I bow to greatness…

hillermaTony Hillerman dead at 83.

A hell of a writer.

A hell of a teacher.

A hell of a friend.

Tony Hillerman Reclaimed

Unk

October 27, 2008 | Filed Under Greatness

8 Comments 

Time For Some Campaignin’

It’s all a fuckin’ blur to me… LOL.

Unk

October 12, 2008 | Filed Under Bullshit

23 Comments 

The Hero vs. The Anti-Hero Protagonist

hero-anti-heroThe . I grew up with him. In fact, I grew up with people who wanted to grow up to become a hero. I grew up with people who joined the military or police force in order to become heros.

Funny how we don’t meet too many people like that anymore…

Or is it?

When was the last time you met someone who seemed consistent in their noble philosophy? On one hand, they espouse their noble philosphy and from an outward appearance, they may even seem to actually believe it or even better…

Live it.

Until the SHIT hits the fan… LOL. Then we see them as they truly are. Flesh and blood human beings facing the same kinds of temptations we all face on a day to day basis albeit on different levels…

Maybe.

Who’s to say?

I think we’re able to see through the bullshit most of the time but even so, our masses somehow find themselves admiring those who espouse noble philosophy whether they live it or not. LOL.

But I’m talkin’ screenwriting and movies… The days of the masses wanting to become heroes are over. Sure, there’s always going to be those isolated few of us out there that seek some kind of hero status because I think for some of us, it might actually be hardwired into our DNA. But like everything else these days, we are adapting to our environment and constantly mutating to find ourselves.

Which is one of the reasons I think the protagonist seems to do a hell of a lot better box office than the hero with the noble philosophy. I mean, as a whole, who are we flesh and blood human being most like?

Heroes or Anti-Heroes?

Let’s compare… Just off the top of my head…

The Hero:

The Anti-Hero:

The anti-hero is definitely a more complex character to write… He or she doesn’t have to be likable. They have a lot more layers than meets the eye. I suspect that generally speaking, they are a lot more like the people we all know hence, we are faster to get on their character train for the ride. I know for me personally, they’re a hell of a lot more fun to write and while I’ll not tell you to write a movie with an anti-hero as your protagonist, I will tell you that in my humble opinion, using an anti-hero ups your chances of success just a bit more than the traditional hero.

There’s nothing wrong with the traditional hero but let’s face it… Most movies that use the traditional hero today are fairly predictable and that just might be because traditional heroes are predictable characters. It’s almost as if God summoned them up to get the bad guy. Their philosophy is noble hence, their predictability. There’s really nothing taunting them like what taunts the anti-hero — generally speaking. Most actors today are always looking for the taunting of their character so why not give it to them?

I hear a lot of this wherever I go… “People are just smarter today than they were thirty years ago.”

Really?

Hmmm. As I sit here in my little coffee shop full of college students, I eavesdrop on not even one remotely intellectual conversation. I’ve been coming here for over four years now and have engaged in a myriad of conversations — mainly about film and even characters in film and at least here in my little neck of the woods, I ain’t impressed.

I do however, think people are much more sophisticated today than they were thirty years ago… Remember, we flesh and blood mongers rarely use even 10% of our brain power… Yeah, I’d say that’s about right however, we are now bombarded with people, images, sounds, ideas, politics, yada, yada, yada more than ever before. Even when a lot of us attempt to focus, we can’t focus because of this bombardment.

Some people say it’s this ever-increasing bombardment that’s the reason why the traditional hero is more or less dead except when we put STAR to said character in films today. You know… Those stars that pretty much play themselves on screen?

Not sure I buy the ever-increasing bombardment because take a look at the second image of above as in . Rooster was definitely an anti-hero and in a western no less… Plus, I don’t have enough space to list all the successful films before during and after TRUE GRIT that had an anti-hero protagonist so that kinda defeats the ever-increasing bombardment argument.

Is it because it’s just more believable? Is it because most of us are not heroes and that allows us to live more vicariously through the anti-hero?

You tell me.

Unk

October 9, 2008 | Filed Under Characters

44 Comments