I recently heard the expression that people
don’t really change.
There is even a song from Coldplay about
it, ‘We Never Change’ from their first album ‘Parachutes.’ I would like to
slightly disagree with this though.
It’s not that people don’t change, it’s
that we don’t expect people to change. We expect people to be the same
tomorrow, and the same next week, and the same next year. We have an impression
of a person, usually formed within your first conversation with them, and this
sticks. If nothing else about this person does, their name, what they do, what
their interests and hobbies and anything else you talk about, this impression
of them does. How shy or talkative are they? Are they funny, are they snappy,
are they grumpy, are they a mood killer, are they ultra responsible, ultra
religious? Any number of things get impressed onto us, and we never, ever
expect these things to change.
And what’s funny is that, often enough,
this doesn’t seem to change. However many times we see the person after that,
the only things we look for, or notice, comes form this impression. And
anything that doesn’t fall into this impression, we kind of filter out. We
don’t do it on purpose, in fact we don’t even notice it. Since we expect a
person to be in a certain way, whenever they don’t, our minds do this kind of
strange rationalization of telling our brain that this isn’t the norm. That
there is some reason why they are acting this way, and this isn’t the norm. The
thing is, this might be the norm, the first time we saw them might have been
the exception. Or maybe neither of these fully represents what the person is
like. You’ve probably seen that person two or three times, for a total of 3-4
hours, and actually talked to them for like 20 minutes. How do you really know
someone in that time?
Films, books, games, even music constantly
gets criticized for having characters that do not get developed enough. Most
common ways of critics phrasing this are ‘this character lacks depth,’ ‘filled
wit 2D characters,’ ‘feels like watching cardboard cut outs spouting
exposition.’ This is one of the reasons I disagree with critics, they expect
all of these to fulfill a set of criteria that doesn’t fully suit them. This
works a little differently for film and television.
In film, critics gain an impression very
quickly about the characters. The thing is, critics are a bit like politicians,
they have personal preference that they try to put aside in order to be
impartial, but really they don’t. If the first time we see the character, no
matter what situation they’re in, we like, and see some good qualities, then
suddenly they are a developed character, that you root for. Then, whatever they
do through the rest of the movie, the critic reads into that in the context of
their first impression. For example, if the character turns out to have a
family, two reactions can be taken from it. If the critic likes the character,
they’ll think, ‘Ok, they have a family, they have these good qualities, and now
these extra attributes can be added that relate to the family. This character
is clearly developed and multi-layered, and I’m going to root for them more.’
The other reaction, is they don’t like the character is, ‘So they have a
family? Big deal, now they have some generic motivation, and we’ll start
feeling sorry whenever this cardboard character gets in danger. Could the
filmmakers be any lazier?’ So because they like, or don’t like, the character,
suddenly the entire concept of a developed character becomes neglible.
In television, the process is completely
the opposite. Television critics are very lazy people. They watch the premiere
episode, maybe even the first two episodes, and then they write their review. I
know, this seems completely fair when the complete season is between 12 and 25
episodes long, but that’s what they do. When it comes to character’s in
television, critics expect people to be flat. Because the characters have to
keep going for potentially five years or more, critics award them for being
flat, and for giving on the most subtle hint of an actual character. If an
actor enters the scene showing any kind of big personality, they are decried.
They are over-the-top, and shallow, and lacking the depth that the other
characters, that have expressed nothing at all, clearly do.
Join me next week as I continue talking
about how people really do change, and how we can learn to accept it.
Daniel Lyons.
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