[QUOTE=Princhester]
I agree with Jim. I’d be disappointed with myself if I resembled any of them. Mike is a self absorbed spiv. Rik is a vain, hypocritical asshole: to identify with him because he’s a poet, or a leftie, or smart misses the point. He’s not any of these things, he just likes to kid himself he is. Vyv is a psychopath. Neil is irredeemably pathetic.
Although, I suppose if I had to choose I’d choose Neil, just because at least he’s nice. He takes “nice” to whole new dimensions of pathetic, but still.
Not that I’m criticising the characters as characters: the show is a favourite and the characters are absolute classics. I just can’t identify.
[/QUOTE]
We know these things, but they still represent humorous exaggerations of personality traits we really possess. I don’t think people are satirically identifying with Rik because he’s a poet, but because they recognize a certain kind of pretension within themselves. What young writer or poet or (as in my case) songwriter hasn’t indulged in ridiculous fantasies of becoming a populist icon?
Neil is pathetic, but he’s an exaggeration of a certain kind of depressive, non-confrontational personality that really exists. Vyv is an exaggeration of a kind of affected, anti-social nihilism which is a fairly common phase for people to go through. We’re not literally identifying wholesale with the characters, but recognizing, in a self-deprecating way, the kernels of authenticity which we recognize in ourselves.