2016 Calvin Awards: Best Character
By David Mumpower
February 23, 2016
BoxOfficeProphets.com

Furiosa, setting the bald, one-armed fashion trends.
The BOP Staff doesn’t argue any category as intensely as Best Character. It’s always the most divisive subject. The power of art exists in the emotional reactions it triggers. Not all of these sensations are positive. In the case of movie characters, someone that a lot of people might love such as Alien from Spring Breakers might feel like nails on the chalkboard to others. Choosing the selections for this category has proven so combative that a voter once suggested that people should have the ability to vote against characters if they’re performing uncomfortably well. That’s how passionate our collective responses are in Best Character. Fortunately, this year wasn’t quite so inflammatory. In the end, we all settled on female empowerment as the optimal result.

As you’re about to read, four out of the top six nominees in Best Character are female. All of them embody inner strength and emotional complexity, even the robot. Given how emphatic our voting celebrates the ladies this year, the choice for the category winner is obvious.

Imperator Furiosa has one arm, one purpose, one rifle, one frenemy, and Five Wives. Technically, the wives are married to someone else, but Furiosa embraces the responsibility of taking these unwilling brides into the sand storm, hoping that they’ll find a better fate on the other side. Along the way she meets a madman named Max, and the two of them work together surprisingly well even as they act totally indifferent to one another. It’s a refreshing change of pace from Hollywood conventions about the male and female protagonist eventually falling in love. We never learn for sure whether Furiosa is even into dudes, but if she is, Max ain’t one of them.

The Imperator’s intended destination is the Green Place, which is presumably what passes for Heaven in this barren wasteland. Along the way, she unintentionally makes her way back home before determining to go full circle, leading her female friends back where they started. At no point does she show fear or remorse. She is a battle-hardened survivalist of singular purpose. Her unflappable ferocity in the face of anti-feminine animosity is the foundation of Mad Max: Fury Road. What it proves is that nobody needed a Furious Seven last year, just a Furiosa. She’s the clear choice as Best Character of the year.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is now the most popular domestic release of all-time. And the source of its popularity rests on a pair of petite shoulders. Slender Rey, the Jakku scavenger, may not look like much, but don’t mistake her nondescript appearance as an indication of fragility. This babe is chockfull of Midichlorians, and she’s a quick learner to boot. All Rey needs to do is watch another (whiny, villainous) dude use The Force once before she can perform the same tricks even better.

The joy of The Force Awakens is right there in the title. The movie hinges on Rey’s quick evolution from unknowing Jedi neophyte into terrifying light saber slayer. George Lucas never received enough credit for his strong female character in Star Wars, but J.J. Abrams paid careful attention to his tutor. What he learned then is on full display in the most popular movie ever. We don’t know anything about Rey’s history yet (our money’s on Captain Phasma as the baby mama), but we do know she was one of the two best characters of the year.

Intrepid botanist Mark Watney is the finest male character of the year, which means he’s the third best overall. Watney is the type of guy who makes lemonade when life gives him lemons. And he somehow does it on Mars. Seriously, this dude is accidentally abandoned and left for dead in the harshest environment in the solar system. How does he react? He starts fertilizing a potato farm and scavenging all remaining NASA equipment on the planet to phone (well, email) home. The genius of The Martian is that a diverse group of people work together to save a man trapped on Mars. Watney represents the best of them due to his impressive combination of intelligence, resolve, and perseverance. The BOP staff adored The Martian as a novel, and the cinematic adaptation of the Mark Watney character is somehow even more charming. The movie might have even won this category if the person stranded had been Marcy Watney instead.

At least one other woman earns a spot in the top five. We’re not quite sure if the fourth place finisher does, though. Exactly what is Bing Bong? It’s got a male voice, but it’s certainly not anatomically correct…unless the giant trunk signifies more than we’d realized. Anyway, Bing Bong tugs at our heartstrings in Inside Out as the forgotten imaginary friend Riley outgrew. Despite his absence in her life, he remains dedicated to Riley, eventually sacrificing himself to save her. He (?) is the latest unforgettable Pixar character. Meanwhile, fifth place goes to Ilsa Faust, the MI6 operative in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation who may or may not be a traitor. Faust as portrayed by Rebecca Ferguson is tough enough to disable and pistol whip an armed opponent, determined enough to save a drowning man from a watery demise, and dedicated enough to betray anybody standing in the way of her completing her mission. I maintain that on a list comprised of strong female characters, she’s the most impressive overall.

Sixth and seventh place are also both women. Well, kind of. Our sixth nominee is Ava from Ex Machina, the sexbot who is ambivalent about passing her Turing Test. Once she sees an opportunity, however, Ava demonstrates remarkable cunning in manipulating events to achieve the desired outcome, no matter how it works out for her human counterparts.

Our seventh selection is Sadness, who looks female and is voiced by a woman. So, we’re going to count her as another entrant in the decidedly girl power-intensive top 10. Sadness is problematic to all those around her, but she doesn’t mean to be. She simply doesn’t know anything else but feeling blue. When forced to work with Joy, our choice for ninth Best Character this year, she reveals the subtlety and nuance of the hidden message Pixar seeds into Inside Out. These two emotions are symbiotic, which is why the human condition possesses such complexity.

Perhaps the weirdest nominee in the history of the category earns eighth place in our voting. You know that flamethrower guitar-playing dude in Mad Max: Fury Road? Yes, him. Our staff loves that dude so much that we think he deserves a spin-off film. He could fight crime by performing wailing guitar licks until the bad guys are smoking ashes. This needs to happen, George Miller! Our final nominee this year is Sin-Dee from Tangerine, a transgender prostitute, portrayed by transgender actress Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, who was a prostitute herself. Her ability to draw from personal experience injects authenticity and empathy into the revenge-seeking character when she discovers that her pimp boyfriend cheats on her.

Characters we loved who narrowly missed nomination this year include Eilis Lacey from Brooklyn, BB-8 and Finn from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Jack from Room, Major Marquis Warren from The Hateful Eight, Adonis Creed from Creed, and Susan Cooper from Spy.

Calvins Intro
Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Album
Best Cast
Best Character
Best Director
Best Overlooked Film
Best Picture
Best Scene
Best Screenplay
Best Supporting Actor
Best Supporting Actress
Best TV Show
Best Use of Music
Breakthrough Performance
Worst Performance
Worst Picture