How Do We Identify With Characters?

Reading Summary

This chapter focuses on the importance of media creators to create identifiable characters. Not only does this make the program more enjoyable for a viewer, but creates a deeper and more invested story by bringing characters to life. These identification processes are essential to placing spectators in the shoes of the characters, as well as the primary identification creating important first impressions. The alignment and spatial attachments are necessary in order to learn about the various characters and whether we should view these characters’ actions and arcs and essential or background. Once these are determined by the viewer, we move into a moral evaluation of the characters, or an allegiance stage. While these steps are usually done subconsciously, there are still limits to how effective these developments are for viewers and writers alike. For example, we complete all of these steps simultaneously as well as us viewers simply being spectators of a fictional creation in that none of these characters are in fact real people in real life. However, film and television still utilize these methods in order to develop captivating characters, well-developed plots, and complex reactions.

Outside Example

This reading reminded me of the Netflix series, You, and its main character, Joe Goldberg. Despite the show’s high popularity, I only heard about it by seeing many tweets about Joe and his polarizing nature. After viewing the show’s first season, I knew what I should feel about the character, but still had a side of me that sympathized and understood to a small degree what he struggled with. He is portrayed and acts as a psychopathic serial killer who is blinded by his love for a girl he seeks to learn, fix, and love in that order. On the other hand, he is presented as a displaced outsider of society who seeks tradition and despises conformity.

Reading Connection

It is clear the writers of this show sought to create a character that is subtly sympathized but still recognized as a psychopathic serial killer, and I believe they did an effective job with that balance. The question remains as to whether this balance exists simply because Joe is a white man who manages a bookstore, as I believe if this were not his background there would be no sympathy for his demise. This show mainly uses the tools of alignment and moral evaluation, as it steadily provides background knowledge on Joe’s past as well as why he behaves as he does. Additionally, it challenges our moral evaluations as to whether the stalking, torturing, and murdering of criminally innocent but morally bankrupt characters is acceptable or at least understandable in the pursuit of a better life for someone you love. This show does not seek to provide a character that looks like us because he is the opposite of the mainstream in every way imaginable, but his distaste for what society has become and the ways it views love are sympathized by many viewers. The character of Joe simply presents the question as to whether we view his failure to receive love and happiness as a result of his actions or a result of the world we live in today.