30 days of your favorite tv show meme, day 3

[kindkit]

3) Favorite regular character

No S3 spoilers in this one except a couple of minor details.

Finch, of course. I have a type, and he is it: bookish, smart, often shy or socially awkward, repressed but with deep emotions under the surface, tending to take on the weight of the world, burdened with regrets. (See also: Rupert Giles, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, Thomas Nightingale in all respects except the shyness, both Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr in different ways.) It's not my only type, but it's the one I will most reliably fall head over heels for.

Finch's suits and glasses help, too. I first watched POI because I happened out of idle curiosity to watch Astolat's vid "Big Spender" and decided that Finch, whose name I didn't even know, was incredibly attractive in a completely idiosyncratic way, half geek chic and half hand tailoring and eccentric waistcoats. I love that Finch can rhapsodize over the proper stitching and placement of buttonholes. I love that his idea of a good time is helping Reese get fitted for some new suits (and helping him put them on!). I love that he is fussy and somewhat "feminine" and serenely unconcerned about it, and that his masculinity is complex enough to coexist with that.

I love the way he speaks, softly and with precision. I love that he's interested in beauty and elegance and that the show doesn't mock him for that. That he hates guns but loves a man who uses them, and that he's got the courage of his convictions even when there's a price to pay.

He's got lots of flaws--control freak is an understatement--but I love him with all my little fannish heart.

Comments

[vilakins]

He's my favourite too, for many of the same reasons.

We started watching because Michael Emerson was in it (he was so good in Lost as a completely different character) and because the premise sounded interesting. He's perfect as Finch, and really very lovable (something he so wasn't in Lost, though he was fascinating there too).

I really must make some icons.

[kindkit]

I never watched Lost (and even my new fondness for Michael Emerson isn't enough to make me try it now) but he's a very fine actor. I keep being surprised that the showrunners (and most other fans, it seems) don't recognize that it's obviously him who's the lead and not Jim Caviezel.

[vilakins]

Huh! Well, I assumed he was the lead! And as far as I'm concerned, he is.

[kindkit]

He doesn't get first billing, sadly. If I were more of a geek than I actually am, I'd compare Emerson's screen time with Caviezel's, because I think Caviezel gets a lot more. Admittedly Caviezel was more of a name actor going into the show, but a lot of his name recognition was "Oh, yeah, that right-wing Catholic dude who works with Mel Gibson and thinks Christians are persecuted in Hollywood."

[vilakins]

[jaw drops] Seriously? I didn't know anything about him but his name. Oy. Ah well, I like the character he plays anyway.

[kindkit]

After starring in Passion of the Christ he gave an interview claiming that he was being rejected/persecuted for his religious beliefs. And Wikipedia tells me that in 2006 he donated money to the campaign of Rick Santorum, who is hideously right-wing and homophobic.

2006 was a long time ago, of course, and it's possible Caviezel's views have changed. Hopefully the revelation of Mel Gibson's anti-senitism and general jerwadness would pull him away from Gibson's views. And POI is a more left-wing show that I would have thought a Santorum supporter would want to get within a mile of (I'm thinking especially of the S2 episode with heart surgeon and her wife).

But anyway, because I started watching the show while knowing all this about Jim Caviezel, it made it hard for me to warm to Reese.

[vilakins]

Ugh, ugh, ugh! Even I've heard of Santorum (and what his name's used as a synonym for the in the gay community). I can imagine that affecting what you think of Reese. I'm glad I didn't know.

Maybe he doesn't mind as much about lesbians; as you said, a lot of straight males don't; quite the reverse going by how some of those males are depicted on US TV (turned on by mammary glands, lesbians, and twins).