Television Show "House MD" - Greg House: Good Guy, Pure Evil or Just a Jerk?

Dr. Gregory House-chief diagnostician of the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital of New Jersey, main character of award-winning medical drama "House, M.D.," disturbed genius, lovable ass.

He must be lovable. He's one of the most popular television characters in America today. Unlovable people aren't popular, right? Besides, most of his fans are women. The question is, is he worth it? Is House a good guy or a bad guy? Is he a straight shooter or just plain mean?

Just Who the Heck Is Greg House Anyway?

Greg House, played by British actor Hugh Laurie, is the brilliant head of a four-doctor diagnostics department, working with three bright young fellows (as in fellowship). Because of his Holmesian abilities at finding the causes of pathologies that no one else can figure out, he does exactly what he wants. This includes working no more than one hand-picked case per week, purposely annoying his colleagues and boss and intimidating patients. Sometimes he even treats them against their will. They tend to be so grateful after he saves their lives, however, that assault charges are very rarely brought.

House's most oft-stated belief, the belief on which he bases his entire practice, in fact, is, "Everybody lies." House does not go out of his way to be nice to people. Even dying people. Especially dying people. He's not even nice to people when it's the path of least resistance, but either takes a perverse delight in screwing with their heads or simply lashes out. Like the time he yelled at a patient for running into him with a cup of apple juice, which House thought was a cup o' urine. He did apologize, but only after a colleague insisted, and only to avoid another lawsuit, after which he took an intense interest in the patient, who had started exhibiting weird symptoms.

Start exhibiting weird, inexplicable symptoms, and you won't be able to get him away from you.

Some years before the show begins, House suffered muscle tissue death in his right leg and refused to let doctors amputate. As a result, he lives with severe pain, which he openly treats with Vicodin and whiskey.

One particularly noticeable characteristic about Greg House is his bluntness, and his refusal to "make nice" or to "go along to get along." For instance, the husband of a pregnant patient once begged him to get his wife to give up the baby to undergo a treatment that could cure the ailment that was killing her.

"Leave the room," was his response to the husband.

Once the husband was gone, he told the wife she was being an idiot. To paraphrase, he told her in no uncertain terms that if she didn't accept treatment, she would die and that martyrdom was highly overrated. He didn't offer comfort. He didn't attempt to gain her approval or affection. He laid out the cold, hard facts of the situation, and convinced her to accept the treatment.

Once, he took a bottle of whiskey to the room of a patient from the state prison's death row. He told the patient that a condemned man had the right to a last drink. He didn't tell the man until they were both drunk that the alcohol would bond with the copier fluid with which the man had tried to commit suicide, and cause him to urinate out the poison.

He will stop at nothing to save a patient. Once saved, however, the patient is of no further interest to him.

On the other hand, he takes every opportunity to reference Dr. Eric Foreman's criminal history. One of his pet names for the black physician is "Dr. Mandingo," which references a black porn star known for his manly endowments. Foreman seems to know that he isn't being singled out, however, as House never lets an opportunity pass to remark about the feminine attributes of his boss, Dr. Lisa Cuddy, and the female fellow, Dr. Allison Cameron, who works under him. In fact, if House had seen that particular sentence, he would have something lewd-but very clever nonetheless-to say about it. Dr. Robert Chase doesn't get out unscathed either. House once told him to do some investigating at a prison because, "You have the prettiest mouth," and calls him a wombat because he's Australian. "Scared little wombat" was, I believe the exact phrasing on at least one occasion.

However, those who work closely with House know better than to let them get under their skin. At least the ones who aren't named Cameron do.

What Other Characters Think of House

Unlike House, Dr. Cameron simply cannot give bad news to a patient. She is the Pollyanna of the group who becomes very upset each time she finds out that her patients are, indeed, lying to her. And to each other. She resents the notion that House may have hired her at least partially because she's pretty. She has a Grand Canyon-sized crush on House and wants to believe that he is a good man. When the available evidence seems to support that belief, she gazes lovingly at him with puppy-dog eyes. When the evidence suggests he may just be a self-centered jerk, she pouts and lectures him about how things "should" work in the world. She is kind to people she considers "good," because she feels they deserve kindness. She is judgmental toward people she considers "bad," because she feels they deserve that. A husband once asked her if he was a bad person because part of him didn't want his wife to make it, because her extramarital affair is what had made her ill. Cameron replied, "Yes." She called the man on death row "dirt," because she was upset with House for taking that case as opposed to that of someone Cameron considered morally worthy of health care.

Also unlike House, Cameron is extremely concerned about how others see her-whether they like her, whether they think she received her fellowship based on intellectual merit or other factors, that sort of thing. On more than one occasion, however, this unwillingness to cause pain has prolonged patient suffering-evidence that House's brusque manner with patients, while it seems cruel at the time, actually enables patients to face the reality of impending death-or of impending painful medical treatments-more quickly.

Of the five people who work closely with House (the three fellows, the hospital's attorney and the hospital administrator) Cameron is the only one who will admit liking him. Perhaps it has something to do with opposites attracting. Perhaps it has something to do with her belief that it isn't nice to not like people, and since she wants to be seen as a nice person, because she genuinely believes she is a nice person, she must strive to give this man the benefit of the doubt.

House's best (and probably only) friend, is also an opposite of sorts. Chief of oncology, Dr. James Wilson is the sort of doctor-with his warm, caring voice and compassionate eyes-you want at your bedside when you learn your condition is terminal. Wilson believes in being nice to people, and he's good at it. He has Cameron's need to nurture, which occasionally expresses itself in intimate relationships with his dying patients, to the chagrin of his current wife.

Wilson believes in protecting the feelings of others through liberal application of the Social Lie. People like him, even though they know he could be lying to them. House is honest. Too honest, according to Wilson, who seems to be the only person House will admit liking (although he seems quite affectionate with Cuddy-in his own way, of course). House, in turn, is probably the only person Wilson is truly honest with.

Is House a Good Guy or a Jerk?

It's obvious that Greg House is not a nice guy, but to determine whether he is a good guy or simply a jerk takes a little more investigation, a little thought, rather than a simple knee-jerk reaction. Most people dismiss him. Because that's what people do-dismiss other people. Like a pouty high-school student, they dismiss the difficult teacher who calls them on their mistakes and expects something from them. But if we go around dismissing everyone who gives us a swat on the ass, and expect everyone to make us feel good 100 percent of the time, then we'll miss out on some valuable insights, like, "Either take these steps to save your life, or die. It's up to you." That's not a direct quote, by the way.

If you're going to determine House's-or anyone else's-worth, you have to look at underlying intent. Take House's racial and sexual comments toward Cuddy and Foreman, for instance. If House were attempting to cost Foreman his medical license because he's black, or if he refused to take direction from Cuddy because she's a woman, that would be bad. But House respects Cuddy and Foreman very much. Cuddy is the only person he will sort of listen to once in a while, and he trusts Foreman with his patients. He did, after all, hire him in the first place. Jokes aside, when the chips are down, everyone knows what House thinks about them. Take the 9-year-old cancer patient who manipulated Chase into kissing her. When they had mere seconds to see what was going on in her brain (because they'd drained her of blood in a highly dangerous and complicated procedure) Foreman caught a glimpse of it. "That's good enough for me," House said.

House is actually working very hard to mask positive feelings toward certain people by lobbing insults at them. It keeps the other at a distance and House protected. This works because people are gullible, emotional beings who love reacting to being wronged.

Now, consider House's bedside manner. He's blunt, forthright and matter-of-fact. Like a commander on a battlefield, he refuses to sugarcoat anything. He won't let his colleagues or his patients ignore the fact that the stakes are high. Sometimes he makes people cry, but they face hard truths quickly. "You're going to die," he told that young cancer patient. "The question is how. And when."

Or something like that. I'm pulling from memory here. You get the idea.

He doesn't have a facade of "niceness" to protect. He says what's on his mind. He's more honest than the average bear. Others' reaction to that honesty is a good indication of how human beings actually feel about something that is supposed to be a virtue.

House understands human nature; therefore, he accepts it. He isn't happy about it, but he accepts it. Unlike Cameron, who plays a "nice" part (if she feels you are deserving, House won't judge you for being human. He may yell at you for it and frighten you half to death just before calling you an idiot for making the wrong decision, but he won't judge you. He'll simply assume you are human.

Of course, that does mean he'll assume you're lying to him about something.

That doesn't really answer the question of whether House is a good guy or a jerk. That depends on whether you consider "good" synonymous with "nice," and whether you believe that true kindness can often masquerade as cruelty and vice-versa. Your call. But that means you've got to think.