Creating Unforgettable Characters

by Linda Seger

  A CASE STUDY: THE NEVERENDING STORY II

  In spring 1989, I consulted on the The Neverending Story II (the sequel) that was filmed that summer (and due to be released in fall 1990). The story itself begins with the realistic characters of Bastian and his father, and then moves to the fantasy world of Fantasia, where we encounter fantasy characters who are nonhuman, symbolic, and/or mythic characters. In this film, most characters fit into more than one category.

  Some of the nonhuman characters are the Wambos, Wind Bride, Lava Man, Mud Wart, the two-faced Nimbly, and Fal-kor the dragon and Rockbiter, who were also in Part One.

  Of these, the Wambos, Wind Bride, Lava Man, and Mud Wart are also symbolic characters.

  Karin Howard, the writer, explains how she created them: "Some of these characters were derived from the book. The Wambos are the creatures that help storm the castle. The summer that I thought of them was the summer you saw

  Rambo posters wherever you looked. Since their function is similar, instead of calling them Rambo, I called them Wambos. I thought about what makes up an army—such as the noise and the dust—so these creatures create the illusion of battle without really doing anything more than making noise and smoke and dust.

  "The characters from the Ship of Secret Plots—Earth, Air, Wind, and Lava—were created for exposition. In Part One, there was a patriarch who carried out this function. But a patriarch can be philosophical and talky, and I wanted a more visual expression. These emissaries—messengers—explain the situation to Bastian. I took the idea for them from earth, wind, and fire, but made them the mud creature, the wind creature, the fire creature. To expand their characters, I gave them names. Once I had names, I began to think of associations with those names. The instrument creature sounded a little shrill and spinsterish, so I made her into an instrument spinster who represented sound. And the Mud Wart is obviously something that grunts and who represents earth. The Lava Man is fire, and the Wind Bride is the wind.

  "In the book, there's a one-paragraph description about Nimblies—the messengers bearing a certain resemblance to a rabbit. These creatures are among the swiftest runners in Fantasia. I took that idea and created one character called Nimbly who would have running shoes, sneakers, a baseball cap. I realized that if he were running so fast, he would probably have awkward landings; perhaps he'd somersault. I gave him a function—that he was in the service of the witch, probably a spy. And I thought of the word turncoat. So the production department had to physically create a character that communicated turncoat. We physicalized it by seeing him as a creature that could fold his feathers back—showing his bad side when he's with the witch, but when he's with Bastian and Atreyu—the good guys—he moves his feathers forward and shows his good side.

  "Nimbly works with Three-Face, the scrupulous scientist who's willing to be the perfect tool. He's a combination of a crazy technician, a Frankenstein, and the gatekeeper in the city of the Old Empress.

  "I originally had him with a resin body—you could see all the pipes going through this body so he was more of a robot. Now he's more of a magician in a white coat with three eyes.

  "My favorite creature in Part One was Rockbiter. He's a big clunky creature with little bitty eyes and a funny pointed head who eats rocks. Out of a brainstorming meeting we came up with the baby, Rockbiter, Jr. In Part One, Fantasia was threatened by the Nothing, but in Part Two it's threatened by the Emptiness. Junior is hungry, since the rocks in Fantasia were empty. So his function advanced the theme of the Emptiness.

  "Falkor the dragon came already very well defined from Part One. He's the director's and marketing people's favorite. Falkor is the most relational character, the best friend. He has a wonderful understanding of human nature and a fine sense of humor, because he understands the foibles of human nature and will always take the positive point of view."

  These nonhuman characters all had different functions. Nimbly and the Wambos had a story function, the Creatures were there to give exposition, and the Rockbiters advanced the theme.

  In the film, there are a number of human characters. Bastian and his father are realistic characters from earth, the other characters are fantasy characters from Fantasia. Bastian and the fantasy characters of Xayide the witch, the Child-like Empress, Atreyu, the warrior from Fantasia are also mythic characters, taking part in the journey to save Fantasia from the Emptiness.

  Karin continues: "Bastian is the human character, and therefore the one with the most free will and the most unpredictability. He can make all the wrong or all the right choices. He and his father are the most dimensional characters.

  "Atreyu, the warrior from Fantasia, was a problem because he can be boring, too 'goody-goody.' In the book, Atreyu was

  jealous of Bastian; but for the film, the producers felt that the boys needed to be buddies. We did shade in some jealousy for interest, but this relationship is only a C story so it was important that it not dominate the film.

  "Xayide is the witch of Fantasia. I wanted her sexy. I wanted her to be a very willful woman and very hip, singing in her throne room and kicking off her shoes, and being very impatient when things aren't going her way. The Child-like Empress was a goody-goody and here was this sexpot Xayide who finally said, 'This is enough and it's my time to shine, and I want to take over Fantasia and by golly I'm going to do it' and was very upset when all her tanks and her giants would malfunction. So I created a lot of humor out of things malfunctioning and Xayide just going bananas when things weren't going her way. Xayide is a representative of the Emptiness, and is a character who's against stories and imagination.

  "The Child-like Empress was another important fantasy character. I spent the least amount of time on developing her because she was clearly defined in Part One, and only had a one-day shooting role. She's this beautiful young girl with this lovely little voice—and she's too good for words. So you want to create these wonderful words and put them in her mouth. She doesn't know good or evil. All are equal before her, she doesn't judge. In German, we would say she's kitschig, but for some reason that works with her."

  APPLICATION

  If your script contains nonrealistic characters, ask yourself:

  ■ What idea is being communicated by this character?

  ■ What associations come to mind with this idea? Have I brainstormed these associations, to make sure that they are consistent with the character I want to create?

  ■ What is the context of my character? If I change or expand the context, will that help strengthen the character?

  ■ How does the character relate to the universal stories of the audience? If my character is mythic, have I explored the various dimensions of the myth to make sure it is clear?

  SUMMARY

  Nonrealistic characters are determined by four different criteria: To what extent do they exemplify an idea? How does the context help define the character? What associations does the audience bring to the character? And does this character help the audience understand the meaning in their own lives, in their own individual stories?

  Nonrealistic characters have been successful in novels and stories (Black Beauty, Grimms and Andersen's fairy tales, Charlotte in Charlotte's Web), in films (E.T., King Kong, Close Encounters of the Third Kind), and in television series ("Alf," "Lassie," "Rin Tin Tin"). The recent box-office hits of Batman, Superman, Turner and Hooch, and The Phantom of the Opera have created more of a market and more of a need for writers to be able to write the nonrealistic character.

  Fiction can be powerful. Characters have the potential to affect our lives on many levels. They can inspire us, motivate behavior, help us understand ourselves and others, expand our insight into human nature, and even be role models—leading us to new decisions about our lives.

  But just as characters can have a positive influence, they can also affect us negatively. There is strong evidence that criminal behavior has, at times, been copied from television shows. A number of studies have inferred a relationship between vi
olence on television and violence among children and adults. And there is evidence that stereotyping can cause audiences to have a negative impression of an entire group of people. As a writer creating dimensional characters, understanding stereotyping and breaking stereotypes is essential.

  We might define a stereotype as the continual portrayal of a group of people with the same narrow set of characteristics. Usually a stereotype is negative. It shows a cultural bias toward the characteristics of one's own culture, painting characters outside that culture in limiting, and sometimes, dehumanizing ways.

  Who gets stereotyped? Anyone who is different from us. Anyone we don't understand. This can include ethnic minorities, such as blacks, Asians, Hispanics, and Native Americans, if you're a white writer; or it can include whites, if you're a minority writer. People with physical disabilities are often stereotyped, as well as the developmentally disabled, the emotionally disturbed, the mentally ill.

  Religious groups are often stereotyped, whether Muslims, Catholics, Jews, Fundamentalists, mainline Protestants, Hindus, or Buddhists.

  The opposite sex can be stereotyped, whether female or male. People with sexual orientations different from our own get stereotyped—gays, lesbians, even occasionally heterosexuals.

  People who are older or younger than we are often are stereotyped, as are those who come from another culture.

  Stereotypes vary for different groups. Women and minorities are often portrayed as victims. In many films, particularly, they tend to be expendable. Either they're the first ones to die or they're the ones who need rescuing by the white male.

  People with disabilities are often portrayed as the "handicapped horror, " with a certain deformity of the body symbolizing a deformity of the soul. Or they are portrayed as the pitiful victim, or else as the Supercrip, a term sometimes used by people with disabilities to connote the Superman or Super-woman who performs tremendous feats and is able to overcome the disability through miraculous means.

  Blacks are often portrayed as comical, or the butt of the joke, or as perpetrators of crimes. Asian women will often be portrayed as the exotic-erotic, the men as mindless hordes, or sometimes, even as the model minority—well off and well behaved. Although the latter may not seem negative, it is limiting and stereotypical since it doesn't recognize that Asians are affected by the same problems as any other group.

  Think how often the Native Americans have been portrayed as the bloodthirsty savages or the drunken, cowardly outlaws. And how often Hispanics are portrayed as gang members or bandits, or as Luis Valdez says, "The assumption is that Hispanic stories only take place in the Southwest behind adobe walls and under a tile roof. "1

  Even the white male has not escaped stereotyping. An emphasis on the man of action, whether the strong silent type or the supermacho, denies a whole group of men images that reflect their identity. Men who are househusbands, massage therapists, or schoolteachers can feel their contributions as nurturers devalued. The thinking man or the man of compassion rarely sees images that reflect his reality.

  Most groups, from secretaries to blondes to basketball players to WASPS to Vietnam vets to lawyers, have at one time or another been portrayed in a stereotypical manner. Very few groups have been immune from our natural desire to simplify complex human characters. No one is exempt.

  A character type is not the same as a stereotype. The doddering father or the braggadocio soldier are character types, not stereotypes, because the portrayal is balanced with other images of fathers and soldiers. Readers and audiences do not form the conclusion that "all fathers are doddering" or "all soldiers are braggadocio" as a result of this image. The character type doesn't suggest that everyone in a certain group (such as fathers) has the same characteristic (doddering). The stereotype does.

  MOVING BEYOND THE STEREOTYPE

  In spite of the good intentions of many writers, fictional characters are predominantly white and do not accurately portray reality. The population of the United States consists of about 12 percent blacks, 8.2 percent Hispanics, 2.1 percent Asians, and 2 percent Native Americans, and 20 percent of all people have a disabling condition—but most fiction portrays quite a different reality.

  In a recent analysis of television shows, a study by the U. S.

  Civil Rights Commission found that although 39.9 percent of the U.S. population is made up of white males, white males make up 62.2 percent of all characters on television.

  Whereas 41.6 percent of the U.S. population consists of white females, and 9.6 percent of the population consists of minority females, television drama vastly underrepresents them. In the analysis, 24.1 percent of all television characters were white females, and only 3.6 percent were minority females.2

  In a country where 95 percent of all women work outside the home during their lifetime, the "woman in the home" stereotype is no longer true. In a country where 40 percent of theology and law students are women, it's a misrepresentation to only occasionally portray women as lawyers or judges or ministers in films or on TV. In a country where women are pilots, mechanics, telephone repair people, and rabbis, an accurate portrayal of a society would show women characters in these roles. To only play the white male gender ideal in characters ignores the variety of people within our culture.

  Such statistics can be helpful to a writer in deciding what kind of characters to add to a story. It's a good beginning point, even though the makeup of a society changes from city to city. If you want to truthfully represent reality in your San Francisco story, you will have a larger percentage of Asians and gays. If you're writing a story that takes place in Los Angeles, the number of Hispanics will be greater. And a story set in Detroit or Atlanta will have a larger percentage of blacks.

  Moving beyond stereotyping means training our minds to see beyond white. The creation of characters is partly a retraining of our powers of observation. In any setting, we are trained to first see the prevailing group of people. For instance, if you had visited my hometown of Peshtigo, Wisconsin (population 2,504) in the 1950s, you could easily have stereotyped it as a white, middle-class, quiet community made up almost equally of Protestants and Catholics, with a few "We don't go to church" people.

  If you took a closer look, you would begin to see diversity

  within the community. In those years, Peshtigo had one Jewish family who owned the local appliance store, one family who had fled from Latvia after the war, some Mexicans who in the summer picked cucumbers for the nearby pickle factory, an occasional Menominee Indian from the nearby reservation who shopped at my fathers drugstore, one small-statured person who helped children across the street after school, one mentally retarded fifth-grade girl, one eighth-grade girl who had lost an arm from cancer, four very rich families, and three very poor families.

  A few years later, if you took another look at what seemed like a quiet town where nothing ever happened, you would see other details that broke the stereotype. These would include three bank robbers who were caught six hours after robbing the Peshtigo State Bank (they took the only dead-end road out of town!), and an antiwar activist minister who (to the chagrin of his congregation) led local protest marches during the Vietnam War. In recent years there has been the addition of three nationally renowned figures: the lawyer F. Lee Bailey, who has a second home in the neighboring town; Sergeant Medina, who was associated with the My Lai incident in Vietnam; and the mercenary Eugene Hasenfus.

  As you may notice from the description of Peshtigo, many of these people are not defined by their ethnicity (the Jewish family, the Protestant) but by their role (owner of a store, antiwar minister).

  As a beginning point, looking at the diversity within your own context can affirm the general research you have already done. Any of the people from your own background can serve as excellent models for minority characters.

  Adding minorities to a novel or short story can be relatively easy: you just write them in. For dramatic writing, it may seem that adding an Indian doctor or a Korean mechanic is rea
lly a casting decision. Often it is—and the issue becomes complex because casting directors and producers don't often think

  about placing minorities in the story. But there are actions that a writer can take.

  Shelley List, former supervising producer-head writer on "Cagney and Lacey," says: "Because I care about how minorities are portrayed, I generally will write in the addition of the minority. Instead of being general or leaving it up to the vagaries of the casting director, I'll specify that the school is made up of Asians and blacks and whites. Or I might mention the Hispanic Judge, the Black Engineer, or the Asian Anchor-woman. The network usually doesn't question it, or notice it. The script goes to the casting director, who simply follows the definitive descriptions."

  Some of the most critically acclaimed performances of the last few years have come from members of minorities who played roles that were not "minority-specific"—that is, roles that could have been played by whites. The Eddie Murphy role in Beverly Hills Cop was originally written for Sylvester Stallone. The Lou Gossett role in An Officer and a Gentleman was written for a white. The Sigourney Weaver role in Alien was originally written for a man. Many of Whoopi Goldberg's recent roles were not minority-specific, and some of them were not even written for a woman. With each of these characters, the actor added something special to the role because of his or her own cultural background, although the role was not defined by gender or culture or ethnicity.

  Most members of minorities prefer being cast in this way, rather than being the black playing a black, or a person with a disability playing a person with a disability.

  EXERCISE: Imagine creating a scene in a hotel in a major U.S. city that is statistically representative of the types of people who would be staying there. What kind of black characters might you have? Hispanics? People with disabilities? What professions might these people be in? What would be their sex? Age? Religion?