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20 November 2006

I was watching TV last night, and I realized that the fictional character I most identify with is R.P. McMurphy* from One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. Which would be yours? (any book, movie, TV show, comic, or ViewMaster reel applies).→[More:]

*in my greatest aspirations, I realize. minus the lobotomy, of course.

post by: jonmc at: 08:58 | 38 comments

William in Underachiever's Diary is a close second, but that's more relating than identifying, I guess.

posted by jonmc 20 November | 09:06

Basini in Der Junge Törless

posted by matteo 20 November | 09:09

About six years ago (and for about six or so years before that), I'd say Rob Gordon.

posted by grabbingsand 20 November | 10:02

Well me too in certain ways. I guess what I was actually asking is 'Who is your fictional hero?' or which hero could you see yourself being, so in that case I had to choose McMurphy.

posted by jonmc 20 November | 10:03

Tom Wolfe in "the Electric Kool Aid acid test".
(Just to keep the OFOTCN theme going.)

posted by seanyboy 20 November | 10:09

Jude from Hardy's Jude the Obscure... I can be just that hapless; Esther from Plath's Bell Jar... losing my grip sometimes; or maybe Darl from Faulkner's As I Lay Dying... seeing what I shouldn't be able to see (or thinking so, anyways). Course, none of these characters came to a particularly "good" ending, but I admire their complexity.

posted by Pips 20 November | 10:46

Dexter.

posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson 20 November | 10:47

I don't need any fiction to identify with me. I am waiting patiently to be discovered by Almodóvar who's gonna find my life story weird enough to shoot a movie about it. Or maybe David Lynch. Or John Waters.

But I want Penelope Cruz to play me. That's all I ask.

posted by carmina 20 November | 10:52

I've spent ten minutes and can't think of a damn one. Nothing really lines up closely because, well, they're all heroes. I don't think of myself as an Every Man, but that's closer to the mark than a hero.

I could posit Xander Harris from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but then he's easily identified with by virtually any twenty-something, white, American male. I've never been tasered by a teenage girl, but maybe I'd like to be.

posted by Captaintripps 20 November | 10:52

i can't think of any, but one of my friends say that Sabina from Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of Being reminds her of me.

i've read the book AND seen the (awfully adapted) movie and I don't get it.

posted by Mrs.Pants 20 November | 11:00

i've read the book AND seen the (awfully adapted) movie and I don't get it.

I never read the book. I watched some of the movie on cable when I was 14. There was a lot of nakedness, I remember.

posted by jonmc 20 November | 11:01

Just about any Douglas Coupland character. Or the guy from Lucky Wander Boy.

posted by Otis 20 November | 11:17

Kaufman's The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a masterpiece of cinema. The book is simply very good -- overrated at the time it came out. But Kundera's good.

posted by matteo 20 November | 11:43

Mercier et Camier (both of them), Ignatius J Reilly, Raul Duke, Tom Ripley, Bugs Bunny, Snake Plissken, Dr. Peter Venkman, Lord Fanny from the Invisibles, Khan Noonien Singh, Prospero:

"But this rough magic
I here abjure; and, when I have requir'd
Some heavenly music,—which even now I do,—
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I'll drown my book."

posted by Divine_Wino 20 November | 11:50

I'm a combo platter of the Little Prince by St. Exupery, Holden Caulfield and Jeff Goldblum's character from The Big Chill. I am also a Labrador Retriever.

posted by Lipstick Thespian 20 November | 11:52

Oooo... Bugs Bunny. I wanna be Bugs Bunny. (But I'm more like Elmer Fud.)

posted by Pips 20 November | 11:59

You know that scene early in Fight Club, at a post-ommm mixer at the cancer group, where Jack has previously been fantasizing about telling Marla off and then we cut to a shot of her sipping coffee by the coffee machine and then in the background a shy, serious looking man wanders toward Marla in what is an excruciatingly precise attempt at the Casual Approach, but then suddenly Jack confronts her and Shy Man veers awkwardly and heads off toward something other than Marla?

That guy.

posted by cortex 20 November | 12:03

Lisa Simpson
Sarah Polley's character in the movie "Go"
Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing.

Scrappy and independent, while essentailly comic.

posted by rainbaby 20 November | 12:12

I have no idea who I most identify with.

Mr. g always teases me that I want to be Buffy, but... yeah, I'm not sure about that.

posted by gaspode 20 November | 12:19

Well, in my moments of aspiration, I realize that McMurphy's exactly the type of guy I'd like to be: tough enough to stand up to the Big Nurses of the world, but compassionate enough to look after the loons on the ward. Disciplined enough to lead an escape from a POW camp, but anti-authoritarian enough to get discharged for insubordination. A bad motherfucker but with enough of a sense of humor to realize the small stuff dosen't matter much in the end.

(and yeah, I realize that I am greatly flattering myself by saying that I 'identify' with him, but he's still my hero and role model)

posted by jonmc 20 November | 12:23

We'll figure a way outta the Combine one day, my love. You're my McMurphy, that's for sure. : )

posted by Pips 20 November | 12:37

Depending on the day:

Joseph K.
Uriah Heap
Mick Travis
Simon Moon (rare)
Beelzebub's grandson Hassein

posted by PinkStainlessTail 20 November | 12:42

I'm the illegitimate daughter of Huckleberry Finn and Pippi Longstocking.

posted by Miko 20 November | 12:44

Quite a few people say that Janeane Garofalo's character in Reality Bites reminds them of me. : )

posted by sisterhavana 20 November | 12:45

Dr. Peter Venkman.

On preview: oh man, I am SO Pippi Longstockings.

posted by Specklet 20 November | 12:46

Yeah me too, Pippi Longstocking!

posted by Divine_Wino 20 November | 12:50

Before the marriage: Hawkeye Pierce

During the marriage: Aleister Crowley

Since the divorce: Charlie Gordon from Flowers for Algernon, though not quite as tragic. Second choice would be Doctor van Helsing.

posted by mischief 20 November | 12:51

Crowley, the wickedest man alive, 666 The Beast. I always thought old Jowly Crowley was the wickedest man alive not so much for trying to create some kind of retarded weakly godlike sperm golem through sex magick to do his evil eschaton immanentizing bidding but because he posed for those naked yoga pictures and didn't put down a towel, evil Crowley junky sweat ass on the carpet yo!

posted by Divine_Wino 20 November | 13:00

Oh yeah: During my transvestite phase after I got out of the Marine Corps and still had a great body and ass (all cardio, no weight-training): April Dancer and Emma Peel, with a touch of Nancy Sinatra

posted by mischief 20 November | 13:04

"trying to create some kind of retarded weakly godlike sperm golem through sex magick to do his evil eschaton immanentizing bidding"

Pretty much describes our marriage.

posted by mischief 20 November | 13:06

I always thought old Jowly Crowley was the wickedest man alive not so much for trying to create some kind of retarded weakly godlike sperm golem through sex magick to do his evil eschaton immanentizing bidding but because he posed for those naked yoga pictures and didn't put down a towel, evil Crowley junky sweat ass on the carpet yo!

I forgive him. If it weren't for him there'd be one less great Ozzy song in the world.

posted by jonmc 20 November | 13:08

During my transvestite phase after I got out of the Marine Corps

You weren't Hawkeye Pierce, more like Max Klinger. :>

posted by jonmc 20 November | 13:12

I had the better legs.

posted by mischief 20 November | 13:16

Besides Max couldn't pull off that "little black dress" look. I could! Then again, back then I had a 23" waist.

I WILL wear that dress again!

posted by mischief 20 November | 13:24

Besides Max couldn't pull off that "little black dress" look.

True, but he puffed a stogie with panache.

posted by jonmc 20 November | 13:27

I puff a pretty mean stogie myself!
(So I have been told. heheh)

posted by mischief 20 November | 14:04

Margot Chandler in "All About Eve." Selfish, insecure and overly-dramatic, but essentially likable. Quick with a comeback. Demanding of her friends, but fiercely loyal.

God, I love that movie. And I love Bette Davis.

posted by jrossi4r 20 November | 15:46

Channing. Her name is Margot Channing. I'm a drip.

posted by jrossi4r 20 November | 15:54

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