Cheap ways writers and directors get us to bond with lead characters

Hi, certain scenes and stereotypes crop up again and again in even the finest films and TV shows, scenes intended to make us bond and identify with the heroes and lead characters. You can bet they will appear in the next movie you watch. What are they?

1. The drunken bar scene. This is where otherwise respected, intelligent, successful characters get stupidly drunk together in a bar after work, saying stupid things, laughing, telling idiotic jokes, barely able to make it home. There will be off-color, insulting remarks, meant with love and camaraderie. I guess the viewer is supposed to think, "Hey they're just like me and my friends, we do that too." Drunken clowns, I hate them.

2. The divorced father picking up his kids for his weekend with them. The father is devoted, loving, his kids love him, but make no mistake, the ex-wife has some very real grievances with him. Maybe he worked too hard, wasn't home enough, made an honest mistake and cheated, drank and played too hard. We are supposed to care because most of us also have the same problems, life has dealt us the same hard luck cards.

3. The special relationship with a child who is not related to you. Ladd in Shane, Denzel did this in Man On Fire and The Equalizer, Sigourney in Aliens, Jody Foster in Nell, Mel Gibson in Road Warrior, Liam did it in A Walk Among The Tombstones. Usually, the child is poor, precocious, sassy, a prostitute, or all of the above. How can you dislike a character who takes a special interest in a child? You can also substitute the child with a dog, an alien, or a special needs adult.

These plots and formulas appear so much they pretty much have a box office figure attached.

 

The beginnings of Patton and The Godfather have the same trick: the lead character delivers a long impassioned speech that discloses their philosophy of life and shows that, while you may not agree with certain parts of their life/lifestyle, that you are listening to a man whose heart is in the right place and you are probably ready to follow him for 2 hours and see what happens. Francis did a great job; great scripts.

 

Their dog is killed.

 

A movie only has 90 minutes to create a new world, introduce new characters and tell an entire story. It has to establish its characters quickly with the audience, else it has no time to tell the story. If a filmmaker uses cliches to establish character, it doesn't mean they are creatively bankrupt. They use cliches familiar to the audience to establish things very quickly, so they can focus on other things in the storytelling.

Many of the OP's examples are action films. Audiences aren't going to action films to see 40 minutes of characters learning to care about each other. The filmmaker needs to hit the audience fast: good guy ... bad guy ... conflict ... action!

In a book or a TV series, where the storyteller has much more room, the storyteller can be more creative in presenting the characters.

 

I'd like to add another one.

The lead character is a recovering alcoholic or drug addict. When his friends order drinks, he orders something embarrassing, like an orange juice, or a beverage with a pink umbrella and a palm tree. His friends laugh at him, but he sticks to his code. By the final third of the film, when the hero's best friend and partner is killed, the director will do a close up of this same hero surrounded by emptied liquor bottles. The hero tried to stay clean, but had a noble flaw which came out because he hurt too much, he cared too much.

 

Hollywood is played out... close the curtain. and shut the doors..
and lock the gates... we are creatively bankrupt.. kaput..

 

seductive mysterious women?

 

Roger Ebert had a movie glossary, where he collected movie cliches, including submissions from his readers. A couple I like, that fit with the theme of the OP's thread.

Ali MacGraw's Disease
Movie illness in which the only symptom is that the sufferer grows more beautiful as death approaches. (This disease claimed many screen victims, often including Greta Garbo.)

Bad Smoker Rule
In any cop movie made since the mid-'70s, the bad guys smoke, while the good guy is trying to quit.

Caring Blanket Tuck-In
Effective in conveying the soft heart of an otherwise unappealing character. Cf. James Woods in COP. Also used in scenes involving the hero, usually as a set-up for a scene in which tucked-in child suddenly finds himself/herself in great danger. Cf. Glenn Ford in THE BIG HEAT.

Del Close's Rule
Never share a foxhole with a character who carries a photo of his sweetheart.

Omens of War
One man shows another a photo of his wife, kids, sweetheart etc. This photo always re-appears when the man is killed, to remind us of his warmth.

 

The only device I absolutely hate is a character giving exposition to a psychiatrist. Even Paddy Chayefsky sunk to this in The Hospital.

 

A disgruntled or depressed character who is part of a system that is corrupt and oppresses/bullies a group of people. At first, the character sees no way out of their current situation. Character becomes suicidal or on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Then all of a sudden, they "see the light" and find their way out by joining the oppressed/bullied people and helps them with their fight against their oppressors/bullies.

 

Make your lead character mentally disabled

 

"Never go full retard" - Tropic Thunder

 

That head movie...makes my eyes rain.

 

Ben Stiller will never top Tropic Thunder...

 

Judging by his last three or four films, I think you may be right.

I think the key thing any film or work of fiction has to do is to introduce us to a character and let us figure out over time what this character wants. It also helps if the film reaches a critical point where the lead character has to make a critical decision -- usually the hard way, requiring heroics and lots of effort, or the easy way, basically the cowardly way out -- and when they make the right choice, the audience can commit to them. It helps to make the lead character a person of action, not somebody who passively just reacts to the thing around him or her. All of this requires effort, and the best fiction and screenplays force the writer to come up with imaginative ways to present these characters and situations.

And don't ever kill the dog.

 

Pet a dog.

Care for sick family member/friend.

 

They are beat up by an unsympathetic authority figure.

 

The lead character is the only white guy in sight who doesn't engage in some reprehensible activity against a minority group -- e.g., Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves.

 

And the horror movie tropes:
- the blonde with the big you know whats always comes to a gruesome end;
-when given the chance to leave, the protagonists instead venture further into the risk zone;
-the toothless creepy guy that shows up early on as the potential evil doer is almost always just a harmless, toothless creepy guy;
-said toothless creepy guy usually has deep insight into the the mysteries of the horror that awaits, but if only the protagonists had taken him seriously at the outset, which they never do;
-jock/frat boy types usually get it between the eyes sooner or later- see the 'blonde' rule, above;
-almost all of these stories are set in small, nowheresville towns or vacation spots (often out of season) or if in the city, take place in sewers.

 

I loved how all these tropes were subverted in The Cabin In The Woods.

 

That is a very funny, amusing movie.

Noted Hollywood writer Ken Levine talks about screenwriter Treva Silverman's career in this piece, and he mentions a story where she wrote one new scene for the film Romancing the Stone primarily to get the audience to bond with Kathleen Turner's character:

Test audiences hated the Kathleen Turner character -- they thought she was too cold. Plus, they only had the budget to reshoot the first scene – where Kathleen is home alone, gets a call from her sister, and has to go save her. Treva had the solution: give her a cat. Let her talk baby talk to the cat. Just that one bit of behavior completely won over the audience. And the rest is box office history.

By Ken Levine: Meet Treva Silverman

 

It's pretty wild how they get Rob Lowe's character in the Hotel New Hampshire to be sympathetic when all he wants out of life is to get it on with his sister.

 

No character under 35 in an indie movie or modern novel can be held responsible for their actions or failures if they had a parent die when they are really young. Sure they are loaded all the time, irresponsible, and treat others like crap, but it's ok because they have grainy, sunflared memory sequences when they are having a great time at the beach with their mom, whom would like be played in the cameo by Blythe Danner.