When Kelsey Grammer meets his nemesis

What makes a character real?

It appears that one of the reasons why reality tv has become so popular is that people want to relate to - and in many cases identify with - “real characters”. Fiction is designed to entertain us, and at times even inspire us. But still, no matter how well we are drawn into the plot, identifying with the characters, struggling together with them through their tribulation and celebrating with them through their success - in the end it is just fiction. The curtain goes down and the credits roll across the screen.

But what does this mean - “just fiction”? Can something be fiction and also be real? This depends, I suppose, on how we define reality. In the virtual age, where whole complex communities exist only in cyberspace, we may have to redefine this whole issue. Perhaps we should separate reality and meaning. Reality competitions bring us face to face with “real people” - some who we can identify with more and some less. But does this make them any more “meaningful” to our own existence than, say - a literary character? Might we not define reality as to what a character brings out in us - what we discover to be real about ourselves?

One of the reasons why some actors playing popular roles in a tv sitcom decide to leave these roles, even though the sitcom may still be at the height of it popularity, is because they don’t want to become stereotyped by these characters, preventing them from playing any other types of roles in the future. For we, the public, know them only by the roles that they play. And when they do try to break away and play something distinctly different, we then think that they are acting “out of character”.

And then along comes Kelsey Grammer.

For those of us old enough to remember, Kelsey Grammer made his first big start in the tv role of Dr. Frasier Crane on the sitcom “Cheers”. Grammer was meant to appear in only six episodes, but the producers were so impressed with his performance that he became a regular of the show, appearing in 203 episodes. In this role of Frasier Crane, he plays a licensed psychiatrist who appears flawed, silly, pompous and full of himself, yet also kind and vulnerable. Over the years we come to realize that he is very intelligent, but also very insecure. While on Cheers, his character plays a minor role of comic relief. But when Cheers ends after eleven seasons, a new spinoff sitcom - “Frasier” - is created, with Kelsey playing the same character in the starring role. The extremely successful Frasier sitcom lasted for 264 episodes. All in all, Kelsey Grammer played the role of Frasier for twenty years.

If actors fear being stereotyped by a role after playing it for three to four years - one would be led to believe that that Kelsey could never break out of the mould of Frasier. And yet, last year he set out in a completely different direction in the sitcom “Boss”, playing Chicago Mayor Tom Kane, who is suffering with DLB, a degenerative neurological disorder. The show takes us into twisted and dark places in a backstabbing and corrupt political culture where Kane will do whatever is necessary in order to defeat any sort of opposition to his plans and policies. How is it possible that someone who has played such a popular comedic role for twenty years could ever expect the public to relate to his new dark, dramatic role as something “real”, and “meaningful”. Watching him as Kane in Boss, how could they really see anything but him as Frasier?

Yet now, into the second season of Boss, I can’t see Grammer as anything but Kane. I might even go on to say that while Frasier was entertaining, Boss is both entertaining and meaningful. And real, at least real for me. For it touches upon dark sides of myself which I’d prefer to believe do not exist, a darkness which exists in each of us. Could it be that only now, after twenty years playing a comedic role, that Grammer is finally playing in character in this dark exploration of self? Or perhaps Grammer’s acting genius has captured the reality of the complexity of self.