I’m not much of a film person. Sitting still for two hours through a potentially boring experience isn’t the easiest sell for me, though I try when I get recommendations. Following my last piece, my fortyish-year-old boss, a real tito of a man, recommended High Fidelity. 

That title was not completely unknown to me. I’d heard about it in music and film spheres and had googled it maybe twice in my life. I bumped it to the start of my backlog and jumped at it, expecting to find a cultural relic, maybe even a diamond. What I found instead was, at best a product of its time, and at worst a piece of pop-culture that should’ve stayed buried.

“This film is fucking insane” was the thought that crossed my mind every time Rob Gordon opened his mouth, which he did a lot in the hour and fifty-three minutes of runtime. High Fidelity, adapted from the Nick Hornby novel and released in 2000, follows Rob Gordon after he and his longtime girlfriend split. He owns and runs a record store in a time where records were a novelty item, even more so than today. As a reaction to the breakup, Rob recollects, and eventually reconnects with his past lovers, revisiting the trenches and positioning himself as both unfortunate in life and absolutely not in the wrong. 

When the film ends, I am met with mixed feelings. Clearly he was positioned as the asshole, full-stop, and to some degree Rob is self-aware of his less-than-ideal way of going about life. But he doesn’t go out of his way to change the way he is. Rather, we as an audience witness him simply self-reflect, and things happen to fall into place. His girlfriend comes back, he gets an interview for a music mag segment, and he lives happily ever after. While I don’t wish any misfortune on fictional characters, much less real people, it did feel undeserved considering the trajectory of the plot. 

But I do feel it brings up an interesting point in pop-culture and the “he’s literally me” character. 

When a character is written to be charismatic, that’s a recipe for watchers putting themselves in said characters shoes. This usually affirms beliefs and feelings in people, and while not inherently bad, it can be worrying when used to justify shitty behavior. 

Think Patrick Bateman from American Psycho. He walks around in a suit, holds grudges against his coworkers, and loses his cool over the tiniest stimulus. In the end he doesn’t learn anything; he doesn’t even really kill the people he fantasizes about killing. What I understand to be a critique of the corporate man and his utter lack of substance, others see themselves (some lightheartedly, some not) in the literal narcissist. Even in a more nuanced case like Bojack Horseman, series creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg took extra care not to make the lead character justify real shitty behavior. But despite writers’ intentions, asshole characters in pop-culture will find their followers.

Rob Gordon has the makings of one, hiding behind his encyclopedic knowledge of music and his failing record store, defeated as he labels himself a victim of circumstance. He doesn’t reflect so much as he pesters and pries in his exes’ lives. He lives in a perpetual state of agitation, with very brief moments of self-reflection, only to go back to his usual cynical monologue directed at the audience. I get that post-breakup feelings can be extremely muddy and confusing, but Rob manages to dial it up a notch. 

I believe every person lives on a different planet. Our values and priorities and interests and antipathies are determined by our upbringing, affected by current happenings, and vastly different from others. The worlds we create can be comforting, but crippling, or even harmful when we prescribe them onto others. And it’s not THE world (not that I claim to understand it–I’m twenty-four).

When people see characters in films and TV and fortify their worlds to justify being shitty rather than try and break the domains of our perception to attain some level of introspection, it all feels a tad sour. In these instances I wonder who bears the responsibility; the creators or the audience? 

Maybe my generation was raised differently; more vocal about the behaviors we see, both the real and the portrayals. We see characters like Tyler Durden and Patrick Bateman and Rob Gordon, looking beyond the charismatic to reveal the problematic. There’s no intrinsic wrong in writing a character to be a shitty person. Shitty people exist in the real world and creators want their creations to feel real. But when we present these charming characters as free of consequence and risk perpetuating shitty behavior, maybe it’s best we reexamine who we say is “literally me”. 

Rob Gordon didn’t truly change or break free from his world. And everything turned out great.

Maybe I’m too young to get it.