Developing the Characters

 Hello again! I've been debating whether I should develop the characters or a basic script first, before coming to the realization that developing a script without established characters wouldn't just be undercooked- it would literally be impossible to write good jokes for the characters without knowing them and their personality first. So here I am, ready to get to know the characters that I will be writing jokes for in the next few weeks. For each character, I will include their name, physical description, what they represent satirically, and what sorts of jokes I plan to write for them. Without further ado, let's jump right into it!

DAD CHARACTER

Physical Description: He's a white, older male, wearing the sort of clothing that's half-dignified, and half-obviously-gave-up-trying-to-be-dignified, for example wearing a dress shirt that's all wrinkled and untucked, or wearing a formal dress shirt and belt, but then wearing some loose-fitting shorts and flip-flops. The immediate vibe that I want him to give off is "washed-up", with his clothing representing his flimsy façade of being informed and knowledgeable, only to reveal that he is severely misinformed and just sort of gross, as if he just spends all day watching FOX News rather than doing anything productive. Wearing any red clothing (or even the infamous MAGA hat) would be a nice symbol for his conservative views (which would then be contrasted by blue colors for his uber-liberal daughter).

Satirical Representation: This father character is meant to be the embodiment of the typical "MAGA Boomer"  type of older white male, and mirroring his real life counterparts, his main issue will be his addiction / reliance to online news- whether he be believing in everything he hears wholeheartedly, or labelling all opposing viewpoints "fake news". I think a balance of these two characteristics is key to mastering the character himself, since in reality, that's how a vast majority of people view news media- everything that "their" news channel reports is gospel to them, and all other news sites are disregarded as being produced by their opposing political party, and thus fake news.

Additionally, I want this character to delve deep into conspiracies and random theories he absorbed off of Reddit or Twitter- this would play into the character motif of being an unsuspecting victim of misinformation. Consumption of conspiracy theory content would fit in well with previously established traits like the blind trust in his favorite news channel, as it supports the idea that this is a very gullible, easily misled person.

I think this is a really important character to cover and represent because I believe that misinformation is humanity's greatest problem in modern times. While misinformation doesn't discriminate, and is easily disseminated throughout any generation, Zoomers and Boomers alike, I think portraying the victim of misinformation as an older white male in this short film is the best representation of this issue, since older people are much more prone to falling for misinformation since they don't understand the Internet as much, and they are frequently shown to support these sorts of ideologies of "fake news" (for example, your typical FOX NEWS viewer.)

Jokes: I think that this character will have a LOT to work with comedically, whether it be playing off his gullible nature or by highlighting how hypocritical it is to rely fully on one news source while condemning all other news sources. Referring to the computer as some sort of mystical spreader of "the true truth" that "the liberal media is hiding from us" would be a solid way to establish both his character and beliefs immediately, while also providing instant context for why he valued the computer so much- it may be the only venue where he can access "his" news source, as a sort of confirmation bias affirmer.  I think it'd also be really funny if at one point he attacks the opposing media as "hiding the truth" only to be corrected by another family member that the opposing media actually did report on what he said, leading to an awkward "oh." followed by him sinking into his seat in silence after making a fool of himself.

Another possibility for comedic pretense could be a staunch opposition to his political views, possibly from his daughter, who is also chronically online, but on the EXACT OPPOSITE side of the internet, instead pushing a harsh liberal agenda against his extremely conservative viewpoints. This would be a pretty realistic depiction of family dynamics, as it is common for younger members of the family, especially teenage girls, to develop opposing political viewpoints to their older parents. Including this political discord within the family would also be a fair way to illustrate that the film is criticizing both sides of the political spectrum, and not blindly taking one side to misrepresent the other, as the characters would themselves.

MOM CHARACTER

Physical Description: In all honesty, the physical characteristics of this character aren't that important to me. There's no symbol or color I want to use with her, and she will likely be taking up less screen time than the others, because while I think an overreliance on the Internet and technology for information/knowledge is a problem, it's just not one that I'm particularly interested in covering in great detail. So there's a lot of freedom when it comes to how I want her to look.

Satirical Representation: The mother character is going to represent the modern overreliance on technology for general knowledge they should know, but have grown too lazy to learn about. The effects of having all of humanity's collective information available to anyone anywhere anytime have been catastrophic for modern day society- after all, what's the point of learning anything if you can just Google it within a few taps of the screen? This character is going to be visibly lost without the guidance of the computer to seem smart and interesting, offering absolutely nothing to any conversations she participates in, or coming off as exceptionally ignorant, listing off random things that she can't check in an attempt to seem competent, only to be proven the opposite.

Jokes: As far as jokes go, ignorance is pretty much a get out of jail free card, with near infinite jokes to make about someone's incompetence. However, there aren't many specifically to make about reliance on technology for knowledge, that wouldn't sound repetitive or uninspired. It's for this reason that I probably won't include her character a whole lot- it would get stale if overused and honestly there are more interesting characters to deal with. 

In a rather uncharacteristic move from me, I'm actually choosing to split this blog post into two parts. Originally, this post discussing each character in depth stretched out over 2000 words. And while I have written blog posts in the past that make it to even 3000 words, this one felt way too long winded to be effective for explaining each character. So this is the result. You can read part two here!