Types and Stereotypes

I have been thinking lately of types and stereotypes. When I write, I basically use the same people or the same kinds of people over and over. This is because what interests me is not the itty-bitty idiosyncratic nature of character but rather how human nature plays itself out in particular situations. I suppose this is why I write fantasy and science-fiction.

I tell myself that I'm just doing what Shakespeare did. Yes, well, eh hem, let's take it as read that I'm not exactly in the same class. But I think the argument that Shakespeare created more type-oriented than character-oriented people is a legitimate argument. Granted, Hamlet is a fully realized character with his own bundle of idiosyncrises but at some point, the character hits the type and becomes universal.

(I will say right now that it is likely that geniuses, i.e. really, really good writers can do both: create complex characters and types simultaneously.)

My reference to Shakespeare as a defense is due to the oft touted idea that all good writing is character-driven (which is probably true) and that all good characters are complex characters (which I think less true). Complex characters have names and backgrounds and hobbies and tics. If they are romance characters, they have hair and eye color, not to mention a complete wardrobe. If they are angsty/"realistic" characters, they have dark pasts and foibles and unrelenting grief.

I'm probably going to talk myself into a hole on this one since I really admire writers like C.J. Cherryh who, particularly in The Foreigner series, create emotionally real and complex characters.

But let's step back from the whole issue for a sec. Because I think that (1) good writing can rely on types; and (2) types and stereotypes are not the same.

Tolkien relied on types. Agatha Christie relied on types (and she didn't apologize for it). I mentioned earlier that Shakespeare relied on types. For some of her funniest passages, Sayers relied on types (I think Sayers is a very misunderstood writer; she is much more humorous than she is given credit for).

Types are not the same as stereotypes. I've been struggling over the difference for awhile now. It's one of those porno things: "I can't define it but I know it when I see it." I've decided that the difference is the universal quality. Types can move between cultures. Miss Marple is very English, but her type is still recognizable in her descendents, Mme Ramotswe and Mrs. Pollifax.

A stereotype, on the other hand, is a cliche specific to time and place. Ngaio Marsh claimed she was using characters (unlike Christie), not types in her mysteries when actually she was using stereotypes. Don't get me wrong--I enjoy Marsh, but I don't think her characters are transferable beyond a very specific time and place. Alleyn belongs specifically to his upperclass English milieu and there is little of him that survives beyond it. He is a collection of time/place-based cliches: the reticient, fastidious, upperclass British detective working amongst worshipping subordinates in the 1940s to 1950s.

Sayers used many of these same cliches, but then she freaked out the mystery writers of her day by giving Wimsey character. (Oddly enough, I think that Tey, like Sayers, created a fully realized character in her detective; the difference between Grant, Tey's detective, and Wimsey, Sayers' detective, is that Grant is very sparsely detailed. But he is neither a cliche or a type.)

To go on to fantasy/science-fiction, in the creation of Frodo, Tolkien created a type. As did Lucas with Luke and Hans in Star Wars. As did Whedon in Buffy (actually, there you see a deliberate reversal or play on types). But the dramatis personae of Eragon, which I mildly enjoyed, strike me as stereotypes. As did the roles in Titanic, who struck me as "fantasy" stereotypes in the nastier sense of the word.

Not that stereotypes are always ineffective. In the Monk episode "Employee of the Month," almost all of the parts are stereotypes: the inept stock boys, the weedy manager, the disgruntled retail worker. The stereotypes are so accurate, so right-on, they are hilarious, but they are hilarious within a very specific time, culture, and place. A type, like Monk himself, has more universal qualities. Monk IS the Sherlock Holmes of his time and place and therefore, carries within him the universal qualities that made Sherlock Holmes also universal.

No real conclusions here, just a healthy respect for the use of the type. Not all figures in a drama have to be deep and personal and idiosyncratic to work. There's place for types and even, within a short life-span, stereotypes in fiction and television and movie scripts.

WRITING

Audience Studies, Inc.

In writing this post, I am joining several bloggers who have posted about Audience Studies, Inc. Thanks to said bloggers for helping me track down the information posted here.

I recently joined the odd 400 people or so who agreed to watch a sit-com and then report back to Audience Studies, Inc. I was wary when I took the initial call but agreed, mostly because, as I told the young man on the phone, "You can always get my address out of the phone book."

(That poor young man--I don't think his heart was in the call; when I questioned him as to Audience Studies, Inc.'s resume, he said, in a very embarrassed voice, "I can give you a 1-800 number to call." The young man knew, as I discovered, that Audience Studies, Inc. only communicates what agrees with its "story." )

So, Audience Studies, Inc. sent me a DVD as well as two booklets with pictures of products. And I immediately figured out that Audience Studies, Inc. wasn't interested in learning about my reaction to the sit-com; it was doing product research.

Now, I have no trouble with product research. If Audience Studies, Inc. had called me up and said, "We're going to send you a failed CBS pilot from 2005 that we purchased for a nominal fee as well as a bunch of ads and commercials and frankly, what we really want to know about is your reactions to the ads and commercials," I would have said, "Oh, sure, that's sounds interesting. Go ahead." I like commercials.

What is bizarre about this whole thing is how completely Audience Studies, Inc. has created a fake story in order to try to get (supposedly) unprejudiced reactions to products. First of all, the company goes to the trouble to obtain the sitcom (why it doesn't simply create its own is beyond me--the episode was so bad, at first I thought it was a basement production, which kind of impressed me. But the episode I was sent, which I turned off five minutes in because that's what I really do with bad sitcoms, was from "The Rocky LaPorte Show." Don't blame Rocky. It was the dialog and plot that stank.)

Secondly, the booklets of products are printed as "Prize Booklets" complete with "Prize Entry Forms" that you are supposed to fill out (multiple choice fashion) and just coincidentally keep by the phone for when Audience Studies, Inc. calls.

Thirdly, the "Program Evaluation" is not in any way designed to solicit survey responses. It contains questions like "Which character did you like best?" "What parts of the show or the idea should be changed or updated?" No survey company of this type would ask such open-ended questions!

I can't figure out whether Audience Studies, Inc. honestly believes that people won't see through this charade or whether people honestly don't see through it. All the bloggers I read had seen through it, but then bloggers already show a degree of media awareness and saavy. (Which is why they are susceptible to viewing the sitcom in the first place.)

Again, the irony is that I'm a big fan of market research, and I would have helped a request in that area. But I draw the line at so much icky snake-oil salesman patter. Either cough up the dough for a non-failed pilot, people, or come up with a better schtick.

FARES

CSI Characterization

I recently rewatched CSI: Las Vegas, Season 2. I was able to get the entire box set through my local library (plug for local libraries!) and subsequently watched all 24+ episodes over two weeks.

Watching the entire season reminded me why I liked the show so much when it first came out. (It isn't that I dislike the show now; the fact that I rarely watch CSI: Las Vegas these days has more to do with the fact that the only channel I get clearly is Fox, and I don't want to fuss with manipulating the antennae back and forth. And yes, cable is one of those things I refuse to get.)

What has struck me watching Season 2 is how on-target the Las Vegas characterizations were right from the begining. CSI: Las Vegas is one of the few shows I watch where I like every single one of the scoobies, and their characters function correctly in every single episode.

Now, I want to be clear here. CSI, like Law & Order, is not a DEEP and PROFOUND show. Both shows are very plot-oriented, and the plot is thirty minutes of action to twenty minutes of visuals; there simply isn't space for insightful characterizations. Characterization rests almost entirely on tone of voice and body language. One reason I admire Chris Noth from Law & Order so much is that he does so much with so little. I don't mean he overacts, but he adds these little smiles and grimaces and eye-rollings to his scenes that give him depth even though the depth is largely superficial.

This type of characterization reminds me of the Iliad and the Odyssey where people are constantly characterized by their most remarkable features: gray-eyed Athena, wise-guy Odysseus, lammo Achilles, etc. This is characterization at its most basic: just keep reminding the audience what THIS character is supposed to be.

So, on CSI: Las Vegas, Warwick is the rock (and resident holder of all sex appeal), Nick is the damsel in distress, Kat is the beauty with brains, Grissom is the cool geek, Sarah is the troubled, feminist youth, and Greggo is the CSI wannabe, who, if the show wasn't strictly heterosexual, would be paired with Nick. (The writers used this undercurrent effectively, by the way, when they made Greg's reaction to Nick in Season 2 pure and simple hero worship. It is done unabashedly, and it works well as a counterbalance to the crazy cable guy who also wants to emulate Nick. And it's a nice change to have complicated emotions OTHER than sexual interest displayed on the television screen.)

About Nick being the damsel in distress--for those of you who have watched Buffy, Willow was usually the damsel de jure in early episodes when she was always being captured and, subsequently, rescued. Whedon was quite unapologetic about it--it didn't make Willow weak, and she was so darn good at evoking sympathy with her big, soulful eyes.

Nick doesn't look soulful, but he is the character that the others consistently rescue. I love this. It is such perfect casting. Just as being rescued didn't make Willow weak, being rescued doesn't make Nick unmanly. He is THE nice guy on the show, the good guy, the Xander of CSI. Kat or Sarah could never be the damsels de jure because CBS cares a lot more about feminist strictures than Whedon (until the end of Buffy, that is). By making Nick--the guy we all like--the rescuee, the rescuers can still do all the work, and we don't think any less of Nick for the result.

As for Grissom, I really admire William Petersen. I have a feeling that the integrity of CSI:LV has been perserved as much as it has been (in the face of CSI: Miami) due to Petersen's efforts (he is a producer on the show). He never tried to make Grissom a sex magnet which wouldn't have worked anyway because William Petersen is stocky middle-aged guy to his very core. In any case, Grissom as sex magnet isn't necessary; the storyline between him and Sarah was foreshadowed early on when Grissom was still weird bug guy. Sarah being Sarah, the attraction between them is entirely believable. Sex magnet or not, Grissom's character holds the show together, much in the way I think Michael Moriarty held Law & Order together for four seasons. (I just can't adjust to Waterson--nothing against the actor; it just isn't the same.)

As for Kat and Sarah--they are very pretty women, but unlike the women on the other CSIs, they come across as naturally pretty. For example, Kat is a model-beautiful woman, but she is aging, and she looks it, and her character knows it. And Sarah looks like every single pretty hippie college student I've ever seen in my life. They don't seem excessively glammed up, and if they are a little camera-ready, well, pretty people can work in law enforcment.

Altogether, CSI: LV's characterizations have a patina of reality that CSI: Miami doesn't have (but then I don't think CSI: Miami really cares. I don't know what CSI: NY thinks it is doing. I love Gary Sinise, but the show is Boring with a capital B. I have high hopes for Fox's New Amsterdam, by the way).

Coupled with the characters' patina of reality is a truly odd kilter that, again, I put down to William Petersen. When Grissom starts rambling on about bugs or Maslow's heirarchy or other bits of unexpected trivia, he steps into the presence of those other odd but great detectives--Sherlock, Monk, House--television hits classic territory and survives.

TELEVISION