I watched Ellen DeGeneres’s Netflix special, Relatable, a couple of weeks ago, and I guess its message must have stuck with me, because as I tried to explain to a friend why I loved the Spiderverse movie we had just seen together, I found myself saying, “I found the depiction of adolescence in the movie really relatable.”
My friend replied, “That’s not what being a teenager was like for me.”
I thought back along the scenes of the movie, trying to figure out exactly what I was trying to say. Did I spend my teenage years spraying graffiti in underground subway lines? Did I go to an elite school? Did I have a cop as a father? Did I grow up surrounded by black and Hispanic culture? The answer, obviously, was no.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is that given the same circumstances, I could see myself doing the same things.”
That was the best I could do
DeGeneres responds beautifully, cracking jokes about her non-existent butlers and gold toilet seats, but also digs deeper, talking about what it was like to come out as a lesbian in a time where that just wasn’t done. The message is clear: DeGeneres didn’t stop being relatable because she hit it big. And that, in turn, was because she didn’t forget her roots, she didn’t give up her fight, and she didn’t let money turn her into a hypocrite.
So how does one create a relatable character? In my mind, it breaks down to two sentences:
1) I could totally see myself doing that in those circumstances.
-or-
2) I would never do that, even under those circumstances, but I feel the person’s pain and I might be tempted to do that myself in the same situation.
The second option obviously works for antagonists, but it can also be used for serious flaws in otherwise “good” characters.
For example, one of the Spidermen in the movie ended up divorcing his wife, Mary Jane, because the idea of having children frightened him. Your mileage may vary, but this was relatable for me in part because Spiderman has a super dangerous job, and the amount of family-based drama in superhero movies would definitely make me wary to have kids.
He responds to this in a comically, overly dramatic way, crying in his suit in the shower, laying in bed, slumped over with his butt in the air, binging videogames, and gaining a ton of weight. I think most adults are mature enough to keep their lives somewhat together under pressure, but the scenes still come off as relatable, because if we’re being honest, most of us have done one or two of these things to a lesser extent, or at the very least, really wanted to do some of these things.
The truth is that some of the best characterization comes from making your audience feel conflicted, leaving them saying things like, “That villain was terrible, but if I lost my family, I’d be tempted to do anything to get them back.” Or, “If I couldn’t tell what was real, I might end up doing exactly what she ended up doing.” Or, “If that happened to me after all of that abuse and trauma, I might lash out too.”
Next week I’ll be writing about whether compelling fiction requires that characters should always be relatable, and my case for whether unrelatable characters can be used to create interesting situations.
How do you create a sense of resonance and relatability in your writing or in your other work? Do you feel that making viewers identify with your work is an important part of what you do, and if so, why?