Wednesday, December 15, 2010

10:22 AM | Here's to Memorable Fictional Characters

I never usually respond to Facebook meme lists like this: "Fifteen ____ in Fifteen Minutes." (Fill in the blanks. Your favorite films, music, books, et cetera in the tight span of fifteen minutes.) I find this endeavor to be a perfect waste of time and energy, and I know I will not be so truthful anyway -- how do I know for sure the films or books or music that define my life and put them down without much thinking in fifteen minutes? I always agonize even when I'm asked casually what my favorite film or book is. And yet, how come I responded so willingly to Anna's call this morning for fifteen memorable fictional characters in fifteen minutes? Perhaps because at that very moment, I was thinking of the boy Charlie from Steve Chbosky's "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," and marveled at how precocious and sensitive he was, how I felt for him -- how he seemed real even on the page. And so, the one below became my list. And I couldn't stop at fifteen. I had to go for an even thirty. Memorable fictional characters in films, television shows, books, comics, plays, and songs that have stayed with me, for some reason or other...

Holden Caulfield in J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye"
Craig in Craig Thompson's "Blankets"
Philip Benjamin in David Leavitt's "The Lost Language of Cranes"
Giovanni in James Baldwin's "Giovanni's Room"
Elliot in Steven Spielberg's "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial"
Charlie in Stephen Chbosky's "The Perks of Being a Wallflower"
Zach in Jonah Markowitz's "Shelter"
Doña Lupe in Nick Joaquin's "The Summer Solstice"
Setsuko in Isao Takahata's "Grave of the Fireflies"
Tom Ripley in Anthony Minghella's film of Patricia Highsmith's "The Talented Mr. Ripley"
Junior in Lino Brocka's "Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang"
Steve Dunne in Cameron Crowe's "Singles"
Ariel in Ron Clements and John Musker's "The Little Mermaid"
Prof. Grady Tripp in Curtis Hanson's film of Michael Chabon's "Wonder Boys"
Tintin in Georges Rémi's "The Adventures of Tintin, Boy Reporter"
Antonio in Joselito Altarejos's "Ang Lihim ni Antonio"
Dorothy Boyd in Cameron Crowe's "Jerry Maguire"
Jacinta Cordova in Dean Francis Alfar's "Salamanca"
Justin Taylor in Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman's "Queer as Folk"
Melchior Gabor in Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater's "Spring Awakening"
Regina George in Mark Waters's "Mean Girls"
Carrie Bradshaw in HBO's adaptation of Candace Bushnell's "Sex and the City"
John Keating in Peter Weir's "Dead Poets Society"
Ading in Manuel Arguilla's "Midsummer"
Kiki in Hayao Miyazaki's "Kiki's Delivery Service"
Jude in The Beatles' "Hey, Jude"
Grace Coddington in R.J. Cutler's "The September Issue"
Will Truman in David Kohan and Max Mutchnick's "Will & Grace"
Eva Peron in Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's "Evita"
Francesca Johnson in Clint Eastwood's film of Robert James Waller's "The Bridges of Madison County"

Labels: books, comics, fiction, film, memes, music, television, theater

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