After finishing Six Feet Under last weekend, I've been feeling a Claire Fisher shaped hole in my life. I love all of the SFU characters. I love the entire Fisher family. I love Ruth. I love Nate. I love David. But Claire is my favourite. I think a lot of it has to do with the way in which I feel related to her character. In many ways, she's the voice of the series, she's the instigator of so much of what happens. The way in which Claire is shown as a creative person (particularly in the earlier seasons) is something that particularly interests me. The image of her with her camera constantly in hand made me think a lot about my own photography and how capturing the everyday "mundane" can be incredibly meaningful. Her struggles with inspiration and creative drive in the later episodes of the series and her uncertainty about her direction in life are HUGELY relatable.
I feel like the writers use Claire as something of a prophetic narrator for the series. The way she says things is almost as if she is being used to talk directly to you, she can blatantly say outright what the particular episode is trying to put across without it seeming forced or contrived.
And the way in which Lauren Ambrose portrays her is PERFECTION. Claire matures and changes so much throughout the shows five seasons but Ambrose never has a weak spot through out. She stays true to the ideals of the high school teenager we are introduced in the very first episode, while also not stunting the growth of the character. She becomes an adult, but not an idealised version of what an adult should be. I found myself asking myself throughout the entire series "WHY IS THERE NOT MORE LAUREN AMBROSE ON TV?!?!" and after finishing the show, I immediately went on Amazon and bought "Psycho Beach Party". "Psycho Beach Party" also features a just-starting-out Amy Adams and a mid-Buffy Nicholas Brendon. If you love campy comedy horror, then I'd thoroughly recommend it.
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