Foil

Character Role Analysis

Bender and Andrew, Bender and Claire, Richard Vernon and Carl

Bender and Andrew end up sparring with each other—verbally and almost physically— from the get-go. At one point, Bender pulls a switchblade on Andrew, though he doesn't actually use it. They're falling into their expected roles: Bender is the obnoxious bad boy while Andrew is the quasi-noble jock who steps up to Claire's defense when Bender harasses her.

Their personalities bounce right off each other. Bender thinks Andrew's just an entitled athlete who doesn't know what it's like to have real family problems, and Andrew thinks Bender's faking his bad boy image and just pretending to have a negative home life. But when Andrew sees the cigar burn Bender's dad gave him, and Bender learns how Andrew's dad treats him like a gladiator-slave, they see that they're not so far apart. As Bender says, "Your old man and my old man should get together and go bowling."

Bender and Claire are technically "love interests" but they're also foils, in the sense that they have two apparently opposing personalities that continually bounce off each other. Bender constantly harasses Claire because he's—transparently—sexually attracted to her. And even though Claire reacts with disgust and irritation, she reciprocates to some degree, defending Bender when Vernon accuses him of removing a screw from the door (which Bender, in fact, did).

Also, Richard Vernon and Carl are foils. Carl remembers what it was like to be a kid, while Vernon has put a ton of distance between himself and the younger generation. When Carl says that he wanted to be John Lennon when he was a kid, Vernon says, "Don't be a goof!"

But Carl's probably saying something fairly genuine, here. Vernon's so divorced from the adolescent mindset that he just doesn't get what's going on. But Carl, thanks to the nature of his job—which allows him to listen in on kids' conversations (something that Vernon's job could allow him to do too, of course)—seems more in touch. Their appearances highlight this difference too: Carl's in a standard janitorial uniform, while Vernon's dressed in slick business-casual.