Sydney Fife, played by Jason Segal, is indeed a very interesting character. He is first introduced at a real estate open house and he admits that he is only attending in an effort to chill in expensive houses, get free food, and pick up divorced women. He also enjoys taking frequent walks with this dog on the beautiful Santa Monica pier, never failing to let his dog "do his business" wherever he pleases. "It's just nature taking it's course," he tells those unlucky enough to walk through the droppings. Although living in California, Sydney wears long sleeved dress shirts, camo cut off shorts, and Ugg boots (most definitely not typical California apparel). At his best friend's engagement party, he gives the lucky couple a toast. However, he goes on to state, with all relatives present, that his friend's fiance fails to perform oral sex on him enough. He later takes $8000 from his best friend as a loan to put up scandalous billboards of his friend, in an effort to increase publicity for his real estate company.
Clearly, Sydney is made out to be a deviant in this movie. Deviance, by definition, refers to socially disapproved behavior or the violation of agreed-upon norms of society. I don't see Sydney as a deviant, though. He is just a normal guy expressing his individuality in his own unique way. Although his behavior and antics clearly do against social norms, he believes this behavior is normal and, therefore, acceptable. One day, Sydney's behavior may be viewed as normal and those involving themselves in behavior that are normal today will be attributed as deviant. Let's hope that never happens!
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