Content:Fictional Characters
by
G. Shockey

The Question

There has always been the stereotypical hero, villain, and sidekick of every story told, yet from culture to culture there are different ideals of what this hero is to believe in and stand for. This project was an attempt to discover those ideals and beliefs that separate British fictional characters from American ones. Such areas as gender, age, appearance, opinions, and goals of these stereotypical character types will be considered to draw the conclusions of how these characters stand apart in the social depiction of fictional characters.

Methods/Results: Television

To research the difference between fictional characters in the UK as compared to those in the US, the researchers, being a friend from the US and myself, watched one show from each of the different fiction genres. Those genres being sitcoms, soap operas (dramas), cartoons, and children’s learning shows that have been recently made in the UK and the US. While watching the different shows at least three characters, being the hero(es), villain(s), and sidekick(s), were categorized by their gender, age, appearance, and opinions and goals within the story. Then the results were compared to come to some general conclusions about these differences.

The shows that were studied were watched during the month of October 1999 on almost every occasion that they were aired, missing at most one in a week. Each show was chosen because of mix between popular rating, decided by the number of times run in a week and length of series and because of the similarities that each shared with another, so that they could be compared. The British shows chosen to be studied were ‘The Young Ones’, ‘Home and Away’, ‘Mopatop’s Shop’, and ‘The Family Ness’. In comparison, the American shows ‘Friends’, ‘Days of Our Lives’, ‘Barney’, and ‘Rugrats’ were chosen. Shows were chosen not only by ratings and also by the type of content so as that no unfair conclusions could be made in the study and to fill in the gaps where the range of shows to choose from was not balance between the two countries. For example, there is an extremely small market for cartoons that are made within the United Kingdom at the time, where as the American market is booming not only there, but also in the UK. On the other hand, most of the programs made in Britain for tv are either soap operas or documentaries and in the US these two markets are minor in comparison.

There are plenty of aspects that set the American and English market apart, yet, when it comes to the types of characters used there gap is not that noticeable. The real differences seem to be in the age, gender, and appearance of the characters while the opinions and goals of the characters are almost identical. In effect the differences in the characters between the US and the UK is in the ideals of what people are and what people believe others should be like. A person telling a story wants to relate to the people in which they are attempting to reach, in turn, causing the good guys of the story to be more like the audience and the bad guys to at least in a few ways be removed from the audience.

In adult shows the villains are not so overly sexual and offensive in British shows as they are in the US. For example, in ‘Home and Away’ where the bad guys are the Children’s Services and the foster parents that are preventing the main characters from enjoying life. Unlike the US soaps like ‘Days of Our Lives’ where the bad guys are characters like Stepheno who is always playing the part of a sexual predator. As far as the general lay out of the characters’ personality traits go, there are little or no differences between the US and UK. In comedies like ‘Friends’ in the US and ‘The Young Ones’ in the UK, the point is to make fun of college life which they do using the similar subjects and similar personality types.

The way that the characters dress, the ages that they are, and their gender is very different causing the two shows to come out quite different, besides the fact that the humor is completely separate. In ‘The Young Ones’ one of the characters is in his thirties and the rest are supposed to be in their late twenties compared to the characters on ‘Friends’ who are all between 22 and 25. ‘The Young Ones’ also has characters that are less fashion and appearance conscious, using it as a way of defining the lifestyle of the characters, than those on ‘Friends’ where the center of discussion is usually trying to get dates and dieting between discussions of the plot. There is a drastic difference in the gender of the characters. In the UK show the characters are all men and in the US show there are three main characters that are female and the three that are men. Although in the case of both of the shows the character that is a bad guy and good guy changes from show to show. There is still one of each type of character in every show. When it comes down to character goals and motivations it is almost always about starting careers, making friends, finding love, and breaking away from the family. These are things that all college students must do no matter how different they may appear.

In children’s shows there were not nearly as many differences to be found because most of the shows that are shown here are American shows or they are done in the exact same style as American examples. However, it was interesting to see the American shows that have been shown in the UK. Most of the shows chosen either have characters with ambiguous gender types or the main characters are mostly male. For example, the most shown American children’s shows from cartoons and learning shows are ‘Sesame Street’ where most of the characters have no gender distinction and the majority, more than half, of the rest are male and ‘Woody the Woodpecker’ where the main character is male. On the whole, there are not any real differences between the two and the differences that are found appear to mostly be done by chance and not on purpose.

Conclusions

In conclusion, it was found that character types are not all that different from place to place, however, on the surface they may appear to be the difference between night and day. The real difference to be found between characters is how they are made to look and in what environment they are placed, like the case of ‘Friends’ and ‘The Young Ones’ that makes people identify with them differently from story to story and culture to culture. Underneath, though, they are all just the recreation of the classical good, bad, and indifferent person of society. Upon reflecting on this study it was found that conclusions to this study could not be completed within the two month time period allotted to complete it. Fictional characters, although appearing to be meaningless, hold within themselves the personification of mankind and cultural ideals in an attempt to understand our world and our relationships through story telling. In that context, it is not fair to say that one can come to conclusions about the differences that exist between the fictional characters of these two worlds. It would take a complete understanding of both cultures to begin to form theories on why and how the characters are different. While, in myself I can see that they are different and have begun to learn why just by being here I do not know enough to start forming conclusions even about those things that I have learned about.