My Precious Little Life: Why I resemble Scott Pilgrim too much.

Picture above: not you

A common technique a writer uses in their story, whether it be a book, comic, movie, video game, etc., is to create a main character that represents the audience.  The main character's personality will reflect the target audience as much as possible, and when the writer is shooting for a wide audience the protagonist becomes even more of an everyman.  The reason for this is obvious, if the protagonist in the story you're reading/watching is like YOU, then you're going to empathizewith them more and care about what happens to them (because your subconscious actually thinks it's battling the Great Demon of the Hellscape to rescue the Princess Lolicon.  Because your brain is stupid). Because this is a easy writing technique and because it can often lead to bland characters if done incorrectly, main characters like this are often criticized.  If done well however, a protagonist like this can not only make us empathize with them, but learn something more about ourselves or work through our personal demons with them.  Nowhere is this done better for me than in Scott Pilgrim.

BT-dubs, if you haven't read the 6 Scott Pilgrim graphic novels or at least watched the Scott Pilgrim vs. The Universe movie, then 1) tsk tsk, you're the reason Hollywood keeps producing shitty bland movies and you should be ashamed of yourself, and 2)it's okay I forgive you.  Not really.  Go watch/read them now.  I'll wait here.

....

Good, well as you should know by now the Scott Pilgrim story is written for the current 20-30 year old demographic.  It's about my generation, which falls between the people who grew up with Super Mario Bros. and Thundercats up to the people who grew up with Ocarina of Time and Animaniacs.  I feel like I'm right at the epicenter of said generation (okay, maybe younger by a year or two), which is evidenced by the fact I share the same age with the title character, Scott Pilgrim.  Scott Pilgrim is carefully crafted to be a representation of me (well, not ME, but my peers and I).  A lazy, self-absorbed slacker obsessed with video games and not growing up.  Many of my peers may resent that image of us, but I realized yesterday how true an portrait it is, at least for myself. 

Two of my least favorite main characters in Scott Pilgrim, were the two MAIN characters, Scott Pilgrim and Ramona Flowers.  Sure he's funny, sure she's ridiculously pretty, but they're both such bad people.  While the supporting cast was full of vibrant, interesting people, all of them really great or terrible individuals, the couple at the center of it all were so.... realistically compromised.  Scott's a lazy geek and Ramona's one of a thousand cool chicks hiding from their oh-too-common personal demons.  They're both bad people, but not bad enough to be evil.  But I'm also understanding another reason I'm not the biggest Scott fan: he's too much like me.

I'm lazy.  I'm obsessed with trivial things like geek culture.  I have a dark side that I run from (or embrace, depending on my mood and childish-ness).  I've self-absorbed to the point where I assume I'm the main character in movie.  I've had a problem with this whole impending adulthood thing since high school (uh, note to self, it's not "impending" anymore.  It's here).  I hate doing grownup things like bills because, to quote Scott, "It's haaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrd".  While my aversion to adult responsibilities may be a little more complicated then his because they include this immature idea of not wanting to compromise myself, there's still a lot more in common with us that I'd care to admit.

I realized this after my wife told me some bad news: the repairs to her car were going to cost a little more then expected, due to a part that broke most likely due to my fast driving over bumps.  While it's easy for me to stop speeding, I've done it before, what's not easy to stop is speeding to work because I'm late.  I'm chronically late to everything in life, 3-10 min late to things I HAVE to be at on time, like work or class, and 30-60 min late to things I want to go to like parties.  It's.... haaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrddddd for me NOT to be late.  My sense of time and judgement calls go out the window in the 30 min before I have to be somewhere.  It doesn't matter if I give myself 2 extra hours of time, I'll still be a couple minutes late to someplace.  I'll watch an extra video on the internet, not stop watching tv, or read a book while using the bathroom.  My wife suggested that to stop this I should not do ANYTHING before work, just wake up, shower, shave, eat without stimulus, get dressed, and leave.  The thought made me queasy and indignant, and immediately refused.  I was then realized that I would knowingly damage my wife's car, which she worked so hard paying off for, just for myPRECIOUS LITTLE LIFE.  All of Scott's actions came rushing towards me, and I understood that despite being married and working full time, I'm almost as selfish and immature as Scott Pilgrim.  Lazy too; I have projects to work on, a children's book I could be writing or art I could be drawing. But I don't.  I lounge around as much as possible, wasting my time with banalities like the internet.  I could blame a large amount of this on my ADHD, but I won't.  It's mostly me.

Well done with the whole holding a mirror onto society with your art Bryan Lee O'Malley.  Well done.

So I really need to GET IT TOGETHER.  The only question is, how?  I guess, like Scott, in baby steps.

So here's to my future, and hopefully my FINEST HOUR.