Why House and Brian Kinney are the pinnacle of American TV characterization?

Melba 2022-03-24 09:03:51

The image of Hamlet is ever-changing due to different viewers, and the same is true of various characters in American dramas. When we try to analyze and evaluate, personal subjective judgments are inevitable, so the author holds an open mind and discusses with all American drama lovers.
The character of House comes from the popular FOX TV series "HOUSE md", which portrays a genius lame doctor with a different way of practicing medicine. And Brian Kinney is from the landmark HBO drama "queer as folk" in the history of American dramas, which depicts gay themes. He is a successful, uninhibited hedonist and a liberal believer.
The reason why these two characters are discussed together is that it is not difficult to find American thinking and their dramatic reflection and philosophical thinking from their images.
First of all, from the seemingly distorted value system of the two, House, as a doctor, has changed the image of a benevolent hand in medical dramas such as "ER". He bluntly said that healing is not to save lives, but to solve mysteries. Therefore, he insisted on taking only one case a week. He adopted the most radical treatment method. He responded to the patient's statement with the logic of "everybody lies". He did not hesitate to violate the rules, constraints, and laws in order to uncover the cause. His attitude towards life also seems absurd. He used drugs all the year round and committed suicide many times in order to experience near-death. He even used coins to decide the life and death of the two babies in order to solve the cause. you win, go to hell , if you lose, go to hell." And similarly, Brian believes in a "no apologies and no regrets" lifestyle, trying to practice the emotional experience of separation, almost as a one-man hero The courage to personally practice an ancient philosophical proposition, which is the priority of the spirit and the flesh, and whether sex and love are the two poles of the material and the spiritual or are inseparable. He rejects social responsibility, adult obligations, and willingly puts himself in the bullseye of moral judgment.
The coincidence of the two value systems is reflected in their attitudes towards pragmatic utilitarianism and liberalism. They are the extreme embodiment of these two currents of thought. They deal with moral propositions that do not normally fall into this category with an extremely cool Benthamian utilitarian attitude: such as the importance of life, such as the possibility of selling wisdom and soul for money and power. Therefore, the series will set up such a scene: House faces a dying dictator, rescuing him may lead to another Rwandan genocide, and not saving him will be limited to disguised murder dilemma. Brian, who is gay, helps a conservative anti-gay candidate run for mayor. This must be said to be the greatest irony of pragmatic utilitarianism and the creed of liberty, a logic rooted in American society that makes their biggest believers into moral freaks, and these outsiders play a godlike role, they point out The Absurdity of Life is almost a modern rendition of Camus.
If you want to trace the source of their characters, the two show a surprising homology. House's perception of life starts from pain, and he cannot obtain a completely free body. The constant and inevitable pain determines the person of House. He doesn't believe in the pleasure of snorkeling, nor the possibility of honesty and trust. His childhood experience made him believe that only absolute strength can make people survive and gain the meaning of existence in pain. The Brian-style origin is more popular, and the Freud-style childhood love is missing. You could think of it as American shit, but if the degree of universality and commonality of this attribution has not been recognized, then we are too far from the spiritual core of these two characters.
This experience has created a deep insight into the nature of loneliness, and they have each built a solid defense mechanism that is only open to a very small number of people. House has Wilson, Brian has Michael. For them, this kind of company is a necessary window to understand the world and a necessary way to discover themselves, and it is strikingly similar that these two best friends are vindicators with a messianic complex. The irony is that the deviants of the rules and the genius practitioners of artistic life just become friends with the social people who follow the rules, so this kind of unsolved loneliness has been the most profound interpretation possible.
If we look at it another way, both men are atheists and agnostics in some sense. In the face of faith, they cannot deny it. There is a scene in House that moved many viewers. Chase prays for the soul of the dead baby before the autopsy, and such a destination is out of reach for House. It is not that he believes in nothing, but that he believes in suffering, in hell, in the great energy of suffering. As far as Brian is concerned, as the place of life and rest that has been written in the Bible, he is not without fear, but he is not afraid to do the best to those who try to instill this presupposed, prophetic value system. fierce resistance. He makes the best statement with what he calls blasphemy, and if there is a master, it is only himself. Sin is not born, it is created. Even the two are proclaiming their existence beyond themselves in this way, with House's biological father a zealous preacher priest and Brian's mother an intolerant Christian.
And to really understand them, the best way is undoubtedly to see the love they choose. House and cuddy, Brian and Justin. If I can only sum up the ins and outs between them in one sentence, I would like to borrow Blair's classic thesis in "gossip girl": "what we have is a great love, not a correct love." The difference between the two is great Love combines too many textures of life, complex, intense, intertwined, full of tension, despair, challenge, impure, and correct love is concise, easy to understand, plain and happy. This choice is both their superhero complex and their understanding of life. They demand an equal love, an understanding that does not presuppose sacrifice and being sacrificed, an eternal challenge and resistance. They misread how hard this love is, and so often take it for granted. So House would suspect that he had lost some kind of sharpness in love, and Brian would run away from the possibility and hope of a certain solid formation time and time again.
From these two characters, we read the ambiguity of both good and evil, a kind of pain that directly points to the heart. House had asked whether it was worse to know the pain and constantly endure it, or not be able to feel the pain and be attacked by him? The same question is another face of Brian: when we have to endure old age and disappointment, when we can't be forever young and forever beautiful, when the world is not in our hands, is Peter Pan's way of life freer or gnashing of teeth The way of living is stronger? And what kind of freedom can we expect?
The answers given by TV dramas are limited, because in dramatic conflicts, absolute justice and absolute ideals exist, are inspiring, and can be used for education and infection. But what they didn't expect was when Hugh Laurie gave life to house, and when gale Harold gave life to Brian Kinney. Everything is different. Because they chose their own path.
Brian kinney and house understood all kinds of helplessness, the helplessness of personal shackles, the helplessness of interpersonal encounters, the irreversible depravity, mutation and corruption other than personal pain.
So they're lonely, so when Brian dances alone in the Babylon that sings and dances in memory, when the house creates its own danger, joy and joy, we know that their time is gone forever. The age of pretentious heroes, the age of cruel true fairy tales, the age of unrestrained freedom, the age of youthful beauty, we are willing to understand that the dark age has all passed. We can only mourn for ourselves alone, as Debbie said we should mourn for the losers, because they are the majority, but we should celebrate for the winners, because they are the few."

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Extended Reading

Queer as Folk quotes

  • Debbie: Well, if it isn't the man behind the asshole.

    Michael: Brian's always behind the asshole.

  • Daphne: I'm not a lesbian, but I'm a big fan.