A turning point is coming...
In a little more than a month I'll be turning 40. Most of my friends are in their late 20s, so it's a weird place to stand socially. I'm considering throwing myself a fantastic 40 party with a kind of boozy alice-in-wonderland type theme, but we'll see if I change my mind 50 times between now and then or not
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But when reading a character in a book, the reader is often inside the character's head. I see a fundamental difference between that and seeing a character on film or TV, where the viewer is watching the character from the outside. In that respect, there is a strong resemblance between the TV character and the real-life celebrity. The difference is that the celebrity may drop the script, because no one can live a script 24/7.
It is interesting how characterisation often gets fixed by fandom. Fandom interprets the actions of the characters and, from that, makes judgements about their entire personalities.
As a result, some fans rail against the attempted rape by Spike, because over the previous two seasons they had seen him helping the Scoobies and that aspect of his personality had become their fixed interpretation of him. The attack on Buffy was a reminder by the writers that Spike was an amoral vampire and those fans had become invested in him being a good guy. For the same reason, some fans (who had the advantage of hindsight *g*) never forgave Xander for lying to Buffy at the end of season 2 and saw it as spite, rather than a judgement of the odds, and as a result a degree of contempt for Xander became fixed in some minds.
People get invested in the characters, and from there in the actors, who take on aspects of the characters and end up as characters themselves. I guess that's what actors complain about when they say, as Angelus did, They always mistake me for the character I play! *g*
it was in some ways original fic with her own characterizations
I read some stock car RPF for a while on that basis. Then I made the mistake of googling the characters' names and saw them as people with marriages and children. But yes, I can see that there can be a separation between the fictionalised person and the real person.
I had to Google Duck Dynasty *g* From what you say, it sounds like the credits you see on some films, where people play themselves in cameo - they are playing themselves but to a script. Except, in this case, it is all the characters. I don't know whether the reality shows on this side of the pond are scripted like that, or not. From what I have seen, most seem to involve people who are already minor celebrities (other than Big Brother which I don't think runs any more) so they may well be.
But i think it's also part of the larger human experience where we continually look to the future and forget the past.
There is a quote about learning from the past or being condemned to repeat it. But (and I may be cynical) I think the larger human experience is not to think or wonder. Do you think the majority of people look to the future? Personally, I think the majority don't look forward or back; they are too busy coping with the present. But that's why we have historians.
World and national events do continually repeat, but I would suggest that is not only a matter of fuzzy memory (and not listening to the historians *g*). It's also because the politicians are caught up in the immediate, so it is almost impossible to take the long view and the wide view, and so it is impossible to see the patterns. They're always enough differences that they don't see the similarities and the important thing is always to *act now!*. Decisions are made based on simplified understandings of the situation and always with an underestimate of the cost.
(btw, fun talk!!)>/i>
Thank you. And yes, it is fun. I don't usually have time to engage in conversation in LJ. But I am on holiday this week, so I do have time to compose a reply (and type it up) that doesn't (hopefully doesn't) misrepresent what I mean to say.
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