Top 25 Movie Characters: Part 1

Anonymous00011 years ago

Brothers,

As someone who has had a lifelong love/hate relationship with movies, I often find myself thinking about things in my own life in terms of what my favorite movie characters would think about them. That ultimately led to me brainstorming the idea for this list. We’ve done “Frattest” TV characters, sports movie characters, and all manner of other movie-related lists. But there’s never been a definitive list of the greatest movie characters that embody the fraternity philosophy and lifestyle. A couple of orders of business before we dive into our first five. First, this list is 100% perfect, and all the characters are in the right order. If you disagree, that’s fine, but you’re an idiot, and we will never be friends. Two, I intentionally left off characters from sports movies, because Dorn absolutely crushed that topic already, and I don’t see the need to have Shooter, Kevin O’Shea, and Roy McAvoy on multiple lists.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, here’s numbers 25-21.

25. Ferris Bueller – Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

It’s so odd that Matthew Broderick has grown up to be kind of a dope. I mean, he nailed down one of the coolest characters in the history of cinema, and went on to be…Inspector Gadget. But none of that affects the fact that Ferris Bueller was the fucking man, and worthy of inclusion on this list. His description reads like a shopping list for a fraternity man. Smart, clever, funny, effortless with women (he’s banging SLOANE PETERSON for Christ’s sake), and everyone in school thinks he’s a “righteous dude.” He one day up and decides to skip class, talks his buddy into ripping off his pops’ Ferrari, and then breaks the rules of physics and time in order to go out and have the most awesome day ever. Just because he fucking felt like it. Movie characters aren’t supposed to talk to the camera right? Wrong. The guy’s so TFTC, he breaks the fourth wall just to hear the sound of his own voice.

Also, any character who could realistically be assumed by some fans to be a figment of another character’s imagination because he’s that fucking cool, has to be on this list.

“I’m not European. I don’t plan on being European, so who gives a crap if they’re socialists.”

24. Col. Nathan Jessup – A Few Good Men

Say what you will about his thoughts on proper discipline, and his militaristic moral code, at least it’s an ethos. The reason Jessup is such a fantastic character is that he isn’t some conniving, one-dimensional bad guy. As the saying goes, “Every villain believes he’s the hero of the story.” There’s a lot of uncomfortable truthiness to the assertion that us “civilized” people rely on men like him in order to regret how many burritos we eat when we’re hungover. And he’s not inherently unlikeable. He’s smart, cunning, and generally a cool guy until you start poking around in his backyard. Plus the dude has some very solid ideas regarding hazing. I’m not gonna say that I’ve ordered a “Code Red” on a pledge who got out of line, but I’m not gonna say I didn’t either.

“There is nothing on this earth sexier, believe me, gentlemen, than a woman you have to salute in the morning. Promote ’em all, I say, because this is true – if you haven’t gotten a blowjob from a superior officer, well, you’re just letting the best in life pass you by. Of course, my problem is, I’m a colonel, so I guess I’ll just have to keep taking cold showers until they elect some gal president.”

23. Rhett Butler – Gone With The Wind

He’s the black sheep of his rich family. The dude pulled some awesome pranks at West Point and got kicked out. He then becomes a badass blockade runner during the war, and makes his entrance in Charleston by outbidding every other douchebag for a dance with sexiest southern belle in the room. Her dad gets pissed about it, but instead of arguing with him, he just gets the man drunk and all of a sudden they’re bros. Seriously, how many times have you seen the biggest asshole in your chapter get in the good graces of some girl’s dad just by getting him shitfaced? It felt like once a week.

Long story short, the bitch marries him for his money, and by the time she’s actually in love with him, he’s over the whole deal, and leaves. She comes running down the stairs, pleading with him about what she’s going to do if he leaves. And then:

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

Boom! Motherfucker turns around and walks into the mist. Powerful.

22. Patrick Bateman – American Psycho

“Dude, Patrick Bateman is the frattest of the frat. He should be number one!” – Roughly 8,000 assholes, right now.

Look, I get it. Our favorite psychopathic Wall Street serial killer has a lot of “frat” attributes (frattributes?). He’s on Wall Street, he’s making bank, and he can wear the fuck out of a suit. Plus, he secretly loathes everyone around him and possesses ridiculous levels of arrogance.

But he’s also a psychotic mess. Not just in that he kills people, because it seems to turn out that he’s not even doing that. He’s totally delusional. So I’ll grant you that he definitely deserves to be on this list, but his general insanity precludes him from being any higher. Also, he didn’t like Genesis pre-Phil Collins, which is just a slap in the face to my main man, Peter Gabriel.

“I have all the characteristics of a human being: flesh, blood, skin, hair; but not a single, clear, identifiable emotion, except for greed and disgust.”

21. Han Solo – Star Wars

Nerd alert! Shut the fuck up, stereotypical movie jock. Han Solo is the tits. He’s cold as ice, clever like a fox who joined Mensa, and smoother than Marvin Gaye singing a song about butter. He not only bagged the princess with a fetish for slave bikinis, he also simultaneously locked down the best cocaine in the galaxy with her. Seriously, mid-80s Carrie Fisher had the dopest Colombian fun dip powder in the world. Sure, him being a rebel and such vs. the Empire seems a little suspect. I mean the whole “we’re gonna build a fucking moon sized space station to eliminate the peasants” seems kinda frat on its surface. But think about it in the context of the Empire being university administration. Then it all comes into place. The rebels were just trying to haze their new guys and throw parties every night, and the Empire had to come in and be a fucking boner about it all.

Also, Chewbacca’s probably the best frathound ever, too.

“You like me because I’m a scoundrel. There aren’t enough scoundrels in your life.”

Honorable quote mention to answering Princess Leia’s heartfelt “I love you” with a cocky, “I know.” For all Han knows he’s about to fucking die and he’s still too much of a dick to admit in front of other people that he loves his slam. Classic. It’s how I know respond every time some broad drops the L word on me.

Pissed about the order yet? I bet you are. Start a debate in the comments. I’m sure there’s lots of other people who will agree with you, and maybe even a couple of guys who’ll tell you to chug bleach. It’ll be all kinds of fun. Stay tuned for a new column next week as we keep counting down to Numero Uno.