James Michael Cooper

English actor James Michael Cooper is the main protagonist of the English album and later cult film Quadrophenia. 
He is played by English actor Phil Daniels. 
==Biography==
===Quadrophenia (album)===
Jimmy is introduced in the circular path of the album awaiting his potential death on top of a rock off the coast of Brighton Beach. His inner cries of “can you see the real me” leads into the next track where his story begins.
In sixties London, Jimmy is reflecting on a recent encounter with a psychiatrist who believes he has schizophrenia, and discusses to himself if the doctor or his mother can see his real self. He also reflects on a girl he used to love who doesn’t want anything to do with him, and a preacher he met who seemed scared of him.
It is revealed in Cut My Hair that Jimmy is following the crowds by being part of the mod subculture as he doesn’t want to be alone. His mother also finds a box of amphetamines in his room, reinforcing a worry of his that he will be kicked out. He leaves the house in the morning just when the radio report begins talking about a recent incident between mods and rockers.
Jimmy attends a concert of the Who, where he starts complaining about how fake they seem in comparison to others he has met. After leaving the concert he tries to make himself feel better by promising to show who he truly is.
Jimmy soon gains a job as a dustman, but leaves after only two days because he’s frustrated by how weak-minded the adults are and how they seem so stupid to him. After wandering around for a bit reflecting on the people he’s met, he starts getting paranoid. Shortly afterwards he learns that his best friend Dave was dating someone he met previously. Furious, he rides his moped around and he crashes it, barely avoiding his death.
Shortly after this he’s kicked out of his house by his mother “drunk on stoat” and his dad lecturing about morality while he “couldn’t stand on two feet”. He decides to go to Brighton permanently and ends up attending several clubs while pondering drowning. While in Brighton he meets the Ace Face, an old hero of his, but is shocked to learn that he’s now a bell boy. Disappointed he goes to a pub and gets drunk, loudly exclaiming his intentions to cause violence.
He gets a small rowing boat and rows out to a rock off the coast. While there he starts wondering if this really should be how his story ends. The liner notes end with him answering his psychiatrist’s diagnosis, “Schizophrenic? I’m Bleeding Quadrophenic.” and leaves his fate ambiguous for the listener.
===Quadrophenia (1979 film adaptation)===
James (better known as Jimmy) is working in a London post office and lives in the same part of London as much of his fellow Mods, and he often hangs out with them at weekends in pubs and stuff. Most of the time he likes harassing Rockers, rival youths who drive expensive motorbikes and dress all in leather. Jimmy has a crush on Steph, one of the only female Mods. However she is cold and doesn't return his advances.
One day Jimmy discovers a man singing Rocker songs in the cubicle beside him in the public baths and he begins competing with him, singing "You Really Got Me", by The Kinks. He soon discovers the man is actually his best friend Kevin, to his shock. He is further shocked when he sees Kevin has become a Rocker. Kevin went to join the Army, hoping to get away "from all this" (the boredom of mundane life) but found it followed him even in the Army so he quit. Kevin has only just found out about the rivalry between Mods and Rockers and he is unimpressed.
Jimmy has a mixed relationship with his boss (played by Timothy Spall). To start with, Jimmy feels he needs the job and takes pride in it. However, as the constant theft of drugs and fallouts with the Rockers take effect, Jimmy soon thinks what's the point of life. When one of Jimmy's closest friends, Spider, is beaten up by some Rockers, Jimmy and the rest of the Mods go looking for them on their scooters. When the gang find two rockers, (neither involved in the previous attack, and one of them Kevin) they immediately chase the two down and beat them up. Jimmy, realising that they're beating up Kevin and after a futile attempt to get the others to stop, flees the scene. 
At the weekend, Jimmy and the Mods take a trip down to Brighton where they start a march, shouting the infamous "WE ARE THE MODS!". However, a Mod named Chalky was knocked off his scooter by an aggressive Rocker earlier. Chalky sees the same Rocker and his gang in the march and decides to beat him up. This sparks a massive seafront battle, and soon they cause much damage to Brighton, smashing shop windows and terrorising the rest of the town. The police are inevitably summoned and arrest many involved. Halfway through the chaos, Steph and Jimmy run into an alley to hide from the police. However, upon leaving the alley, Jimmy is immediately detained by two policemen, despite protesting his innocence. Steph leaves, accompanied by Dave.
At court, the rioters are called to pay for their property damage. A charismatic Mod nicknamed "The Ace Face", played by Sting, cheekily says he'll pay on the spot, given his job as a bell boy. Jimmy is summoned next, and he is publicly humiliated in front of the court.
Upon returning home to London, Jimmy's mentally unstable mother has a furious breakdown at him for being a "savage" and kicks him out of the house. When Jimmy tries returning, his equally unstable, aggressive father races downstairs in an attempt to beat up Jimmy, but he flees on his scooter. Jimmy is viewed by his parents as equal to a murderer despite merely smashing a window and punching some Rockers. Jimmy is thrown out and he hides in an underpass and then in his shed, waiting for his aggressive father to leave for work. He goes into his bedroom and tears down all his "filthy pictures", most consisting of nude women. 
During work that day, in a hilarious scene, Jimmy is so embittered about his arrest he tells the boss to go shove his job right up his ass. After being re-admitted back into a bar in which he caused a disturbance previously, Jimmy is disgusted to find Dave is now dating Steph, who's now taking pleasure from Jimmy's discomfort and anger. Jimmy, fed up with Dave's smug attitude, punches Dave in front of Steph, angering his friends, who also drive him off. Jimmy tries apologising to Steph the next day but fails, driving them even further apart. Jimmy is soon struck by lorry while driving his scooter, wrecking it and only driving him closer to madness. 
Jimmy later retreats to Brighton, reliving his sex with Steph, but finds out he can't take anything anymore and becomes a homeless recluse. He constantly takes drugs, and finds The Ace Face, discovering he, despite being a well known Mod, a rebellious subculture based on nonconformity, serves the rich they were acting against. Angry, and feeling "betrayed", Jimmy yells "BELL BOY!" and then steals Ace Face's expensive scooter, storming off to the white cliffs of Dover. He throws the Ace Face's scooter off the cliffs, smashing it to bits, then walks moodily away from the cliffs in the sunset after deciding to give up on his Mod lifestyle. 
==Personality==
Jimmy was an embittered man. He started off as love sick, but then when he found Steph he was no longer. However after she left him he was so heartbroken he gave up on women altogether. Jimmy was also abused by his parents, mostly mentally, although his alcoholic father was implied to whack him sometimes. Instability seemed to run in his family - although Jimmy was not as unstable as his parents. This is alluded to in the film's opening track, "The Real Me", by The Who, ("I went back to my mother, I said I'm crazy, Ma, help me - she said "I know how it feels son, because it runs in the family."")
In the album, Jimmy is a very paranoid individual and makes several remarks to feeling watched or followed, wondering if it’s all in his head. In the liner notes he admits to disliking people and considering them to be stupid, which in turn makes him feel destructive. Jimmy praises Brighton and considers it a fantastic place, and holds great fondness to it, noting that it always cheered him up until Ace Face started working as a bell boy.
Category:Mentally Ill
Category:Wrathful
Category:Male
Category:Comedy Heroes
Category:Fighters
Category:Poor
Category:Thrill-Seekers
Category:Vengeful
Category:Live Action Heroes
Category:Movie Heroes