Few movie characters are interesting enough to speak of in political terms, but sometimes filmmakers and actors transcend the ordinary in bringing a character to life. More often than not, these characters are more relevant as emblems of a particular issue or phenomenon than as people with their own ideas, but on occasion we've had the privilege of seeing a relative few with deep fascination and substance in their own right. Not all can reasonably be described as liberal - some are just doing what's right, which people of other persuasions are (on occasion) also capable of doing when it suits them. But there are true standouts, and I list them here.
Note: I have ruled out dramatizations of actual events and characters (too easy) and films based on TV shows. Warning: The descriptions contain spoilers. Feel free to post your own list in Comments.
- Edmund Exley (Guy Pearce) in L.A. Confidential (1997).
Description: Edmund Exley is a highly educated, intellectual LAPD cop driven by an innate sense of justice and a personal childhood tragedy. Amidst rampant corruption and police misconduct, Exley openly rejects tactics widely employed by his fellow officers, such as extracting confessions under torture, planting evidence, and giving false testimony. Although he eventually commits serious crimes - under plainly extenuating circumstances - he freely and honestly admits his actions before an inquiry board, offering no excuses. This shows that his commitment to justice is not merely skin-deep, just as his subsequent agreement to participate in a cover-up proves his realism.
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- Martin Blank (John Cusack) in Grosse Pointe Blank (1997).
Description: Yes, he is a professional killer - nobody's perfect. But he is also scrupulous about choosing his jobs and associates, rejecting an offer to blow up a Greenpeace boat (a reference to a real-life event) and furiously asserting his respect for animal life when an antagonist taunts him with the accidental killing of a dog during a past job.
Martin Blank is a humanitarian philosopher-at-large, deeply concerned for other people's welfare even while rhetorically rejecting conventional morality. After running out of a convenience store that's about to blow up, he runs back in and risks his life to pull out the teenage clerk still obliviously playing an arcade game inside. When a drunk former classmate tries to pick a fight at the high school reunion, he talks him out of it, and convinces him to rethink his life. At one point he marvels in bemusement at being told by a security guard that looking suspicious and being on private property gives security the authority to shoot someone. He apparently thinks constantly, and offers up wry philosophical observations at odd moments betraying his profoundly liberal outlook.
Though his enemy (Dan Aykroyd) is trying to create a killer's union to collectively bargain for contracts, Blank resists joining partly out of his neurotic individuality and partly out an underlying knowledge that his "industry" is wrong and shouldn't be organized. It shouldn't at all be interpreted as hostility to labor organizing in general. One of the funniest comedies of all time, and one of the most interesting characters ever created.
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- Merlin (voiced by Karl Swenson) in Disney's The Sword in The Stone (1963).
Description: This Merlin is not a dangerous conjurer of primal forces, but a humanistic scholar, amateur scientist, and academic who happens to have some knowledge of useful spells. He takes young Arthur ("the Wart") under his wing, and instructs him in the basics of scientific principle, reason, and literacy through practical demonstrations enabled by magic.
At every point, he hammers the message - rely on your mind to win, not on raw strength. He also attempts to persuade the Wart that he has talent and potential, despite the mores of the time telling him that he can only hope to be a squire since he's an orphan. When forced into a "wizard's duel" with an evil witch, wherein each transforms into something in order to attack the other, Merlin's choices are always clever and geared toward defense rather than attack. He is, however, impatient with medieval culture, and occasionally loses his temper (to comic effect).
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- Eric "Otter" Stratton (Tim Matheson) in National Lampoon's Animal House (1978).
Description: Although a compulsive womanizer, Otter has nothing but the utmost respect for women (hey, it's plausible!), and puts great stock in their opinion of him - a fact implied by his wounded expression when a former girlfriend tells him it "wasn't that great". He is also a great champion of the underdog, defending Kent "Flounder" Dorfman when the assembled brothers of the Delta fraternity didn't want to let him pledge, and further defending him against the bullying of Nedermeyer during ROTC training (through judicious application of golf skills). Otter treats everyone he meets with jovial good nature, and in no way places himself above others despite being President of the fraternity and getting laid constantly. In one of the greatest, most irony-laced comic speeches of all time, he defends Delta's antics against the accusations of Nedermeyer's militarist/conservative Omega House by "wrapping himself in the flag" and accusing Dean Wormer of being unpatriotic.
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- Emmett "Doc" Brown (Christopher Lloyd) in Back to The Future & sequels (1985, 1989, 1990).
Description: Despite his eccentricities, Doc Brown is driven almost entirely by curiosity and a desire to help mankind. Though it was necessary to obtain plutonium for the time machine, he stiffs the terrorists who supplied it so as not to be supporting their activities, thus placing his life in danger for principle. At every turn of events, Doc Brown is the voice of ethics, being not even remotely tempted by the idea of using the time machine to win at gambling. He takes full responsibility for his actions, and several times reflects regretfully on his decision to create the time machine in the first place.
Ultimately he is shown to be at peace with time travel, which can be (tenuously) interpreted as a metaphor for the inherent risks of all decisions in human affairs. Doc proves himself to not be a retreatist, hiding from decisions in fear of doing harm, but an active participant in life and history willing to take the chance of making mistakes in order to create.
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- Sergeant Elias (Willem Dafoe) in Platoon (1986).
Description: Elias is the Good Soldier, in the best meaning of the word - he is not a mindless killing machine, but a man with a heart who sees what he is fighting for in the faces of children and innocent villagers. He doesn't trouble himself with complex philosophizing, he just sees innocent people being slaughtered by the Vietcong and believes he is there to stop it. But he is increasingly isolated and besieged as his superiors and fellow NCO Sergeant Barnes (Tom Berenger) begin to treat those innocent people as the enemy. Elias represents the soul of America, and his death at the hands of Sergeant Barnes is meant to be a metaphor for America losing its soul in Vietnam. He embodies the vulnerability-in-strength that is the ultimate price of decency.
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- Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) in The Shawshank Redemption (1994).
Description: Wrongly imprisoned for life, Andy proves time and again his intelligence, resiliency, and humanity under the most trying circumstances. Even in prison, totally at the mercy of brutal guards, a corrupt warden, and other inmates, he finds little ways to continue taking joy in life and sharing that sense with others. When "the Sisters" - a gang of prison rapists - take note of him, he wonders aloud if he should tell them he's not homosexual: Not judging their proclivities, just stating his own. At the price of spending a week in "the hole," he pipes an opera record over the loudspeakers for the entire prison to hear and be inspired by, and emerges from his time in solitary still smiling from the memory. Andy never gives up, no matter what happens to him, because (as he says) he has something inside that cannot be taken away. In the end, he escapes, brings the warden and corrupt guards to justice, and gives hope to an old convict who wouldn't have had any otherwise. Andy is the indomitable spirit of freedom - something that can survive in the darkest of pits, warmed by its own light.
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- Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski in The Big Lebowski (1998).
Description: The Dude is a perennially-stoned, aging slacker/hippie and bowling aficionado living in Southern California who becomes embroiled in a hilarious crime mystery by virtue of a name mix-up. While one of the laziest people alive, he nonetheless has a deep concern for others even as he expresses exasperation at stupidity, hypocrisy, and other annoying behavior. When he is convinced that his actions may result in someone's death, he takes the matter very seriously (while still remaining incredibly lazy). He loves and cares about people, and that fact is made all the more profound because he can see all their blemishes plainly. After a long, comically brutal tirade by the Chief of Police of Malibu, The Dude responds with, "I'm sorry, I wasn't listening." As the narrator says in the closing monologue, the Dude is out there "takin' er easy for all us sinners." The Dude is Jesus for Slackers, and an eminent figure of liberal virtue.
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- Conscientious Juror (Henry Fonda) in 12 Angry Men (1957).
Description: A young man stands accused of capital murder, and every juror but one is convinced of his guilt from the very beginning of deliberations. It isn't that Fonda's character is a genius who immediately sees the flaws in the case - what sets him apart is that he is unwilling to send someone to likely execution without first fully examining the evidence presented at trial. He understands what is at stake, and does not cavalierly regard the matter as settled without first looking closely at the facts. He values the life of the young man on trial, and does not regard his decision as one of mere procedure to be dispensed with as soon as possible. Rather, he applies his best powers of reason to the case to test whether the evidence against the defendant truly warrants conviction, and the closer he looks, the more flaws he uncovers.
He is not acting as an advocate for the defendant, but for the truth, and compels the other jurors through reason and morality to acknowledge the limitations of the case. This film is a powerful testament to the ultimate purpose of the jury system and the Enlightenment ideals behind it. While it sometimes goes awry, with outrageous convictions and preposterous acquittals, we should all be grateful knowing that people like that are real and not as uncommon as you might think.
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- Yoda (voiced by Frank Oz) in Star Wars (saga) (1977, 1980, 1983, 1999, 2002, 2001).
Description: "Oh, 'great warrior', heh. Wars not make one great." In one simple statement, a little green muppet with droopy Einstein eyes doles out wisdom that half the human species can't quite seem to comprehend no matter how often it's illustrated to them. Yoda is deep and yet has a sense of humor; peaceful and content, and yet perfectly ready to fight like a little ball of lightning. His power comes from Life itself, and he loves and serves Life. He is the Buddha of the Star Wars universe, benevolent, serene, and yet full of care for the whole of the living cosmos and all its constituents. He isn't omniscient, and yet knows he doesn't have to be, because he takes his cues from the currents of Life as felt in the Force. The Dark Side, to him, is just shadow and fog - shallow, meaningless, and sad. Although not exactly politically useful, Yoda is the purest embodiment of liberalism by implication. We are peaceful, but defend when attacked; loving of knowledge, but not idolatrous of information or the means of attaining it; and more than anything else, we love to share what we are by teaching and creating, seeing our joy expounded in infinite diversity.