I watched Reality Bites recently for the first time, and got into a discussion with someone about it the other day.

Basically, for any who hasn't seen it, it's about few friends dealing with post college plans, and the central conflict is the main character, portrayed by Winona Rider choosing between Ben Stiller, who plays a young corporate executive type for a TV station, and Ethan Hawke who is a deadbeat musician wannabe who has apparently been Rider's best friend for some time.

Simply put, the central problem, if that's what you want to call it is this - basically, at the end of the movie she ends up choosing Ethan Hawke over Ben Stiller, and it seems like Hawke is supposed to be the good guy - he's arty, he's got soul, he cares about her, while Ben Stiller is the evil soulless corporate suit. I'm not sure what the feeling is overall, but my friend took this stance, buttressed by the position that Ethan Hawke was really hot, which is not something I can speak to. Anyway, in the movie this position is supposed to be reinforced somewhat by the fact that Rider's documentary - a movie she's been working on featuring all her friends - was destroyed and torn apart by Stiller's TV network in an effort to make it cool or edgy or whatever, tearing apart the project she had spent months working on, and in her anger, Hawke is there to comfort her.

As much as I want to root for the out of work arty one, it clearly seems like Ben Stiller is the good guy here. Ben Stiller is nothing but incredibly nice to her the entire movie, and he tries to get her video on air to help her out - not because he wants to massacre it - he even admits he hasn't seen it after the edits his station did to it. In fact, he feels so bad about it he comes to find her and offer to a chance to go with him to New York and get it changed. If he was really supposed to be all crass and commercial, maybe there'd be some speech about how changing it made it better, or at least how comprimising on her integrity a little would allow more people to see it, but there's none of that.

On top of that, Hawke is downright hostile and is a complete jackass to Rider (not to mention Stiller) several times in the film. Making fun of people is one thing, but he's downright mean. And he's out and out rude to Stiller - I don't care if you're jealous, that's still completely uncalled for - bury it deep within yourself and drink a lot later. Not to mention he's extremely pretentious, and full of himself. He gets fired from the job he originally has for stealing a Snickers. He refuses to show up for an interview that Rider's dad arranged for him - now it's one thing if he doesn't want the job, but he doesn't even have the decency to tell someone beforehand. He has several chances early in the movie to go after Rider - she clearly likes him but time and again he says he's not interested - after her first date with Stiller, he rips her relentless than says he's in love with her, just to get a rise out of her, and then tells her not to flatter herself. He only finally discovers he cares enough when he has competition. Now, sure the whole he left to deal with his dying father is supposed to somehow equate him maturing or something, and it's terrible that his dad died, but I'm not buying it.

I say this having come to this movie finding most Ben Stiller characters very annoying - you know what I call the "Ben Stiller character" - the neurotic awkward guy who is always a step behind but in a set-up-for-vulgar-slapstick-Farrelly-brothers-style rather than some kind of adorable, naive way. But that character had yet to be established. Ethan Hawke is a douchebag. She made the wrong choice.