Film Courage: What are the common character archetypes in comedy?
Steve Kaplan, Author/Instructor/Script Consultant: I can give you some character types but I want to
have a caveat that the dangerous in thinking of these archetypes as as characters that you can
utilize and push around they're they're they're just slivers of us right they're just they're
just uh fractions of our own psyche and our own personality and you and you divide them so as to
help and storytelling for instance in friends yet the wise guy you have the dits you have the mother
you have the stupid guy and you have the nerd and you have the flirty girl okay now why do you have
those six because how would it be if you had two wise guys well who are you going to give the line
to okay you need to say you need somebody to say something stupid who do you want on stage who do
you want in the scene you want Joey in the scene okay now you want somebody to be ditzy
but not stupid okay so let's bring Phoebe on so the purpose of of utilizing archetypes is not that
you're you're they're not stereotypes they are they are representations of a certain point of
view of a certain way of way of being and thinking but within the archetype they're still people
so so you don't want to write them exclusively as though they have no other attribute
the you have various kinds of of tricksters in Greek comedy in Greek comedy
there were all sorts of different slave characters and master characters and
what happens in Roman comedy is that they did away with the 50-man chorus but for Roman comedy they
heightened the art typical characters had been around since early Greek time and then
after Roman comedy there's no comedy because that's the Dark Ages and there's no theater and
there's no literacy and there's no playwrights but they're still actors and so what do the actors do
the actors either act out scenes from The Bible or they act out scenes using these archetypes,
these are typical iconic characters the clever tricky servant the dim young man the courtesan
the bragged soldier all these types were known to this these traveling players who
were making things up improvising based on character and situation
so around the Renaissance you have this theater form that coalesces around characters called
commedia dell'arte and basically you have an art form in which the character stayed the
same because they all wore distinctive masks and tights so if you saw the hook nose and
the diamond tights Ah that's Harlequin he's kind of like a Charlie Chaplin mischievous man child
like Kramer if Kramer comes through the door exactly what you're getting in Europe when the
Harlequin came out you knew exactly what you're getting so you have these very specific archetypes
so what happens is is that there are no playwrights there are no directors so you have a
situation in which the character takes the action let's say you have two two young a young boy and a
girl sitting on a park bench what's their physical motion they if they're both young and good looking
and not that bright there they're going to try to get together let's take away the young man
let's put in the lecherous old man the what the pantalone was what he was called in the Comedia
he could be a miser he could be a hypochondriac he's usually after the young girl so now what's
their physical movement young girl lectures old man he's going to chase her around the bench right
so let's take away the young girl let's put in the battle ax wife oh now what's the movement now
she's chasing him the other way let's take them both away let's put in three zanies. Zany was
a term in the Comedia short for Giovanni meaning there was the clever servant there was the stupid
servant there was the compassionate servant all these different varieties of stupid servants or
clever tricky servants they're all going to go in different directions but they're because they're
idiots They're going to knock heads and knock each other out so the Comedia teaches us that
character creates plot character creates action and character creates movement so we in turn we
then take this idea this actor-centric idea and in modern comedy you have this same idea
these same characters but the situation changes say on a weekly basis
what does that sound like sounds like sitcoms so so you have these are typical characters you have
you could have the fool you can have the wise guy you can have
the old the old man or the the father but that's only one way of slicing and dicing
because you can slice and dice them any way you want any way that makes sense the important
thing is not to have four of the same character because you don't need for the same character
you there's there's there's a guy who likes to see every cast as The Wizard of Oz well who's
our Dorothy who's our tin man that's our our Cowardly Lion other people use Winnie the Pooh
okay in Seinfeld Kramer's Tigger the really bouncy one who's George he's Eeyore so that so
that it's less important the there's a book out about the different character types in comedy.
My preference is that the only character that you absolutely need in a comedy is a trickster
you need somebody who is going to bend the rules color outside the box you may have a
fool in your cast you may have a wise guy you may have a magical object of desire what you do
have are blocking characters and mirror characters blocking characters or characters that are going
to get in the way of your main character maybe an antagonist but doesn't necessarily have to be
in Groundhog Day the insurance salesman he's a blocking character he he he's he's in the way and
eventually when Bill Murray realizes there's no consequences for anything he just punches him out
he doesn't say a word he just punches him out and then you have mirror characters who are your best
friends but you only really and there are there are rookie characters there's you know grizzled
old vets characters in in the comic heroes Journey you have mentors mentors are usually it idiots
idiots who have some knowledge in in the hero's journey the mentors Obi-Wan Kenobi in the comic
heroes Journey the mentor is the guy in DodgeBall who throws wrenches at Justin Long's head because
he says if you can dodge a wrench you can dodge a ball an idiot but still a mentor character
but you'll but the only character that you absolutely need is an archetype and just know that
that your your task is to slice up personality and your own humanity so that you don't have
duplications in your cast some other characters that are essential in comedy are the voice of
reason oftentimes the voice of reason is somebody that nobody pays attention to or gives any credit
to in a lot of movies that's Jay Baruchel who's actually in Tropic Thunder he's the one who's
read actually read the guidebook and can read a map but nobody pays any attention to him
but another important character is the animal character a character who's primal
Melissa McCarthy in in Bridesmaids also Melissa McCarthy in everything
John Belushi in Animal House so somebody who is going to act out of their Primal
urges and is very forceful and physical about it your magical object of desire that's
usually the focus of attention for your comic protagonist in a rom-com with the Golden Girls
seemingly on the outside everybody looked the same so you couldn't really just by you'd have
to watch the show to figure out which one was the flirt which one was the trickster which one
was the wise one right and so but that took time because they all look the same and you thought but
in writing it they knew exactly how to write it because every character had their function
not just their personality but they also had their function so if you're going to give somebody
something sharp to say you're going to give it to the old person right if you can give something
somebody something stupid to say that's what Betty White was there right uh-huh or or yeah she was
more the flirt yes and was always bragging about all these conquests and these different things
and then with sorry I'm liking on the name mod I'm trying to think of it yeah she's basically
the Alex Rieger of that Bunch you you often have a father yes there's another friend of mine who
likes to think of every every cast as a family who's the father who's the mother who's the who's
the weird Uncle who's the cousin you don't like to talk to and he kind of divides them like this.