I Like Liking

Catching up with Friends on hotel cable

In a recent comment on this newsletter, I mentioned that I try to make my main characters likable. And the truly amazing Kelcey Ervick replied that she hoped I wasn’t worried about that, since trying to make characters likable tends to be a sexist trap.

I do not mean to pick on Kelcey here. I revere Kelcey. And traditionally, I have agreed with her! I tell my students not to worry about whether their main character is likable. I even mention that it is often a sexist question. I tell my students to worry more about whether or not their character is a fully fleshed out person with clear wants and goals.

The actual slide from my class. Proof! Also proof that I am clearly not selling these classes based on my graphic design skills.

But it made me feel a little bit sad that the mere mention of wondering if your main character is likable is now met, by the best of creators, with the admonition not to worry about it.  I’m going to say something that is certainly self-contradictory and potentially controversial. Guys, I’m changing my mind on this!!

I think we should all be very, very concerned that our main characters are likable.

I just got back from a trip to Los Angeles, where no one is working.  No one is working because the studios aren’t making many new tv shows. I would definitely like to be working in television, but even as a civilian, I’d like there to be more tv shows. There’s nothing new to watch! I’ve been using this lack of tv time, both as a creator and a viewer, to fantasize about what tv shows I wish were being made.

The answer is funny ones. Comedies that have a hundred episodes. Ones that I can tune into over and over again, visiting my fictional friends. Friends I like. Flawed people, but fun ones. I want there to be some romance. And I’d like it if a lot of the characters were women, but that’s not a dealbreaker.

The last night of our trip, my dear friend Georgie and I shared an airport hotel suite before our 7am flights back to New York City. My daughter slept in her pack and play in the other room.  Georgie and I flicked through the hotel cable tv, perched on the ugly yet perfect industrial-grade pullout couch (I never noticed how delightfully spill-proof everything in a Hyatt was until I brought a toddler to stay in one). We flicked onto Friends, happy for the easy familiarity, and both laughed out loud several times. Rachel was funny. Phoebe was funny. Hell, even Ross made us guffaw once. I promise you, Georgie is a tough customer and doesn’t give away her laughs for free.

“Why was Friends so funny?” we asked ourselves. There hasn’t been a multi-cam show this funny in…decades.  Was the acting better? Did the ensemble happen to be just right? Has writing gotten worse? Do studios not have enough control anymore? Too much control? The best show runners only want to work on HBO shows? Why aren’t multi cams good anymore?

There’s no exact answer why Friends was so good, and some of it is obviously alchemy. But I think the answer maybe lies simply in how much I want to like the people I’m watching on tv. It feels like we, as creators, in our rush to be artistic and complicated, have forgotten about this. I’m almost afraid to say it because it makes me trivial or unthinking, but tv is a medium of comfort- so let it comfort me, please!

I’ve never pitched a tv show, or even written a tv show, where I’ve said, “Here’s the main character. They’re great. We really like them. Yes, they have this flaw, but they are just fabulous.” My pitches normally go more like this: “Here’s this character- they are a deeply flawed person. Almost, in some lights, a terrible person. But it’s society that made them that way!”

It’s almost like all the years of peak prestige tv, all the Breaking Bads and Mad Mens and Fleabags, seeped into my comedy unconscious and made me think my main characters have to be more interesting than likable.   And yes, your main character absolutely has to have a flaw, but, you know, Monica is a control freak but otherwise a whole lotta fun. Maybe it’s not even all prestige tv’s fault.  Michael Scott is pretty terrible, though they did make him way more likable in the second season. The same exact thing happened to another character, who may be one of the most likable of all time: Leslie Knope.

There’s some good counter examples for this, I must admit.  Jean Smart in Hacks; she’s a monster, sure, but she’s funnnn with four n’s.  Stath on Stath Lets Flats- he’s deeply flawed, but he’s so vulnerable you end up liking him.  The guys on Only Murders. Yes, there’s some likable characters out there, but they’re subsumed into story arcs that only last a few episodes. Where’s the Rachels and the Phoebes? The Frasers who, sure, are pompous, but love their dads? The sitcom format is better for this, of course, than ten episode arcs. And I’m not saying I want prestige comedies to go away. But is there a version of Hacks where there’s twenty-two episode seasons and most of the episodes are good if not great? I think there is, and I’m sad we almost never get that anymore. I think Abbott is the only one of the last three years.

As we all gear up to write more tv again soon (fingers crossed), I hope we think about how to write characters that are interesting, but still incredibly likable. I want to hang out with a fun, cool, awkward, weird, flawed person episode after episode. Make them be good parents, or good children. Let them give good advice. Let them talk a big game but do the right thing in the end. Let them show up for their friends. Give me a Leslie Knope. For the love of God. I need a break from Carmies and Cary Dubeks.

Most of all, I think I may have been doing myself and my students a disservice. Going forward, I’ll ask us to confront what makes our main characters worthy of the title. Maybe the exact question isn’t: why are these characters likable? But rather: why do we want to spend time with these people? After all, that’s what tv is best at.