(upbeat music)
- I am Groot.
We are Groot.
You are Groot.
(upbeat guitar music)
Welcome to Groot.
I am Groot.
Guardians of the Galaxy was definitely
a huge movie of 2014, and we've talked about
it in a few videos already including this video
right here about why Peter Quill is called Star-Lord,
but today I want to talk about another character
from the movie that turned out to be pretty popular, Groot.
Groot has inspired so much amazing art and costumes,
a button that Groot-ifies websites,
and even the act of grooting became a thing.
So why does it seem like Groot, more than any other
character, has become so popular?
To understand it, let's first take a look at
the broad spectrum of why we like
comics and cartoons in the first place.
Now there can be many, many reasons why you
individually read comics or watch cartoons,
but I'm gonna be focusing a lot on the second chapter
of Scott McCloud's eye-opening book,
Understanding Comics, which I highly recommend
to all of you if you haven't read it.
Link in the description.
In the book, McCloud points to what he calls
the primary cause for our fascination in cartoons
as the ability to see ourselves in them.
To put it on an extreme scale,
you are watching a video of me.
There's no question that the person in this video is me.
But if I'm replaced by a stick figure, then I could be
anyone, especially if I were to take away my
very manly voice and just have a word balloon.
In all of art, you have a spectrum that measures
from realistic resemblance all the way to the base meaning.
From a photo of a tree to the written word tree,
and somewhere in the middle we have comics and cartoons.
But why is this important?
McCloud points out that the picture we have
in our minds of our own faces is not
the same one that people actually see.
Despite what we may think, we do not have a vivid,
ultra-detailed picture of what
we look like stored in our minds.
Instead we only have a general awareness
of our face that's not nearly as accurate as
images we have of other people's faces.
So when you look at me, you see me
and all of my detail that separates me
from any other human being.
And because of that, it's hard to picture yourself as me.
But it's infinitely simpler to picture yourself as this
stick figure, because it more closely represents
the image you have of yourself in your mind.
A head, two eyes and a mouth.
It's a blank slate that can represent literally any person,
and not just including you, but probably especially you.
There's an article I'll link to below that asks
why Japanese anime characters look white.
In reality, they are not white.
We as Americans perceive them as white,
but the Japanese see them as, well, Japanese.
And maybe you personally don't see them that way,
but I was just glad to find out that I'm not the only
person who's had that thought before.
We all have this idea inside our heads
called the default human being.
You see your default human being
inside of this stick figure.
Whether that person is a man, a woman, a child,
adult, white, black, Asian, anything else,
could be totally different for you than anybody else.
So the reason you may have thought that anime
characters don't necessarily look Asian
is because artists aren't trying to make them look Asian,
they're just trying to make them look like people.
Their default human being is Japanese anyway,
so why would they need to add any
distinguishing features to further indicate that?
The idea here is that the more neutral a character is,
the more we as an audience see ourselves in them.
Groot has the basic shape of a human,
but much like simple cartoons,
his facial features are just two eyes and a mouth,
making him easy to project ourselves into.
This idea of cartoons or simple characters being
more relate-able isn't anything new.
Think of cartoons and animations with detailed
or even photo-realistic backdrops and scenery.
You'll notice that they still draw the characters in a very
simple style because they are our windows into that world.
But what about live action movies where you can't
exactly render Robert Downey Jr. as a cartoon set
in the real world and have everybody be okay with that.
Unless maybe you are okay with that.
While there's no mistaking Robert Downey Jr.
for Robert Downey Jr., you put him in a neutral mask,
and suddenly that could be you in there,
and some goes for Spiderman and Rorschach and, probably
to a lesser extent, Batman, Dread, or even Captain America.
Look, that's not Chris Evans.
Silly goose.
But Groot goes much further than all of these characters
to ensure that we have no trouble at all relating to him.
For starters, Groot is Groot all the time.
Unlike Iron Man or Spiderman, who can take off their mask
and reveal an absolute human face and body,
with Groot, what you see is what you get.
Not only that, but his body regenerates.
Even if his arm is cut off, he'll just grow it back
so he looks exactly the same as before
while other characters might have scars or physical
imperfections, or maybe have even undergone
traumatic changes that set them apart,
Groot refuses to upset the status quo by doing his hardest
to maintain his form to allow people to experience
the journey and excitement of guarding
the galaxy vicariously through him.
And even if he's completely obliterated,
eh, no real damage done.
Put me in a pot, play some Jackson 5,
and I'll literally be as good as new in no time.
But Groot takes it all a bit further than mere appearance.
For starters, there doesn't even seem to be
an explicit age tied to Groot in the movie.
His actions are both seemingly mature and childlike,
plus we see him represented as both large and small,
making it even more difficult to pin down an exact age.
But it also means that he could easily relate to
a wider range of people, young and old.
And there's even something further
to Groot that makes him stand out.
One of his most obvious characteristics, his speech.
Groot is not much of a talker.
He has a very limited vocabulary,
slightly larger than Hodor.
Whenever he says I am Groot, he usually means
something else, and depending on the situation,
we as an audience either need to try and interpret that
ourselves based off of context clues,
or we have someone like Rocket do it for us.
- I am Groot.
- So what it's better than 11%?
- What happens in this scene is pretty special,
like this video by Cracked points out.
Groot says I am Groot, and Rocket tells us what his intent
was, and now our minds go back to fill in the context.
But we're doing so in our own voices,
so not only is it easy to see ourselves as Groot, but we're
actually hearing ourselves as the character as well.
Now, none of these characteristics are really new.
Characters can be blank slates, heal back to normal,
represent multiple age groups, or are inarticulate.
- Pikachu
- But Groot mixes them all together to try and
represent the most people possible.
And now I'm going to say something that will sound
pretty crazy, but I want you to hang in there, okay?
Here we go.
Groot is a comic book character that represents comic books.
I know, I know, sounds pretty crazy, but hear me out.
As we've said in this video so far, comics provide us
with characters in which we see ourselves.
But they also, for the most part, provide
words for us to read as well.
And when you read those words,
you're doing it in your own voice.
I polled some of my friends to see if they hear
a specific actor's voice in their head when reading
specific comic book characters, and most of them said
that there's at least one character that they read
in a very distinct head voice, like Kevin Conroy for Batman,
Nolan North for Deadpool, et cetera.
However, all of them said that they read
a majority of the characters in their own voice.
You see, comics provide both characters to see ourselves
in and words to hear ourselves in.
Other forms of media like books, movies, TV shows,
they usually just give us one or the other to choose from,
or video games sometimes do both simultaneously,
but comics in their native format
almost always give you both.
Silent comics would be one exception,
but believe me when I say that we'll dive into much more
detail about comics as an art form in the near future.
But you see how Groot could represent
those facets of the comic book medium.
He's a near perfect physical abstraction
and he allows us to hear the meaning behind
his words in our own voices.
Much like comics give us characters that are drawn
in a simplified way, and the ability to read
their words and thoughts as ourselves.
However, with all the ways he makes for a wonderful
human stand-in, there's one way he does not.
Groot is male, therefore he isn't a 100% perfect
analog for any and all human beings.
That being said, it's definitely possible for women to
relate to Groot or any other male character,
and vice versa for men in female characters.
The real perfect human abstraction
goes right back to the stick figure.
This could be anyone, guy, girl, old, young,
white, black, anything else.
Groot might be the closest we have to this.
After all, he himself is a literal stick figure.
What do you guys think?
Do we like Groot because his design and personality
make it inherently easy to project ourselves in him?
And even if you don't like Groot, can you at least
see a correlation between his, for lack of a better word,
mechanics as a character, and the unique
experience that comics provide?
Let me know in the comments.
Boy do I have about a million more things
that I want to say about this episode
that could go into much more detail if that's even possible,
but I'll leave that as a separate post on our Patreon feed
for all our wonderful NerdSync patrons
if they want to dive into my extended thoughts.
There's a link in the description if you want
to go check it out for yourself.
And guys, this was the 46th episode of Comic Misconceptions,
which means we only have a few more until number 50.
I haven't really decided on a way to celebrate this yet,
so I wanted to leave it up to you guys.
What kind of 50th episode would you like to see?
Let me know in the place where the comments go.
And if this is your first time hanging out
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I do apologize for being off last week, though, sorry.
Once again, I'm Scott, and you can
find me on Twitter and Instagram.
We'll see you right here next week for more things
that you thought you knew about comics.
See ya.