What Made These Characters So Attractive to Me as a Teenager?
It can be embarrassing to think back on our foibles and mistakes from when we were immature teenagers. I like to pretend that I did not think some of the thoughts I thought or say some of the things I said rather than try to figure out what was going on in my mind. At the same time, life is about constantly moving forward, learning from our missteps, and becoming better. Perhaps it could be instructive to look at the way my mind worked as a youngster to ascertain how I’ve grown or evolved.
To that end, I wanted to look back at some of the characters from movies and TV in the 90s that appealed to me and were attractive to me and see if I could understand what made me love them and if I have maintained my admiration for those qualities as I have gotten (much) older. Like much of our writing for Medium, I don’t know where this is heading. I am as excited or clueless as you are as your eyes move down this page. Who is this Chad Durham? And who was he? Let’s see.
Amanda Beckett, Can’t Hardly Wait
Can’t Hardly Wait came out my senior year of high school — literal weeks before I graduated, in fact — and tried to capture the feel of high school coming to an end by showcasing an end-of-school-year party where all the stereotypes showed up to sow their final wild oats before moving on to the next phase of their lives. One of my biggest movie star crushes (at the time), Jennifer Love Hewitt, starred as the popular and much-coveted Amanda Beckett, who had recently broken up with her jock boyfriend which prompts Ethan Embry’s Preston to decide to declare to her his long-running crush. Though none of the events in the movie remotely resemble anything that I experienced in high school, boy, did I have a long-standing crush in high school that I never declared. To see Ethan Embry acting out my four-year dream of courageously finally telling a girl how he really felt made me live vicariously through him. And his crush on Amanda was suddenly my crush on Amanda. Though Amanda is basically meant to be a gorgeous, gracious, generous goddess with not a lot of depth, she represented to me all of the times I did not speak up, all of the times I dropped my eyes to the floor, and all of the times I bungled my opportunity to talk to a nice, attractive girl. I saw the movie, ironically, with the girl that I had a crush on all throughout high school because she was one of my best friends. So I pined for the girl on the screen and I pined for the girl next to me and then the movie ended and I went back to saying nothing. Not until I met my wife did I ever really work up the courage to say some of the things I wanted to say. I can’t say that I owe that to Amanda Beckett or Jennifer Love Hewitt or Ethan Embry, but they were a stepping stone on the way to living my best life. (Check out our podcast episode on our favorite “coming of age” movies, like Can’t Hardly Wait.)
Chandler Bing, Friends
Friends debuted when I was 14 and it was a few years before I began to watch it, due to intelligent parents who wanted to make sure I was mature enough. But when I finally did, no character held me in his sway more than Chandler Bing, played by the inimitable Matthew Perry. I related to Chandler on a spiritual level: he was often unlucky in love, he had a friend who was a lothario (I had a great friend named Tyler Noesen, who has since passed away, who was so successful with the ladies that it was almost comical), and instead of confronting his feelings, he met them with a lightning-fast quip and a smile designed to hide the pain. That was who I aspired to be. He was successful enough and well-adjusted enough and, perhaps more importantly, he made everyone around him laugh. I figured, if I can find a way to disarm everyone with humor and self-deprecation, I will be okay. Watching Matthew Perry as Chandler was one of the chief joys of my life during the late 90s. He couldn’t get the girl most of the time, but it didn’t matter. He may have been involved in a lot of awkward social situations, but he was going to make them less awkward by diffusing the moment with a witty repartee. I have never been as funny as the writers of Friends and Matthew Perry but I was going to work at it. Even today, I find myself inflecting things like Matthew Perry and trying to find the perfect moment to insert a “brilliant” comment in a way that makes it seem like I haven’t been waiting to say it for ten minutes. That’s what has remained from my worship of Chandler Bing: the relentless desire to make working hard seem effortless.
Billie Tyler, Trial and Error
Before Charlize Theron became mega-famous and one of the best actors of my generation, she was in a little-seen romantic comedy called Trial and Error, starring Jeff Daniels, Michael Richards, and Jessica Steen. I have grown out of adoring romantic comedies, but as a lovesick and angsty 16- and 17-year-old, I was drawn to them like a moth to a flame. And Trial and Error was one of my very favorites. Directed by underrated 90’s director Jonathan Lynn, it is an offbeat and wholly formulaic riff on the classic rom-com where the stupid man doesn’t realize that he is with the wrong woman until it is almost too late. Theron played Billie Tyler, the right woman for Jeff Daniels’ Charles Tuttle (even if it takes the whole movie for him to figure it out). What drew me to Billie (in addition to the fact that she was played by the alluring Theron), was her innate goodness. She puts on no airs, she says what she feels, and she expects the same in return. As a young man trying to make sense of his place in the world, it was refreshing to imagine a place where you represented yourself without artifice and people lauded you for it. There is a heartbreaking scene where Billie believes that she is meeting Charles for a tryst because of what he ordered for his hotel room. She is called on to deliver it and is shocked to find that his fiancee is in the room waiting. It is devastating (and an early indication of Theron’s greatness as an actress) and all I wanted to do was climb into the movie screen and comfort her. To see someone be treated as far less than they are worth is one of life’s great travesties. It still rankles me. Of course, since it is a 1997 romantic-comedy, Billie and Charles ultimately end up together, as he realized the ample mistakes he has made. But I was sitting in the audience wishing I could tell Billie that I never would have made those mistakes in the first place.
Megara, Hercules
There was a time when I absolutely could not understand being attracted to a cartoon. How, I asked, could one fantasize about kissing an animated character? It felt patently absurd! What tomfoolery could this be? And then, I saw Hercules and in a flash I completely understood. I feel somewhat sheepish sharing that information (though I have told the story many times), especially in light of the exaggerated features of the animated Megara’s body and hair. Lest I wander too far into weird territory, though, I want to zoom in on the character of Meg, who is far from your traditional Disney “princess” and very far from your generic “damsel in distress,” as she herself declares in the film. Meg, as voiced by Susan Egan, is sassy, provocative, and — most importantly — unapologetic. Too often, the lead female characters in animated movies of this era were meant to be passive and pleasing, focusing more on what they needed to do to land a man than on what they needed to do to live their lives to the fullest. Though there are some notable exceptions (looking at you, Mulan, you amazing young lady!), it was rare to see someone sarcastic and flawed and fascinating like Meg. Though she does have a whole song (my favorite in all of the Disney canon) where she pines for Hercules, even that song is about her ability to control the narrative. I was gobsmacked by Meg’s singing, her look, and her redemptive arc. Yes, Herc has to save her at the end, but only after she saved him, sacrificing herself. The best women I know have flashes of Meg in everything they do: self-possession, wit, righteous anger, insightful self-reflection, and freaking cool hair.
Xander Harris, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
I don’t want to be too repetitive here, but Xander and Chandler definitely share some of the same characteristics that made them both irresistible to young Chad. The key difference here was Xander’s age. Though Nicholas Brendon was a little older, Xander was a high schooler who had trouble hiding his deep-seated self-consciousness. That was something I struggled with every day. Like Chandler, and me, Xander had fantastic friends that built him up. His playful one-liners were often deployed at the most inopportune times and he knew it, leaning into the inelegance. My ardor for Xander extended to Comic-Con in Salt Lake City where I met actor Nicholas Brendon almost 20 years after Buffy debuted and was awestruck to meet the man that created the character that assured me that no matter how odd or strange we may seem to ourselves, that perception is skewed and if we embrace what we love and don’t hide who we are, we will ultimately find happiness and love. What a message! One I still try to pass on to my children and my students. I hope that are finding characters like Xander that make them believe anything is possible.
Marge Gunderson, Fargo
Frances McDormand is an otherworldly actress. Her performance in Fargo is thrillingly perfect. (One of my favorite performances EVER.) Like Billie Tyler in Trial and Error, Marge is intrinsically kindhearted. She sees the world in black and white, but that moral absoluteness does not stop her from having compassion for those around her. As a pregnant police chief, she is an anomaly for many reasons, but the script (by the Coens) resists making her an unbelievable caricature of goodness. She is a living, breathing human that demands the audience’s sympathy and respect. When I watch Fargo, I find myself wishing I could be her friend and we could go out to dinner and just chat about how we see the world. To be surrounded by so much cruelty and bloodshed, as she is in the movie, and be able to keep a level head and a humane outlook is a singular quality. To see her chasing down clues, interviewing suspects, and solving crimes while shining like a beacon of hope would be disconcerting if it weren’t so inspiring. As a teenager, my attraction to her felt like something more mature. An understanding of it has blossomed into a desire for my daughters to have the courage and sweetness of Marge with eyes wide open to the depravity the world can hold. What Marge taught me is that you can still come home and share delightful moments with your family, even as the big, bad world rages on without.
Guy Patterson, That Thing You Do!
Tom Hanks’ That Thing You Do! is about as sweet of a movie as there is. Though his script does not dismiss cynicism and, in fact, shows the band fall apart after only a little while, it celebrates the joy of creation and the power of friendship and the timelessness of music. Holding it all together is main character and drummer for the band Guy Patterson, played with serene cool by Tom Everett Scott, who has had a long and meaty career but has never captured the charm he displayed when playing Guy. Guy is unassuming, thoughtful, smart, and hard-working. Even when his relationship with the beautiful Tina (played by Charlize Theron) deteriorates, he knows it is for the better. While his bandmate Jimmy is dating the sweet and loyal Faye, who Guy is attracted to, Guy never betrays Jimmy by taking a shot at Faye or undermining Jimmy. And if anyone deserved undermining, it was Jimmy! Faye is longsuffering because she sees the good in Jimmy and remembers him when he was still thoughtful and tender. Jimmy’s success hardens him and Guy’s success does not harden him. They are counterpoints. And for a young teenager like myself, seeing Guy as the epitome of cool (I wished so hard that I could play the drums, but I never had the discipline to try), it was heartening to see that being the coolest cat in the room did not mean being the biggest jerk in the room. Even as a 39-year-old, middle-aged dude who falls asleep too early and sits on the couch too much, I still wish I could find the perfect balance that Guy found as the most patient guy in the room (see what I did there?) who still refines his skills every day and spoke up when he needed to. Did Guy Patterson create an ideal persona that I can never attain? Perhaps! But I guess I will keep trying.
Nicole Oakley, Crazy/Beautiful
Important information: I had a mad crush on Kirsten Dunst, the actress. This definitely contributed to my attraction to this character she played. I grew up very conservative and was an extremely shy teenager. I liked to talk and I had a good amount of friends, male and female, but I did not go out much, I did not ask girls to go on dates, and I did not ever start conversations with attractive people I did not know. This also led to me suppressing my attraction to people and characters like Nicole. She was written to be seductive in the way she did not care about other people’s opinions. She was open about sex, aggressive about relationships, and often self-destructive. She was the cliche-movie version of a “bad girl” and teenage Chad was secretly (and probably not-so-secretly, too) into that, especially in the physical form of Kirsten Dunst. In real life, I would have never even known a girl like that, safe as I was in sitting at home every night. Just the act of watching Crazy/Beautiful felt illicit to me. If you have seen the movie, you know that it is actually relatively tame, but not by 21-year-old Chad’s standards. This was the height of rebellion for me. This has persisted throughout my life. Though a lot of my impulses and political beliefs have changed, I still have very tame tastes and, thus, am sometimes drawn to things that ever so slightly tip over the edge into “furtively improper.” It makes this still naive and innocent adult remember the jolt of feeling slyly seditious.
