fictional characters

[mellowtigger]

First, I should mention that I remember having a short dream last night. Emotion is bad for thinking, so I woke up at 4am when it got too disturbing. I'm sure that the dream was provoked by recent thoughts about having a carnivore in the house, with a strong reminiscence of an actual thing that happened here a few years ago. I won't offer details for any of it, except this time in the dream it involved a newborn rabbit instead of a pregnant mouse. Onward to more pleasant things...

What I've been watching in recent days on YouTube is excerpts from some shows that include gay male couples. I started by watching a lot of clips from the show "Heated Rivalry", about the ice hockey athletes. It sure seems like the first season is worth all of the attention it got. I think media corporations finally realize that there's a market in the USA among straight women for gay male romance, as in Asian "boy-love or yaoi" markets. I still haven't watched the actual show, but the clips certainly show some interesting characters and steamy limerence. What started me watching the clips was learning that the actor who plays the Russian character Ilya Rozanov grew up in Odessa, Texas. When people in west Texas refer to the "Twin Cities", they mean Midland/Odessa. I grew up in Midland.

Click to read more about the earlier tv show "Shameless"...

But then I realized their television chemistry did not quite (almost, but not quite) match the emotional draw of a previous gay couple on the small screen. Then I started watching YouTube clips from the show "Shameless" which reinforced this feeling. I wish I understood why I find the other Russian character Mickey Milkovich so compelling. The Shameless character played by this actor is:

• okay-looking but not handsome
• violent but not peaceful
• crude but not eloquent
• criminal but not legitimate
• insulting but not encouraging

In short, he's a complete disaster of a person. So why do I find him so compelling, attractive, and in an extremely weird sense... honorable? He has none of the qualities that normally warrant such a reaction.

I think it's because Mickey fell harder in love (despite his cruel pushing away of intimacy through most of their relationship) with Ian than Ian did for Mickey. I think it's that "underdog" status that gives him such strong appeal? Mickey wants something to work between them that obviously shouldn't, in the context of both this real world and their fictional world. Mickey does offer romance, in a way, but that devotion is more subtle and more rare than portrayed by typical romantic leads. Only when threatened with abandonment does Mickey finally show the courage that the audience suspects lies under that rough surface. The whole show "Shameless" does a decent job portraying white poverty in a big city, but this particular gay slice of that life demanded more attention than I realized. This hour-long video review of their gay male relationship is a very thorough literary review. It even mentions the sexual assault that all other clips/reviews skip because that scene is so unpleasant even for a show about difficult lives. This lesbian's review is thoughtful and much shorter text, and I agree with the closing paragraph as a summary. As far as I know, both actors are straight, and they did a great job with their characters. I'm glad that the USA version of this story is different from the original UK version. This part of it is a much better tale.

It's no wonder that both shows use Russian culture as a foil to the gay male characters. It was one of Russia's repeated queer-purging events that drove me away from Livejournal many years ago to join Dreamwidth instead.

Anyway, it's approaching 11am local time. Will I finally get outdoors to do some very needed gardening?