Community Television Show Characters

I'm a good judge of character. I'm actually very good at interpreting certain traits and a person's character. But everyone has a side where they hide or behave differently when not around them. For example, you wouldn't behave the same way around your mother or boss as you would your childhood best friend would you? Maybe you would/could but sometimes people behave with a better control or show a little respect, depending how the relationship is. Besides the latter point a show I've been watching for the past year are reruns of Community the television show. Community is centered around a study group in Greendale Community College. It is a comedy and one reason I like the show is not so much for it's humor because it has it's hits and misses. But for the characters. The characters and the sociology behind it

Not the protagonist because each their own but the focal point is in how they socialize with one another based on the script but the leader of the pack, the alpha male, the numeral uno, the captain of the ship, the header nigger in charge, El Jefe, not really but sort of is Jeff Winger. He is a tall, athletic white male. He used the gift of gab, word or persuasion to be a good lawyer but didn't have the actual degree. So being ousted as a lawyer, he went back to Community College to see if he could get his degree. What makes Jeff a good lawyer? Again, he is the alpha male type but it's because of his strong 'Id' (Sigmund Freud's psychic) but his Super-Ego is in check to save him. His rational keeps the group together when there are arguments. He has Father issues and his persona comes from lack of attention when he was younger.

What are the key points in the way we behave in general in society: reward, acceptance (with that popularity or class status from friends, family, people we associate with). What if the last criteria does not matter, if a person is selfish or hedonistic prioritized and lacks a proper Ego...madness.

The second characters are Troy and Abed..."in the morning" (inside joke/pun for those who watch and are a fan like myself). Troy was a football star in High School but he faked injury in order to avoid the stardom or responsibility or whatever the reason, basically he avoided change or growing up, he was afraid of something. What is it about this psychological effect that we procrastinate? We put off things and are scared to handle/act on things we want or need achieving. Abed is Troy's right hand man, they compliment each other very well. It would seem Abed's character is like Spock from Star Trek, or like a humanoid robot. His fundamental actions are based off movies and television shows. That is also what many of the show's plots and references are based off of. Abed's brain switches into fantasy land sometimes: cartoons/animation. Between the two, they are like kid's, adult portraying characters that have not grown up and adapting to Community College life and those around them while still playing scenarios in their own fantasy world.

The last male character in the group is an old Pierce Hawthorne (played by Chevy Chase). He has good amount of money from a family business. He's old school racist and that's where the jokes come in. They use his old age to play old people jokes like faking a heart attack to get out of situations he doesn't want to be in. The group will exclude him from activities because he does terrible things and not very politically correct. He is not really the antagonist because he doesn't play the center villain in the show but he does sometimes and other times the outcome is that he is the hero.

I don't believe either females in the group play a center role, they all have their own important social importance in the group but Annie Edison is the supposedly innocent member of the group played by the super sexy Alison Brie. Her character is of a young semi-naive Jewish Caucasian girl. A girl that has the characteristics of an achiever. In studying this concept, certain children are brought up in a Eugenic family, usually parents that emphasize or use guilt to make their offspring achieve high status as adults. Being Asian myself, I know many Asian parents that emphasize on this principal. But Eugenic parents fall under all races because all parents want their kids to grow up with a better class status, some just are stricter at emphasizing than others. It's really a personal goal to achieve but it can also be pressured to.

The second female character in the study group is Britta Perry, the actor who portrays Britta is also very attractive. Britta is a rebel, fight the power, green peace, animal saving, environment activist loving character. In one episode she is depicted in her younger self with purple hair. In another episode she helps support Abed in fighting his father who is pushing Abed to study some form of medicine, I believe dentistry instead of Abed's focus on videography. What makes a person a rebel against society? I am. I can answer a few of those questions. I don't like conformity. I just don't fit in some formal structures. I never had parents that were strict. I don't like limits. I believe limits set safety and rationality but hinders growth and development. Those are my reasons, what are yours for breaking the law or not following the rules?

The last character of the study group to describe is Shirley Bennett. She is a highly devoted Christian woman. She values the Christian religion highly with acting on principals that resist the sins that surround her. I know these characteristics first hand for I was a devoted Christian myself with friends and family just like Shirley Bennett. I am not going into details on theology or religious thoughts here. However, I will state that religion is mostly inherited or marketed. Depending on where you're from, the type of religion is not a choice. And how strong your belief is is like love, how strong you feel about it, it can be built from hate, sorrow or need. It is a way of life because it is part of ones life. God is not a being that just pops into an average person's day (that would be a miraculous moment, it takes a miraculous reason to devote) and then word spreads, a believer will pass the word on. You are either the first hand person to encounter the miraculous or the one inheriting, being marketed the word, how far you take it is your own. Atheist rely along the lines of the Big Bang theory (not the television show, the scientific theory) or Quantum Mechanics. Life defined by a deity or science, what controls the creation or movements of the universe, the things in it including people. I pray and I believe in science. Who's to say God didn't make science. Who's to say due to lack of understanding science we believe in God, prove it. God has never appeared before me nor has science of man fully been discovered. I know where I stand in faith. Everyone has the right to their opinion. Only in lack of mutual acceptance and understanding will these Holy Wars never end.

Nothing to summarize, just pointing out Characters in a Community.

Sweet November

There is no tomorrow, unless it's reserved for the next generation, for tomorrow changes; there is only now.  Tomorrow is the hopes of the present, then past or accomplished, though interlinked.  Because hope and memories coincide; life is not concrete and no matter the reinforcement it decays.  Never let another define good and bad for you. Experience is about your personal life and reality, not through decisions or views of others, though sometimes because of them.  Sometimes, we have to choose the "lesser of two evils" because good is not always there.  Sometimes, we have to embrace and accept evil to understand good.  An antihero can believe in a creed, do good and save a life but at least he is living a truth in his reality of indulgences: smoking, drinking, without manner and creating carnage. -Andrew Szeto

November is my favorite month.  I write Sweet November every November because it's the month of my birthday and I really liked the movie (2001).  The summary of the movie is of a woman dying and her reality changes, thus she sets on a cause to change the lives and views of others.  Since January 2011 until November 2011, I have had only two days of paid time off, one of them mandatory because of Hurricane Irene.  I took two weeks off this month because by January 2012 my Paid Time Off for 2011 gets voided.

---One of the in flight movies was Kingdom of Heaven (2005).  Though unrealistic and inaccurate reproduction of history, it had very good points.  The following are just two that was illustrated most in my mind.  Re-watching the movie brought back a few lines that started me on blogging, my ideology at that time:

(Scene 1)

Godfrey: "So how find you Jerusalem?"

Balian: "God does not speak to me. Not even on the hill where Christ died. I am outside God's grace"

Godfrey: "I have not heard that"

Balian: "At any rate, it seems I have lost my religion"

Godfrey: "I put no stock in religion. By the word religion I've seen the lunacy of fanatics of every demonitation be called the will of God. I've seen too much religion in the eyes of too many murderers. 

Holiness is in right action and courage on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves. And goodness, what God desires (He points to Balian's head)

and here (He points to Balian's heart)"

And by what you decide to do every day, you will be a good man, or not

Come"

(Scene 2)

King Baldwin IV: "Come forward. I am glad to meet Godfried's son. He was one of my greatest teachers. He was there when, playing with the other boys, my arm was cut. And it was he, not my father's physicians, who noticed that I felt no pain. He wept when he gave my father the news... that I am a leper. The Saracens say that this disease is God's vengeance against the vanity of our kingdom. As wretched as I am, these Arabs believe that the chastisement that awaits me in hell is far more severe and lasting. If that's true, I call it unfair. Come. Sit.

Do you play?"

(They both sit opposite a chess board)

Balian: "No"

King Baldwin IV: "The whole world is in chess. Any move can be the death of you. Do anything but remain where you started and you can't be sure of your end. Were you sure of your end once?"

Balian: "I was"

King Baldwin IV: "What was it?"

Balian: "To be buried a hundred yards from where I was born."

King Baldwin IV: "And now?"

Balian: "Now I sit in Jerusalem and look upon a king."

King Baldwin IV: "When I was sixteen I won a great victory. I felt in that moment that I would live to be a hundred. Now I know I shall not see thirty. None of us know our end really or what hand will guide us there. A king may move a man. A father may claim a son. That man can also move himself. And only then does that man truly begin his own game. Remember howsoever you are played or by whom, your soul is in your keeping alone, even though those who presume to play you be kings or men of power. When you stand before God, you cannot say "But I was told by others to do thus" or that virtue was not convenient at the time. This will not suffice. Remember that."

Balian: "I will."


---Happy Thanksgiving, I wish all who are reading a warm, safe and great time with family and friends. If you are alone, be strong, I share that strength with you, not the alone part.


---That's it for now