# Supposedly sympathetic characters you just can't stand **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 28, 2005, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supposedly-sympathetic-characters-you-just-cant-stand/337462 "2005-12-28T18:28:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2005, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supposedly-sympathetic-characters-you-just-cant-stand/337462/61 "2005-12-30T01:48:17Z")
> [@Ponder Stibbons](#): > > I must agree. He is such an ubiquitous character in American culture, and he is such a total dick Dude, Superman’s a dick! ---
**Author:** ![First\_Amongst\_Daves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/4491bb/32.png) [@First\_Amongst\_Daves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/First_Amongst_Daves)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2005, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supposedly-sympathetic-characters-you-just-cant-stand/337462/62 "2005-12-30T01:54:14Z")
I thought Lillith in _Cheers_/ _Frasier_ was hot, too. > [@AmericanMaid](#): > > Carrie Bradshaw drove me nuts. I found her immature, shallow, and embarassing to my gender. I couldn’t have put that any better. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2005, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supposedly-sympathetic-characters-you-just-cant-stand/337462/63 "2005-12-30T03:11:20Z")
> [@Trunk](#): > > Jack Fucking Dawson. > > My god, the stupid shit that comes out of his mouth. > > If you didn’t want him to freeze to death after this tripe. . . > > and this. . . > > Then you’re a 14 year old girl. > > You would HATE anybody in real life that said the stupid shit he said all through the movie. Well, bear in mind that his first quote is something he’s saying deliberately in order to stop a girl from throwing herself into the ocean. So it makes sense that he both (a) makes it sound particularly horribly awful, and (b) says it in a poetic and romanticized fashion. And in the second quote, again, he’s not really just having a conversation, rather, he’s trying to justify his existence to a bunch of rich snobs. And also, bear in mind that (in at least one valid way of looking at the movie) everything that we see in the past, we see through Rose’s eyes and memories, so it makes sense that Cal is 100% villainous, and Jack is 100% saintly and pure. ---
**Author:** ![PastAllReason](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f07891/32.png) [@PastAllReason](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastAllReason)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2005, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supposedly-sympathetic-characters-you-just-cant-stand/337462/64 "2005-12-30T03:55:17Z")
> [@Trunk](#): > > Jack Fucking Dawson. > > My god, the stupid shit that comes out of his mouth. Apparently this movie made a long-lasting impression on me. I had to seriously think about who you were talking about. My first thought was Dawson’s Creek. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2005, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supposedly-sympathetic-characters-you-just-cant-stand/337462/65 "2005-12-30T04:13:14Z")
I’m kind of surprised I got here this late and got to be the first to say it: Romeo. Whiny little nancy boy. Deserved what he got. Juliet could have done way better. ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2005, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supposedly-sympathetic-characters-you-just-cant-stand/337462/66 "2005-12-30T04:25:43Z")
I’ll agree with Sam on ER, I can’t stand her. I also couldn’t/can’t stand Abby or Carole Hathaway. If they must have the token nurse for us to empathize with, promote one of the long term nurses who’s always in the background but are a lot more interesting in the few minutes of screen time that they get. Strangely, Abby is slightly more tolerable since she became a doctor … but that may be because they finally stopped spending entire shows on her and her crazy family. And speaking of ER, Luka’s choice in women tends to make me want to slap him silly, then tie him to the bed and give him a good lecture on that subject. I also have to say that Monica on Friends was like fingernails on the blackboard for me. She started off as just a normal person who was just a little obsessive about cleaning. Then morphed into a screeching harpy caricature with a severe obsessive-compulsive disorder involving both cleaning and competitiveness. Not to mention that the scarecrow look is not attractive at all. She made all the other characters on that show seem pleasant and sane in comparison. ---
**Author:** ![Jennyrosity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/2bfe46/32.png) [@Jennyrosity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jennyrosity)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2005, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supposedly-sympathetic-characters-you-just-cant-stand/337462/67 "2005-12-30T10:56:42Z")
> [@Wile E](#): > > I also have to say that Monica on Friends was like fingernails on the blackboard for me. She started off as just a normal person who was just a little obsessive about cleaning. Then morphed into a screeching harpy caricature with a severe obsessive-compulsive disorder involving both cleaning and competitiveness. Not to mention that the scarecrow look is not attractive at all. She made all the other characters on that show seem pleasant and sane in comparison. I agree with this, but I think most of the characters on Friends became caricatures of themselves after the first couple of seasons. Joey was always a but slow, but by the end you found yourself wondering how he managed to breath in and out without assistance. Ross started off as a loveable nerd, and morphed into such a boring and pompous git you wanted the other characters to push him off the bloody balcony. What they did to Phoebe upset me the most - she was the sweet-natured hippy who ended up being distinctly selfish and rather cruel by the end. I quite liked Rachel’s character development though - possibly because she started off annoying. ---
**Author:** ![auRa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@auRa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/auRa)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2005, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supposedly-sympathetic-characters-you-just-cant-stand/337462/68 "2005-12-30T11:33:37Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I’m kind of surprised I got here this late and got to be the first to say it: > > Romeo. > > Whiny little nancy boy. Deserved what he got. Juliet could have done way better. This is one that gets me, too, but for a slightly different reason. I mean, we start off the play with Romeo _unbelievably, completely, totally, all-encompassingly in looooove_ with Rosaline. Then Juliet comes along and all of a sudden Romeo’s _unbelievably, completely, totally, all-encompassingly in looooove_ with _her_. If they hadn’t killed themselves in the end, I would have been willing to give the relationship a few months at most before Romeo found yet another new girl to be _unbelievably, completely, totally, all-encompassingly in looooove_ with. Geez… ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2005, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supposedly-sympathetic-characters-you-just-cant-stand/337462/69 "2005-12-30T14:41:08Z")
**auRa** : Heh, I was just thinking about the paper I wrote in 9th grade on R&J in which I said exactly what you’ve just said. It’s a well-written story, but the supporting characters are the only ones I’d ever want to have to deal with in person. My own pick: most of the characters on _Northern Exposure_. The show was fun at first, but then as the writers had to keep coming up with ways for everyone to be ‘quirky’, it got to the point where I just wanted to slap the shit out of the lot of them, starting with Chris. And Joel was an annoying snot from day 1. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2005, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supposedly-sympathetic-characters-you-just-cant-stand/337462/70 "2005-12-30T14:59:50Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Well, bear in mind that his first quote is something he’s saying deliberately in order to stop a girl from throwing herself into the ocean. So it makes sense that he both (a) makes it sound particularly horribly awful, and (b) says it in a poetic and romanticized fashion. > > And in the second quote, again, he’s not really just having a conversation, rather, he’s trying to justify his existence to a bunch of rich snobs. > > And also, bear in mind that (in at least one valid way of looking at the movie) everything that we see in the past, we see through Rose’s eyes and memories, so it makes sense that Cal is 100% villainous, and Jack is 100% saintly and pure. Are you a 14 year old girl? Seriously, I almost lost a friendship over that stupid movie, Jack and Rose were vile, lying, cheating shallow people and I never understood the attraction those charactors had on the movie-going public. I kept hoping David Warner’s charactor would get a lucky shot. ---
**Author:** ![middleman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@middleman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/middleman)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2005, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supposedly-sympathetic-characters-you-just-cant-stand/337462/71 "2005-12-30T16:03:39Z")
> [@MGibson](#): > > As I recall he was going to retire because of the Quaker wife he had just acquired at the beginning of the movie. He could not flee because the outlaws would just catch up to him and his wife on the plains so his only option was to stay and fight. Through the course of the movie we learn that Marshal Will served the town well throughout the years and was a driving force in clearing it of the rougher elements. > > So years later one of the outlaws he sent to prison is returning with a few other men to take their revenge and murder Marshal Will. Because the outlaws are coming for the Marshal alone most of the citizens don’t feel the need to assist him because they’re not the ones in danger. I felt a great deal of sympathy for Marshal Will who was under a great deal of stress as he awaited the men arriving to end his life and dealt with people he thought were his friends who abandoned him to his fate. Remember the scene where a bunch of men at the church agreed to form a possee, as they had a few times in the past, but the pastor talks them out of it? Man, that was a great movie. > > Marc An incredible movie. To add to your defense of the Marshall, he was not just afraid for his own death. He was afraid of what the bad guys would do to the town if they were not stopped. Just because they were coming for the Marshall didn’t mean that they would up and leave once they got him. They’d return the town to the cesspool that it was before Marshall Will Kane cleaned it up. Will was not only asking the town to help him in his moment of personal crisis, he was asking them to fight for themselves. I saw the church scene as a repudiation of appeasement, but I was probably reading more into it than was intended (though there is good evidence that the whole film is an allegory for McCarthyism). I think Marshall Kane was INCREDIBLY sympathetic. He had given most of his life making the town a safe place in which to live, and because of that sacrifice, his life is put in danger (as well as the success of his efforts). Reasonably, he asks his townsmen (as well as his cowardly deputies) to fight with him, they let him hang. Even Grace Kelly temporarily abandons him. He is a man who is completely alone against an angry world. _Do not forsake me, oh my darlin’._ ---
**Author:** ![middleman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@middleman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/middleman)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2005, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supposedly-sympathetic-characters-you-just-cant-stand/337462/72 "2005-12-30T16:09:08Z")
> [@auRa](#): > > This is one that gets me, too, but for a slightly different reason. I mean, we start off the play with Romeo _unbelievably, completely, totally, all-encompassingly in looooove_ with Rosaline. Then Juliet comes along and all of a sudden Romeo’s _unbelievably, completely, totally, all-encompassingly in looooove_ with _her_. > > If they hadn’t killed themselves in the end, I would have been willing to give the relationship a few months at most before Romeo found yet another new girl to be _unbelievably, completely, totally, all-encompassingly in looooove_ with. Geez… > [@Sublight](#): > > **auRa** : Heh, I was just thinking about the paper I wrote in 9th grade on R&J in which I said exactly what you’ve just said. It’s a well-written story, but the supporting characters are the only ones I’d ever want to have to deal with in person. I raised this topic in 9th Grade as well. That Romeo did not really love her but was in love with being in love. I was completely dismissed by the class and the teacher. The teacher said that Shakespeare intended the reader to believe that they were in the truest form of love. I don’t buy it. Shakespeare had to at least be open to the possibility that Romeo was full of shit. ---
**Author:** ![auRa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@auRa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/auRa)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2005, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supposedly-sympathetic-characters-you-just-cant-stand/337462/73 "2005-12-30T16:24:42Z")
> [@middleman](#): > > I raised this topic in 9th Grade as well. That Romeo did not really love her but was in love with being in love. I was completely dismissed by the class and the teacher. > > The teacher said that Shakespeare intended the reader to believe that they were in the truest form of love. I don’t buy it. Shakespeare had to at least be open to the possibility that Romeo was full of shit. Actually, funny you mentioned that, since I found [this](http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/love-in-the-arts/romeo.html) site, which deals quite extensively with R&J. A really interesting site, but I hit upon this in particular: > [@Study guide website](#): > > His original contribution will come in contrasting Romeo’s mooning over Rosaline with the fresh, spontaneous passion which Juliet will inspire in him. It is much more difficult for modern audiences to detect the contrast between these two moods, but it is important to be aware that Shakespeare intends a contrast, and a sharp one. So it could be that the Elizabethan audience saw immediately that this, this was the real thing, people. Love at first sight, and all that (which, according to the website, was considered the only true kind of love–love that slowly grew over time couldn’t really be love at all). Maybe I just read into Romeo’s lightning-like infatuation in too modern a way. Still frustrates me, though, especially since the main characters are what, 14? Sure, people married early in those days, but I still couldn’t help but get a strange middle-school vibe from all this… You know, the “You just don’t understand! We’re IN LOVE! And we’ll be together forever and ever!” and then three months later “Jack who? It’s John who I want. We’re IN LOVE!” ---
**Author:** ![brownie55](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f14d63/32.png) [@brownie55](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brownie55)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2005, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supposedly-sympathetic-characters-you-just-cant-stand/337462/74 "2005-12-30T16:29:34Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > OTOH, if he were brought up on a small farm in Georgia . . . 😉 No no, that would be K-Y Jelly. ---
**Author:** ![middleman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@middleman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/middleman)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2005, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supposedly-sympathetic-characters-you-just-cant-stand/337462/75 "2005-12-30T16:58:40Z")
> [@auRa](#): > > So it could be that the Elizabethan audience saw immediately that this, this was the real thing, people. Love at first sight, and all that (which, according to the website, was considered the only true kind of love–love that slowly grew over time couldn’t really be love at all). Maybe I just read into Romeo’s lightning-like infatuation in too modern a way. > > … > > Still frustrates me, though, especially since the main characters are what, 14? Sure, people married early in those days, but I still couldn’t help but get a strange middle-school vibe from all this… You know, the “You just don’t understand! We’re IN LOVE! And we’ll be together forever and ever!” and then three months later “Jack who? It’s John who I want. We’re IN LOVE!” I’m with you 100%. Nothing about the main characters in this play seemed to me as anything but overly dramatic teens. For the life of me, I don’t see the sharp contrast between Romeo’s affections for Rosaline and Juliet. And I am not sure it is me looking at it through modern eyes. I think it is more because I am a cynical bastard. If I had lived in the middle ages, I can promise you I would have been burned at the stake. Only the supporting characters showed true love (friendship) by supporting their friends at all costs. Romeo was kind of a putz to get his friends killed over a girl he saw on a balcony. Besides, love at first sight is so superficial. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2005, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supposedly-sympathetic-characters-you-just-cant-stand/337462/76 "2005-12-30T17:18:51Z")
If your high school English teacher taught Romeo and Juliet as a love story, she didn’t do right by you: it’s a LUST story about the tragic inevitability of mixing the lust of youth with the inflexibility of age. I mean, it’s a long series of _penetration jokes_, for god’s sake. I didn’t know there was anyone left still teaching Romeo as a tragic hero. ---
**Author:** ![Fionn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Fionn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fionn)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2005, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supposedly-sympathetic-characters-you-just-cant-stand/337462/77 "2005-12-30T17:34:49Z")
Vivi and Siddalee Walker of _The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood_ and _Little Altars Everywhere_ Vivi comes off decidedly creepy in _Little Altars Everywhere_, so it’s disturbing to see the way everyone continues to fawn over her during _The Divine Secrets_. “Sure, she drinks like a fish and did horrible shit to her kids, but she’s so stylish!” ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2005, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supposedly-sympathetic-characters-you-just-cant-stand/337462/78 "2005-12-30T17:45:17Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > And also, bear in mind that (in at least one valid way of looking at the movie) everything that we see in the past, we see through Rose’s eyes and memories, so it makes sense that Cal is 100% villainous, and Jack is 100% saintly and pure. Is this seriously the _Titanic_ apologists party-line? That the characters are one-dimensional and given to schmaltzy dialogue because the whole thing was seen through Rose’s eyes? If so, that’s hilarious, and attributes a lot more subtlety to Cameron’s screenplay than I’ve seen in any of his other movies. And even if it is so, we’re obviously still supposed to be sympathetic to the “Rosed up” version of Jack. Which I wasn’t. ---
**Author:** ![middleman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@middleman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/middleman)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2005, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supposedly-sympathetic-characters-you-just-cant-stand/337462/79 "2005-12-30T17:55:37Z")
> [@Manda JO](#): > > If your high school English teacher taught Romeo and Juliet as a love story, she didn’t do right by you: it’s a LUST story about the tragic inevitability of mixing the lust of youth with the inflexibility of age. I mean, it’s a long series of _penetration jokes_, for god’s sake. > > I didn’t know there was anyone left still teaching Romeo as a tragic hero. In all fairness to my teacher, it has been a little while since 9th Grade for me. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2005, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supposedly-sympathetic-characters-you-just-cant-stand/337462/80 "2005-12-30T18:17:07Z")
> [@First Amongst Daves](#): > > I thought Lillith in _Cheers_/ _Frasier_ was hot, too. Yeah, she’s hot! That doesn’t mean the bloodless hellbitch has any right to live and breathe! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supposedly-sympathetic-characters-you-just-cant-stand/337462.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supposedly-sympathetic-characters-you-just-cant-stand/337462.md?page=5)