Hate Your Friends

Or don't.
The point is, there are people I hate. People I like. And people I love to hate.
I think everyone has some of the last. For many reasons, not the least of which is probably to feel superior to some fuckstick. Think Hitler. No one (sane) likes Hitler. He was a douche. Yet the movies and t.v. have a friends with benefits relationship with him. Because they know we love to hate him. Or, in a different way, Riddick, of Pitch Black and Chronicles. Not the monster Hitler was, he still acts in sociopath ways that we hate - but envy a little too. If you've ever been stuck behind a really bad driver, you know.
Literature is filled with characters we love to hate. Usually, my reaction is to dismiss these works as bad. That is only sometimes correct. Oldboy for instance, is a really fucked up movie. Like incest fucked up. We sympathize with the main character - until the end, where he pussies out. I get why he does. He wants to save his daughter. But he begs forgiveness from the villain for a slight he didn't even remember. Then cuts off his tongue.
To top it off, he asks the hypno-bitch who made him fall in love with his daughter to put the whammy on him again so he can live something resembling a happy life. And then doesn't stab her. Seldom has there been a more stab worthy person.
True Grit has another character. Mattie Ross sets out to avenge her father's death by hiring marshall Rooster Cogburn. I got interested after seeing the Coen bros. remake, starring the Dude. How could that not be awesome? I asked.
I don't know about their movie, but Mattie Ross of the book is a complete bitch. Self-righteous, an old maid banker type who sees no fault of her own throughout the book, and comes across less and less as human. The movie does better, but I still hate her in it. It's not hard to hate someone who gets abducted by bandits after insisting on accompanying the marshall, and asks "Why am I being treated like this?" of her captors.
It's also hard to not believe the character, which makes it a good book in my mind. Not one I want to read again - I have enough stress without fictional characters I don't like adding to it - but good and worth a read at least once. Same goes for Oldboy. Watch it if you can stomach it.
So go, ye folk, and read something or watch something with a character who pisses you off - but you believe in. And try to sympathize. Then, when someone you like pisses you off, maybe you'll find getting along easier.*


*Morals not meant to be taken seriously. This is the last place you should look to for guidance of any kind.
Late (maybe early?) Facts: Serenity/Firefly is the only show I know of in which all of the main characters (everyone on the ship) are sexy as hell. Possible exception to the Tams, as Simon is a twat, and River might rip your penis off (pre-Serenity).