Who's your favorite?

[Wash Me]

who is your favorite character in the 20th centurey
and why?


you can say more than one!

[Intifada]

che, a true revolutionary who fought against imperialism.

[Soviet power supreme]

Lenin,Stalin,Mao,Guevara,Castro and me.

The reason because they are true communists.

[toastedmonkey]

Castro, Guevara and Tim Henman

Because they all fight for what they belive in, beat american imperialism, great men and have the same aspirations as me.

With the exception of Tim, who doesnt fight for what he belives in (that i know of), hasnt beaten anyone, isnt great and doesnt have the same aspirations as me.

[Comrade of Cuba]

Fidel Castro and the Cubans because they ar the only ones that dare to say and do anything against the USA.

[AryaN BLitZKrieG]

This is in no particular order...

Reza Shah
Mohammad Reza Shah
Che Guevara
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel
Mosadegh
Malcolm X

[Al Creed]

Foregoing the obvious choice (Che), I have a few:

Pierre Trudeau - The best Prime Minister Canada ever had (Unfortunately, I was born 3 weeks into the Mulrouney Reign of Terror:()

Kurt Cobain - He saved us from the hell that we call 80's Pop Music.

Stanley Kubrick - The Greatest director to have ever lived.

Ho Chi Minh - He and his Viet Cong made complete asses out of LBJ and the US Invasion force

Michael Moore, Dennis Miller, Al Franken, Noam Chomsky, and Bill Mahr - These people do not show any fear when criticizing the government, proving that not everyone needs the rifle to lash out at the government:D

[S.B.]

"who is your favorite character in the 20th centurey
and why?" ...

This sounds like a question concerning a character from a novel or movie and upon this premise I ll answer that one of my favorite characters is Vijay the poet from the movie "Pyaasa" a Hindi movie by film-maker and director Guru Dutt who also starred as the unfortunate poet.

As for the reasons of this choice,it would be best to simply find and watch this masterpiece.Although the movie is in the Hindi dialect of which Im completely ignorant,still,by reading the subtitles and following the plot of the movie I found it to be quite profound in exposing underlying truths concerning the reality of man and his environment.

Vijay the poet,as any artist initially wishes to be recognized and accepted for his poetry in a world that is completely motivated by arrogance and greed,he is eventually disowned by family and sets off as an aimless drifter in the poverty-stricken streets of India wherein he witnesses the conditions brought about by the capitalist system.

He had approached a publisher who rejected him and his poems and Vijay also recognizes that the publisher is now married to Meena,Vijays first love,the publisher does give Vijay employment as a mundane worker but soon discovers the former association of Vijay and Meena and thus relieves him of his position.

As Vijay wanders the streets he hears a prostitute singing one of his poems and approaches her with the news that it is he who wrote the very lines she now uses to entertain her clients but she also rejects him and as he leaves a poem falls from his pocket and she realizes that he was indeed this poet.

She then sets about to find him in that it was his poems that inspired her to live and long for love,all these clients were nothing more than a source to obtain the necessities in life ... but the man who could set her heart ablaze with the thoughts of true intimacy and passion ... this man she loved in that he spoke to her first through poems which caused her to see the true man that resides within,rather than all these empty shells which care for nothing other than a fleeting moment of self-gratification.

Vijay,as most tormented artists,takes up the bottle and delves into a certain madness,he sits in the corner of a brothel and observes the happenings with a sense of disconnected participation,with all barriers of the ego removed by intoxication he somehow relates to the prostitute in the knowledge that he too must sell himself through his work in order to thrive in an unjust society.

In the course of the movie Vijay contemplates suicide and as he makes his way along the railroad track he spies out an old begger,and it being a cold night he gives his coat to the old man.

It happens that as Vijay is now on the bare tracks that the old man approaches him,perhaps to show his gratitude but he is suddenly stuck to the track and Vijay struggles to free the old man from the track in that a train is fast approaching but all his efforts are futile and so the old man is hit and mangled.

When the old man is discovered they find Vijays poems in his coat pocket(the coat given to him by Vijay)and suddenly Vijay becomes an overnight celebrity and an acclaimed poet,and this because he is thought to be dead.

Meanwhile Vijay is in an asylum,where one day he realizes an attendent has a published book of his poems,at which he declares that he himself was this Vijay which all India now honored,this in turn merely made the authorities think that he was truly insane.

His brothers are called in to identify whether or not this lunatic was indeed their brother Vijay,however,the publisher had worked out a deal with them that were they to deny him then they would stand to profit all the more from his works,thus they pretended not to recognize him.

Finally,a friend of Gulabo(the prostitute which truly loved Vijay)helps Vijay to escape the asylum and he happens upon a large crowd gathered in his honor and he stands up in the crowd and begins to recite his poems whereupon the crowd accepts him as Vijay the celebrated poet.

The publisher and his brothers now come forward in equal agreement that this is indeed Vijay,however,Vijay,being filled with indignation declares that the people merely wish to celebrate the dead and that he is not the Vijay they desire,thereafter he finds Gulabo the prostitute and they set off for another town in which they can simply live as human beings.

It really is a great movie in that it has social significance which speaks to the hearts of true socialists everywhere,regardless of race and nationality.


K.S.B.

[Jesus Christ]

Cary Grant - Possibly the greatest actor ever to live.

Leonard Maltin - For liking all the movies I like.

Ghandi - For the advancement of pacifism.

Jacques Cousteau - For showing the world the importance of nature.

Garfield - He's so god damned funny.

Ho Chi Minh - For showing the U.S. that they shouldn't be fucking around with everyone.

[The Children of the Revolution]

Nice post "S.B.", I'm determined to hunt down that film now!

My favourite 20th century "character[s]"?

Politically: Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Che
Musically: Freddy Mercury, Jimi Hendrix
Literally: George Orwell
Personally: A very good friend of mine (Who shall remain nameless) :P

[Morpheus]

Peasants and the working class. Because they're the heros!

[(*]

Including both Politics and Art

Che Guevara
Malcolm X/El Hajj Malik El Shabazz
Nelson Mandela


Eddie Vedder
Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam
Quentin Tarantino
Bob Marley

[Monty Cantsin]

Che Guevara

Malcolm X

Ghandi

Nelson Mandela