A Moment of Self Reflection

Today I watched a video that caused some self-reflection. I will link to it for you.



Why would something like this cause self-reflection? I really have no idea. It's just that after I watched it, I realized something about myself, that seems completely contradictory. What I enjoy in entertainment is often the polar opposite of who I am in real life.

In real life I am, or at least I try to be, an optimist. I always look for the good in people, I always try to have a good attitude, I try to be a very pleasant person. Someone that everyone wants to be around. (And if they don't, I probably don't want to be around them anyway.) Some people would probably say that I am TOO nice. This is pretty much the opposite of a lot of my favorite characters, in all sorts of media.

I seem drawn to the characters with bad attitudes. Characters who are pessimists, gloomy, people who get easily angry over things. I always find them a lot funnier than the nice ones. I am not against the nice characters, but when it comes to comedy at least, I seem to like the "Less-Than-Pleasant" people better. Oscar the Grouch, and Grumpy Cat, are two good examples. I just find surly characters to be a great source of humor. And not just surly ones, some people that are just downright unpleasant for all sorts of reasons are some of my favorite characters.

Take Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes. That kid is a nasty little menace! He terrorises Suzie, makes life miserable for his parents, and torments his teacher and babysitter constantly, but for some reason, I love him.

Another example is Hyacinth Bucket (It's pronounced Bouquet!) from Keeping Up Appearances. (A British Comedy) She's a nosy busybody, always trying to "Fix" everyone she deems to be below her standards, and she would be just an awful person to be around in real life. Yet, as a character on a TV show, I love her.

Many more examples can be found in almost any Disney Villain. The first two that immediately pop into my mind are Maleficent, from Sleeping Beauty, and Ursula, from The Little Mermaid. They are without a doubt, two of the most loathsome characters in the Disney canon, but they are two of my favorites. I just love a good villain. (As an aside, I am way too excited for the live action Maleficent movie coming next year!)

I have also found, that when I write my fictional stuff, I find that I have the most fun writing the bad characters, or the ones with attitude. The people that say and do things that in real life I would never even dream of doing.

Take Lorenzo Literate from my Facebook Friends series. I think that, in a way, he is me. He is what I want to say to people, but I never would. Sometimes I have found myself scaling back his reactions to people, and completely rewriting them because I think I finally went to far. I don't want to be mean, even to fictional characters. See what I mean? I'm too nice. :p

The other great example would be my REAL stories of various fairytale characters. I have the most fun writing the villains. By far my favorite character so far has been Goldilocks. I loved writing what a terror she was. And (Spoiler Alert!) I'm working on a sequel. :p

So, anyway. That was my moment of self-reflection for the day. I like the "Bad" characters, but at the same time, I'm glad that I'm not anything like them. Or am I...? Mwa ha ha ha ha....