Early in the run of “Newhart” (before the Julia Duffy character) there was a young, blonde woman who worked at the inn. She suffered some minor catastrophe, I think it was a broken leg, and said (paraphrasing): “I’ve always had it easy, had wealthy parents, nothing bad ever happened, I didn’t even get acne.”
Another character replied (again, very paraphrased): “So, you’re thinking you were due something like a broken leg?”
And she said: “No, I’m thinking ‘Why me?!’”
Man, do I ever identify with that character! I saw the episode once, when it first aired, but it’s still in my head whenever I start to feel sorry for myself and it makes me laugh.
So, what characters or moments in any media did you see/hear/read that made you think it was written about you?
One of the two main kids in Elephant, either Eric or Alex - not sure which. The one with the dark hair, who has the notepad in the cafeteria. There was just something about the way he looked and acted, and the fact that he’s learning the Moonlight Sonata. It was just kind of creepy that he sort of seemed like he was… me.
Two literary characters immediately come to mind, for specific quotes that I immediately noted just because when I read them for the first time, I thought “Holy shit, that’s me!”
Character #1: Mike Noonan, from Stephen King’s Bag of Bones, for:
Character #2: Lisa, from Anne Rampling’s (Anne Rice’s) Exit to Eden, for:
As a teenager, I identified with Holden Caulfield. Cliche, I know, but that’s why it’s such a popular book. I also had a period when I felt like Randle Patrick McMurphy-- that was a tough time of life. Now, I sympathize with Elphaba from Wicked, Darl Bundren from As I Lay Dying, J. Alfred Prufrock, and the Mad Hatter.
As for TV, when I was in high school, Angela Chase. Lately, 100% Lindsey from Freaks and Geeks, sometimes Fox Mulder on those wacky days, sometimes Toby Ziegler from TWW when I feel really cynical.
I identify a little too much with Charlie Kauffman from Adaptation. When the movie started, and it was just his voice-over on a black screen, it took me a minute to realize that the movie had started and I wasn’t still listening to my internal monologue.
I’m Lois from “Family Guy”. My husband is smarter than Peter, but I think Peter has more common sense. My Chris and Meg are switched in gender. It remains to be seen if my baby will turn out Stewie-like, but he does seem unaturally alert for a 5 month old. Everyone remarks on it. You know when you feel as if the people who write a show have been listening in on your conversations? We get that feeling a lot with “Family Guy”. I’m thinking… just once is probably way too much. :eek:
Tons of people but the three that jump immediately to mind are Xander Harris from BtVS, Andrew Largeman from Garden State, and Olhado from Speaker for the Dead.
I tend to identify with the disillusioned, depressed, or relatively quiet and unobtrusive.
I identify very much with Freddie on A Different World. Goofy, clumsy, fun to laugh at, idealistic, neurotic, unique sense of fashion (we both have wild hair), and always barely fitting in with the group. Out of all the characters on that show, her stories were always the most real to me.
Eddie Willers from ATLAS SHRUGGED except I would have left the moment Dagny called. No wallowing in the broken-down train sobbing “Don’t let it end!” I’d be off to Galt’s Gulch in a heartbeat, looking at the train only to say “Fk that st! Valhalla, I am coming!”
And Bobby Hill in his better moments “I’m fat, so what? I’m nice, I’m funny, I’ve got a girlfriend.” (well, the last doesn’t apply at the moment, but 2 out of 3 isn’t bad!)
I identify with the protagonists of Brian Hall in a big way: Saskia, a girl raised by hippies who reads voraciously and seems to interpret everything in her world through the lens of her favorite books, in The Saskiad, and Meriwether Lewis, from I Should Be Very Happy In Your Company, a novel about the Lewis and Clark expedition.
It’s pretty obvious why Saskia resonates with me: not fitting in, not comprehending the rules by which the normals live, and oscillating wildly between distaining them completely for the world of fiction and fantasy and wanting very badly to be accepted by them. Saskia has one of the most authentic adolescent voices I’ve seen in adult fiction, to the extent that a lot of the time she thinks just like I remember thinking.
Meriwether Lewis seems plagued by many of the same emotional issues I am: he wants to be the smart guy, the scientific observer, the meticulous record keeper, but he always feels stymied by his faults. He starts projects and quickly abandons them as he realizes that they are beyond his abilities. He gets depressed because he can’t live up to the example of his hero and friend, Thomas Jefferson. He procrastinates. He agonizes about his procrastination. Man, do I feel like that, sometimes.
I want to be Kinsey Milhone from the Sue Grafton series minus some of the cynicism. I used to be (on both accounts), but I’ve got a long way to go to get back to there from here.
I was reading through this thread, nodding here and there till I came to your post and burst out laughing. It’s fitting, mind you - if anyone would pull off a convincing Q, it would be you (apart from John De Lancie of course).
Me, I used to be Ted from “There’s Something about Mary”, but at the moment it seems as if I am cured and over it.
I feel that I am kind of like a cross between Peter Gibbons from Office Space (or any Ron Livingston character for that matter), Rob Gordon from High Fidelity (or really any John Cussak character) (but more successful and less whiny) and Patrick Bateman from American Psycho (but less successful and not a murderous psychopath).
Kind of a mix of brash arrogance, general disdain and lack of purpose, direction or commitment with a touch of “Peter Pan” syndrom and existential crisis thrown in as well.
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