Genre Character of the Week: Jim Profit

For me, a favourite character of the week usually means a pretty decent guy, someone you'd have a coffee with, or would turn to in a crisis. This week's character however, is someone you could not pay me to come into contact with, Jim Profit.

Airing on Fox back in 1996, the television series Profit tried to do something pretty unique for TV - have the bad guy as our main character. Now I know, if you go into soap operas, this had been used before, but the character of Jim Profit is so awful, so crazy, that he basically blows all previous attempts of bad guy protagonists on TV out of the water.

The shows premise in a nutshell; At a multinational corporation called Gracen and Gracen, a newly hired executive, Jim Profit, is not all he seems. Jim wants to be the power behind the throne at the company and he will do anything (murder, blackmail, his Stepmother!?!) to achieve his dreams. The character addresses the audience directly, explaining his plans and we watch them unfold while the companies security chief, Joanne Meltzer (pictured with Profit), tries to figure out the mystery behind this compelling, yet terrifying man.

The show really confused audiences at the time, who not feeling comfortable with rooting for the bad guy, found other things to watch. Lasting only 8 episodes, Profit was, for me, one of the most compelling shows on television at the time. It borrowed a lot from Shakespeare - in fact it was originally conceived as a Richard III in the corporate world, it's main character was willing to do anything for his goals, and some of my favourite shows of the 2000s (Deadwood and Dexter to name the most obvious ones) are very similar in concept or tone.

Jim Profit was terrifying, engrossing and just damaged enough to leave you wanting more. If you haven't seen the show, check it out, you won't be disappointed.

You Owe it to Yourself

You know what? I hate it when people tell me that they love vampire movies.

Especially when they don't mean it. Here's the thing, I LOVE Vampire movies, everything from the classic (Nosferatu), to the cheesy (Vamp), to the amazing but flawed (I Still say Near Dark is the best Vampire film you will ever see, IF you leave 20 minutes before the end), to the perfect (Let the Right One in), so when someone says that they are a Vampire fan I think we've got a lot in common.

But 9 times out of 10 what they mean to say is that they are a Twilight fan.

Now here's the thing, I've seen Twilight, and even though it has some pretty big flaws (They can't go out into sunlight because they SHINE!?!), I can understand that it is pretty popular right now.

So here is what I want all you Twilight fans to do:

Say that you are a HUGE Twilight fan. And you know what? if by HUGE Twilight fan you mean a huge Robert Pattinson fan, than say you area HUGE Robert Pattinson fan.

I won't be mad, honest, the guy is a teen idol in that emaciated, can't be bothered to do his hair and probably gets called "Miss" or "Young Lady" a lot, kind of way that is popular these days.

What I will get mad at is if you say you love Vampire movies when you don't really.

Look, it's the same thing as saying you're a huge fantasy fan because you own Lord of the Rings on DVD and still have all your old Dragonlance books from high school. If you haven't read any new fantasy written in the last five years, maybe it is better for you to say you are a big fantasy movie or classic Dragonlance fan.

In the end, here is what I want you to do. I want all of you to be the best fans of whatever you like that you can be. If that means Robert Pattinson, then fine, learn about the guy, check of the movie Little Ashes, or even dust off your Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire DVD. If you're a die-hard Dragonlance fan, pull those books down from your closet and give them another look, or maybe go to the use-book stores and pick up one of the more than 50 new Dragonlance tiles that have been published since 2000.

In the end what it comes down to is a little bit of effort - Right now my favourite show is Dexter - I'm a Dexter fan, but when I tell people that, I explain that I mean I'm a fan of the show - I've never gotten around to reading the novels, and you know what, as long as I'm clear about what I'm a fan of, that's alright by me.

Because in the end, you don't own your fan status to me, or your friends, or even to Robert Pattinson; in the end you owe it to yourself.