Peggy is sometimes tolerable. But Hank Hill must die! By some lingering and humorous method involving propane and an enema hose.
Indeed it does! Praise “Bob”! 
I didn’t realize an enema hose was a “propane accessory”.
The way Isaac Asimov described it in Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare, it’s actually about the folly of romanticism. Several clues indicate the Montague-Capulet feud is on its last legs, kept going only by a few hardline psychos like Thibault, and Romeo might just as well sue for Juliet’s hand openly. But she is in love with the idea of a tragic forbidden love, starcrossed lovers, two houses at variance, and Romeo makes the mistake of indulging her.
Of course, any Shakespeare play works on several levels. This one can also be enjoyed as a plain ol’ tearjerker.
Alex Cooper, the protagonist in Linda Fairstein’s mystery novels. Female Assistant DA in NYC, well researched books with lots of legal details and city atmosphere. But Alex will then go off on these tangents about how happy her childhood was and how wonderful her family is. I can’t help but have a big ol’ :rolleyes: there. From Tolstoy “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
But the whole point of Lilith’s character is that she’s NOT bloodless. The bloodlessness is a carefully constructed facade. As evidence, I give you her first appearance on the show.
You might be thinking of her second appearance. In her first appearance, Frazier brings her to Cheers, she sits there uglifying the barstool and disparagingly psychoanalyzes everything he does, and she bails while he’s out of the room, leaving the message that she does not want to see Frazier again except professionally. In her second appearance (different episode), Lilith is somehow in the bar again, Diane gets her to take the bobby pins out of her hair, Frazier sees she’s – gasp! beautiful! – and things heat up. And while he keeps talking and talking about how he’s going to kiss her, she kisses him. But in light of her later (lack of) character development, I never bought it.
I think Tolstoy got that backwards. Dysfunctional families fall into a limited number of familiar patterns; happy families offer an endless breadth of variety.
Hmmm. I remember her first appearance was that Frazier was going on some talk show and was complaining that the other opposing guest was this harridan he knew by reputation but couldn’t stand. He goes on the show (as the gang at Cheers watches, of course) and he and Lilith have an instant and uncontrollable attraction for each other, and they practically have sex on air.
THEN he brings her to the bar, where her ice bitch persona is back in place.
I LIKE her ice bitch persona, masking a passionate nature underneath.
What?
No-she doesn’t resemble me in the least!
Um… :o (this guy does not demonstrate embarassment for me at all, btw)
First of all, there is nothing badass about Luke Skywalker. His father reaches out and what does he do. No, I don’t WANT to take over the universe with you. I think it’s wrong! (okay so that was a joke but I still think he’s a baby)
As for Napoleon, maybe jerk isn’t the right word but there is still something about him that puts me off.
Moderator notes: I have disabled the link in Ponder’s post, because we’ve had problems in the past with that website (“Superdickery”) dropping unwanted presents – usually spyware – on those who visit.
If you want to check it out, that’s fine, I’ve left the URL, but just tread warily.
Me neither – I can never decide if it’s blushing or yawning.
Agreed. I can’t even watch the rerun of that episode (“Private Charles Lamb”) because it irritates me no end. Those people* dealt with untold horrors every day working in a war hospital, and weren’t exactly dining at the Ritz (hell, they weren’t even getting a diet up to McDonald’s standards). The idea that someone would go all hearts and flowers over a lamb and deprive his comrades of one of the finest meals they’d had in months just makes me go :mad: :mad: :mad: .
Yeah, yeah, I need to get a life!
And I mean actual doctors and nurses, not the MASH characters.
I can’t stand anyone in GWTW. I hate the movie so much that I didn’t bother with the book.
Also: Heathcliff and Cathy in Wuthering Heights. God, what a couple of miserable, selfish, mean sucks. Maybe they weren’t supposed to be sympathetic either, in which case they certainly succeeded.
Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter. Unlike Romeo, I really do think we are suppossed to sympathize with Dimmesdale: he’s simply weak, not evil. But I can’t do it. His spinelessness grates on me.
On the other hand, I ache for Daisy in The Great Gatsby, even though she guilty of the same utter lack of charecter. I don’t know why: perhaps I can forgive her her hopelessness in a Modernist setting. Also, come to think of it, Daisy never seemed to feel she was the only one to ever suffer: I think it is Dimmesdale’s attitufe that somehow his cross to bear is uniquely heavy that really drives me mad.
Don’t forget Spiny Norman.
A 32-year old nerdy guy. So, as measured by emotional maturity, pretty much 
How so? Jack was a poor guy who accidentally saved a girl’s life, then had the hots for her, then tried to convince her not to marry her fiance. I think it’s pretty clear that he honestly believed he was acting for the best. He also (gasp!) stole a guy’s coat so he could sneak in and talk to her. She was impetuous and artsy and sensitive and fell in love with the poor artist type. They were perhaps (to quote Robert Jordan) a bit wool-headed, and make some bad decisions while being happy young people in lust/love, but how are either of them vile?
Well, (a) I don’t see why people who like a popular and critically-well-received (initially, before the backlash kicked in) movie are “apologists”, and (b) I don’t think there’s a “party line”. I’ve certainly never read the secret “how to defend Titanic (The Best Movie Ever) from its detractors” thread.
Anyhow, I actually just came up with that theory moments before posting it, as it occurred to me that two quite reasonable criticisms against the film are that both Jack and Cal are quite one dimensional, in opposing directions, whereas Rose is the most fully fleshed out character; which makes sense if the whole thing is seen through her memories.
Arguing about Titanic is a bit pointless, isn’t it? Let me just say this: I saw it the weekend it opened, before knowing it would make a zillion dollars, before knowing that it would make James Cameron the king of the world, before knowing that I would get awful sick of Leonardo Di Caprio (and even SICKER of people talking about how sick they were of Leonardo Di Caprio), and I was utterly sucked into the epic and tragic story and wrung totally emotionally dry. And I talked to various friends, of varying levels of erudition, and my VERY sophisticated Shakespeare-and-opera-loving parents, and everyone who saw it before the backlash started thoroughly enjoyed it.
Take that for what it’s worth.
And if you actually have a desire to chat on (and why not, I mean, that’s what we’re here for, right?), what exactly about Jack makes you hate him so much?
I can’t remember the character’s name, but the protagonist from The Rubyfruit Jungle. What a loathsome, self-centered, hypocritical woman. I titled the college paper I wrote about it, “Clear-Cutting the Rubyfruit Jungle.”
I vote for the Corleone family in Godfather I and II. I know they’re presented frankly as Mafiosa, but we’re also supposed to sympathise with them as human beings caught up in an immoral business. But I just couldn’t get past all the awful things they do as a matter of course in their biz. For me, a happy ending for Godfather II would be that the hit on the Corleone compound succeeds, and every last one of them is machine-gunned to death and maybe garroted a little, too. Failing that, a successful sting operation results in a gunfight in which most of them are killed and the rest spend the remainder of their lives in prison.
I’d be cheering and clapping for those endings.