of like Kermit’s on The Muppet Show: he’s the voice of reason who tries to hold everything together, but he can’t help it that Donald is stubborn and prone to anger and Goofy is just plain clumsy, no matter how obedient he is. Mickey can only stand and watch. (Donald is the Anti-Mickey in that when something goes wrong, he gets angry instead of laughing at it. Goofy is Mickey, only clumsier- Goofy always laughs at himself whenever he trips over himself- and he can’t help it with those big feet of his.)
My sentiments exactly. About the only ones I can stand on that show are Miranda, Karev and the Chief. Everyone else can go to hell.
Mickey Mouse was fine in the Floyd Gottfreidson newspaper comics, but his personality in cartoons is so bland to make him seem invisible.
Add me to those who don’t love Lucy (she’s an idiot who always comes up with stupid plans that are bound to fail) or Barney Fife (four Emmys???)
The movie character perhaps (although I don’t have as harsh an opinion as you do) but the character from the story has much more depth and nuance.
Add me to the list who finds Lucy unwatchably horrible.
I would say Scarlett. She’s a self-consumed bitch- hard working and pragmatic, I’ll give her that, but a terrible and unconcerned mother to her children. She takes her first husband from the girl who really does love him, won’t let him consummate the marriage for several nights, and then generally doesn’t give a damn when he dies and is furious that he left her pregnant. She steals her second husband from the sister who actually loves him (even if it is for a good reason) and then totally underappreciates and emasculates him, thinks her child with him is ugly and doesn’t understand his appreciation of the little girl, and ultimately gets him killed by doing something that was foolhardy and stupidly dangerous. Rhett gives her every excuse in the world to love him: he got her off the hook when her parents called her home, he risked his own life to save her’s and those of Melanie, the children, and Prissy, he adored her for years, gave her tons of money since he knew that at least she cared about that, tried to get her to be a mother to their child since for the first time she didn’t have to worry about money or survival, and she repays it by pining away for a married wuss.
Speaking of: Ashley. A weakling and a whiner who has the world’s most devoted wife but completely lacks the balls to do anything other than mourn for (to quote Yul Brynner from Anastasia) “a way of life that is dead and should be”, can’t stand up to Scarlett when he tries to become independent (he should have put his foot down with Melanie), and is too needy and clingy and co-dependent to tell Scarlett “eff off byatch, I’m gay*married to Melanie”, and isn’t careful enough to not impregnate his wife when he knows she could die from another pregnancy. Rat bastid.
Curly from Oklahoma: alright, “Poor” Jud is crazy and dangerous, no question about that, but Curly tries to manipulate him into committing suicide- even sings a song about it (“wanna heah it? Heah it goes!”). He lies about having the “surry with the fringe on top” and won’t change from cowboy to farmer for her. A vain lying guy who tries to trick a man into committing suicide- and he’s the romantic lead!
Darrin Stephens from Bewitched- if I’d been Maurice I’d have blinked him into a roll of 2 ply toilet tissue and zapped him into Don Rickles’ dressing room toilet. Unlike Major Nelson (who never asked for Jeannie or her powers) he married Samantha from love but, when he learned of her “little something extra”, insists that she live a life of mundane drudgery. This is like marrying a woman, finding out she’s a princess accustomed to palaces and has immense personal wealth, but insisting she live in the run down single-wide trailer you can afford. The fact that she took it just means she had issues of her own, but she’d have totally been within her rights to turn him into a bucket of KFC and plop that into the middle of a Bulimia Anonymous Convention if Maurice didn’t do the Don Rickles thing first.
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Harvey Keitel and Sam Neill’s characters from The Piano, the former for essentially sexually blackmailing/raping the heroine and the latter for letting him.
Ray Romano’s character on Everybody Loves Raymond. Why his wife hasn’t stabbed him in the leg at the very least I’ve no idea (and if I were his dad or brother I’d swear in court I saw him stab himself).
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Andy Taylor from The Andy Griffith Show- He’s xenophobic (the way he’s automatically distrustful of city people or starts gossip about the newcomer [at Aunt Bea’s instigation]), misogynistic (can’t deal with it when Helen has success as a writer or when he dates a woman who can outshoot him), hypocritical (doesn’t admit it when he’s conned by the same con-man as everybody else, criticizes the town for thinking the goofball who pretends he’s from there is weird when Andy himself thought so), and you just somehow know he’d probably run on a Family Values/Save Our Kids From Evolution, Homosexuals, and Modernization platform. At that I like him a lot more than
Gomer Pyle- if Sgt. Carter had orded a Code Red on this moron I don’t think Demi Moore or Tom Cruise either one would have slapped him for more than a misdemeanor. I’d have put his stupid (and also extremely misogynistic- the way he treated Carol Burnett’s character AND Lou Ann) hillbilly ass on the first plane to Viet Nam and put him on “checking for booby traps” detail. (“Hey Gome- see that tunnel over there? Go poke your head in and ask if we can borrow a cup of corn starch…”)
and Gomer’s bastard son through his assignation with Sybil
Forrest Gump- I liked the movie when it first came out for the special effects and what not, but Forrest needs to be in a home and he’s the last guy I’d ever let raise a kid (which he did in the sequel, Sam I Am).
*Anyone know how to do a strikethrough on the board?
This is a heretical statement on this board, but I think I might have enjoyed Firefly/Serenity quite a bit if I hadn’t disliked Mal so much. I’m not certain whether it was the way the character was written, or whether my antipathy is mainly toward Nathan Fillion, but Mal ruined the show for me.
I believe it’s [ del ]strikethrough[ /del ].
Confirmed. [del]It is indeed[/del].
Ronald Reagan
He increased the deficit
funded civil war in the Central Americas
continued to fund Sadam after he dropped chemical weapons on the Kurds
and denied it all by forgetting
Is Reagan beloved? I mean he was during his presidency, but I thought that pretty quickly afterward people realized what a piece of shit he was as a president.
He’s regarded as the founder of the current Republican Party
I agree with Sampiro. Rhett was the only one who “got” Scarlett and he would have laid down at her feet if she’d given him any encouragement. As he told her, she takes the love and uses it as a whip.
That said, I think Scarlett was a survivor. I think she did burn a few too many bridges, but at the time, she did what she had to do.
As for me, ever since I learned Ghandi encouraged the Jews to surrender meekly to the Germans and go quietly to the gas chambers just to avoid (gasp! :eek: ) war I’ve been a bit :dubious: about him.
There’s a strange sort of deification going on there.
Jack on Lost. Totally pompous and arrogant, he doesn’t want to be the leader, but he ends up leading all the time, but it gets fucked up because he doesn’t want to tell anyone what he’s doing because he’s not their leader. Yet he’s the one who is ‘responsible enough’ to care for the guns.
And I’m sorry, with every tolerance to your Captain Kirk complex, Mission Critical Personnel are not part of the away team, send Said.
This blasphemy against the Rat God will be forgiven only because he is all-benevolent to the ignorance of the unitiated.
The Rat God is the keeper of the head, he keeps it safe in cryogenic storage at the precise center of Epcott Center, awaiting the day when technology will have reached a sufficient level that the prophet may be revived and the fulfillment of his mission may be achieved.
You know not of what you speak, the Rat God keeps the future safe, and this is how ungrateful you are!
Psst, I like Donald Duck too.
Well, since we seem to be including real people in this…
Princess Diana, with her annoying pathetic “won’t somebody saaaaave me?” demeanour. I mean, I know it’s not such a great thing having your husband cheating on you for multiple decades (especially when you’re in the full glare of the public spotlight) but come on, unless she had the intellectual capacity of potato salad (a decent working hypothesis in this instance) she HAD to have known he was marrying her for state not for love. She made the deal, and then went round later on when it had all gone sour milking it for every bit of sympathy she could muster.
And I never got the “oooh she’s so pretty” thing either - yep, she had blonde hair, woop de do.
The flipside of this is my annoyance at the demonising handed out to Sarah Ferguson - yeah, ok she’s an entitled rich girl (just like EVERYONE ELSE in the Royal Family!) and she gave her kids silly names, but she was never neurotic, and she took it on the chin from the press for a LONG time. Full brownie points for that from me.
The Roadrunner was pretty obnoxious. I always wanted to see the coyote finally snare his ass and slow roast him on a spit.
Will Turner from Pirates of the Caribbean.
I kept hoping he’d die throughout the first movie, and was disappointed when he didn’t. Maybe he’s improved in the second and third ones, but I doubt it.