Home lives and connection to media

When creating a character, a writer needs to create more than a character's persona. They need to add so much more development to fully create a round characters that an audience will feel a connection towards. How is this development created? Through their interest, their interactions with other characters such as their family, friends or enemies. These are things a writer needs to take into consideration to even be able to formulate a character. However, in reality every person knows there's thousands of people in the world who have completely different lifestyles and relationships with people. So how is it possible that TV shows and movies are able to provide us with these connections to characters who live completely different lives than us? Well that's simple: create characters that have such a basic character outline.

Basic character outlines

Well most people like to believe that their favorite TV show is so unique. That the main characters are so original and different from every other show; in reality they're wrong.  A writer tries so hard to have characters that the audience would relate to and then to use basic stereotypes to make them seem more pleasing even without trying to. These characteristics tend to be overshadowed by the character's personality or they are simple overlooked. But let's break it down and get more specific. What are these factors? They are normally showcased within the character's home situation. A character's home situation tends to be the most influential factor. This factor helps develop our emotions towards a character.

How does a writer decide on a character's home situation? That's simple, think of what character you want. A rebellious one? They could have an abusive home life and are now acting out because they don't know what else to do. Or they are neglected at home so they decide that's the only way for their parents to notice them. A goody-too-shoe character? They have this amazing family, normally middle class and nothing is wrong with their lives. A character that ends up dealing with violence? Normally faces huge disaster in life at one point. They also could come from a really bad area of town where gang violence is a big factor. These are just a few of the big ones, there are others.

Let's get more specific.

These types are showcased within so many Tv shows and movies that they are normalized. Don't believe me? Well let's take a look at a few different TV shows and movies.

Girl Meets World

This is a show that's on Disney channel, that has three seasons. The show revolves around two separate girls: Riley and Maya. These two characters are supposed to be portrayed as exact opposites to each other but are best friends. Let's take a look at Riley's personality. Riley is supposed to be the good girl with a kind heart and never gets into trouble. Throughout the entire show she is shown going home to a full family. That being her mother, father and younger brother. Her mother is well off lawyer and her father is a teacher at her school. On top of that they live in a nice apartment in New York where you can barely hear the street noise. With this information you can automatically assume Riley comes from a great life. She faces no hardships and has no reason to have a spark of rebelliousness within her.

So of course it being a Disney show you need to have a character who's the exact opposite to be her best friend. So they create Maya. Maya being a girl living with her single mother. So that doesn't automatically mean that Maya is a bad person. But when you make her family life filled with negative connections or just plain non-existent is a pretty big factor. What do I mean by that? Well Maya's father walked out on her mother when Maya was pretty young. Maya's mother is a wanna-be actress who is a waitress and is never around. To make their connections worst, Maya's mother pretty much admits she's a terrible mother who doesn't want to take care of her daughter. Then practically shoves her into Riley's parents arms because she thinks that's where Maya is better off. Then add Maya's living situation into the picture. She's living in a mixed area which is also known as a lower district within New York. Maya's room is practically falling apart and there are rodents within her apartment. That is exact opposite of Riley.

I could go on for hours about the difference between these two and how their backgrounds make up who they are. Or how they develop over time with their parents influence. But that's not what this is about. This is about how these basic foundations create these characters, and within this show it creates these two opposite characters from completely different lives.

(Check out some clips to understand more about these characters: http://bit.ly/2iE5vlc, http://bit.ly/2jtqb3L,http://bit.ly/2k1HCcu)

(Moving on....before I go on a rant)

Shameless US

http://bit.ly/2jtrz6E

This is a show that includes lots of mature content but shows a basic meaning to living in the lower class. So the show revolves around a lower class family and their everyday struggles. This show involves drug use; sexual content and violence. How does this apply to basic character outlines? Well whenever I watch any form of media that involves the lower class these three things are always present. But then how does that relate to a character's foundation? So let's start with Fiona. Fiona is the oldest daughter of the family. She pretty much is the one who makes the money to provide for all her younger siblings. She works so many different jobs and not goods ones because she didn't finish High school. Fiona dropped out of school because her mother ran off and her dad is a drunk. (They're quite a few characters so I'm going to make this short and sweet). Frank, is the dead beat father. He lives off of his disability check and by leaching off of his children. He's constantly drinking and engaging in different drugs. All of his kids can't stand him but since he's family they keep him around and attempt to take care of him. Then we have Filip (aka Lip), who's the genius in the family. He's that one kids who ends up being the start fish in the pool who has a chance for something more in life. But what happens? Life. He gives up school so he can help with his family because they can't afford to do anything else. Then there's Ian who has a mental disorder because obviously you need to add something else just to top it off; to make their life even worse. But then they have to add the little cherry on top by having Carl. One of the youngest within the family, but who ends up in a juvenile detention center for selling drugs.

That's not even all the characters but there's so many other who just have it bad because of their situation. So why is this stuff important? Well think about, why would a writer create a show like this? To show a family which has literally no hope of ever advancing in society but still has a strong bond. But at the same time this is so stereotypical. A lower class family, where barely any of them have a achieved a high school diploma; all of them use drugs and drink various types of alcohol. When creating this show the writer knew he wanted to create a dysfunctional family. Best way to do it: make them a lower class family with no way of  getting out of their situation. Give them a alcoholic father, a runaway mother with a drug problem (sorry forgot to mention that) and them a bunch of kids who are all messed up in their own special way. This show is literally the stereotype of what it means to live in the lower class.  
(Check out these other clips to help understand their lives. http://bit.ly/2jVVhhn, http://bit.ly/2jtsowg, http://bit.ly/2k1RaEe)

So let's change to a movie instead.

The Blind side and Orange is the New black

So I'm very aware that this is technically based on true events but let's see how this is similar to other constructions. So remember this movie is about a young black man who gets adopted by a white family and ends up becoming a very famous football player. But let's get a little deeper then that. This black kid doesn't know how to read and he's in his senior year of high school. He comes from the lower class and lives with his drug addict mother. Who I believe doesn't care about her child at all. To top it off you can tell he comes from a high gang violence area. That little piece of information is showcased when at one point in the movie he is approached by other black men in his area. Automatically the entire audience can tell, this is about gang violence. (http://bit.ly/2jtvQa9,, http://bit.ly/2jkYyHI  

How does that connect to other media products. Well let's look at Orange is the new black; a quite popular show on netflix. Tasha Jefferson, one of the black characters on the show. She is shown as one of the really smart kids back in the day but then after some very unfortunate events she turns to helping out with selling drugs. Let's take a look at her character a bit more in depth. So she is raised in the "hood", she attempts to stay away from the gang scene for a long time and focuses on school. But that doesn't work out for her and she ends up selling drugs. Why? Because her class and race force her to be stuck in the lower class. ( check out this scene p.s ship to 1:47

http://bit.ly/2iLzgUr) 

Okay so why?

Let's travel back to the concept of character outlines. Within these completely different shows and movie, there has been a common thread: class. Within each example the character's class affects their family life and their actions. So think back to the first example: Girl Meets World. There's Riley and Maya; Riley being known as the good one because she is raised by two parents and comes from the middle class. While Maya is the bad one because she comes from the lower class and has a single parent. Next Shameless; a lower class family that has a deadbeat father and a runaway mother. Now add that every kid within the family has been involved in an illegal activity. Then the last two examples, both kids comes from the slums and have potential to get out of it. One get's adopted into a rich white family while the other ends up selling drugs. Both of them had terrible home lives and were black.

It's not only within these few examples these types of things are everywhere. Shows like Empire, One tree hill or Degrassi. They're everywhere; we flock to these shows because their interesting and we think they'll be completely different. But in reality they all have these basic character outlines.