Good Afternoon everyone. How are you?
I'm going to assume well because why shouldn't you be? Let's break
away from the unanswerable questions and dive into our topic for the
day.
Using a new found respect for shorter
(though not quite five letter short) words, I'm going to continue the
talk we had on Monday. Archetypes. Let's define some shall we? I'm
going to focus on the modern Archetypes found in love stories because
I don't hear enough about them and I find the topic fascinating. I'll
go into the archetype itself, pros to the archetype and cons.
So why six? Three male and three
female, in alternating order. And I'll start with...
The Pixie
An apt definition
of the pixie would be a large percentage of the characters that Zooey
Deschanel plays. Whether it's because she herself is a pixie, or just
typecasting, Deschenal often finds herself playing the following
character. An independent girl who isn't afraid to make the first
move. Fun and unpredictable but not wild, more quirky. She doesn't
want the stereotypical love she wants something real. The pixie is
what she sounds like, fun, flirty, energetic.
Pros-The pixie is
a more recently developed archetype, which shows a shift in romantic
expectations. The fact that they're willing to make the first move is
great for love stories, as is the fact that they go against the old
stereotypes. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't like Pixies but...
Cons-Pixies are
often found in movies where the male lead is shy, boring, and
potentially recovering from serious issues. Pixies generally bring
characters out of their shell, but the pixie much like a different
archetype, hinders personal character growth. In addition, they can
often become unrealistic, little more than a bundle of quirks not
necessarily a real human being.
The Nice Guy
There have always
been nice guys, but in an attempt to draw men as well as women into
watching romantic comedies the nice guy has taken a shift. In the
past, the nice guy was just that, nice, but nice guys were still
generally the stars of life. That is to say, they were the rich, the
athletic, the complete package so to speak. The problem with that old
way is that nice guys almost always come about due to having to make
up for a lack in other traits, which is why we now have the new nice
guy.
We see the new
nice guy in shows like the Big Bang, movies which give geek actors
the opportunity to woo hot actresses in romantic comedies more comedy
than romance. A lot of the better nice guy movies feature older
romances such as in Cyrus, 40 Year Old Virgin, etc. But what I'm
getting at is that the new nice guys are nice to overcompensate for
traits they lack. They are often understanding in the face of
irrational emotion, willing to go to great lengths to please their
woman, have some sort of well paying job but often aren't
exorbitantly wealthy, and often see in a person what they themselves
can't.
Pros-The obvious,
nice guys don't treat their women like crap, and often woo a girl who
is being treated like crap. They view their love interest as a real
person and understand that real people have real problems.
Cons-Their
is a limit to how much crap a person can take and while the nice guys
in the movies take a lot, real nice guys are more wont to find
someone nice as well . Nice guys also tend to be delegated to the
role of waiting while their woman figures out what she wants, where
as a smart nice guy knows waiting almost never pays off.
Smart Girls
Smart girls aren't
often the pursued in Romance but they are increasing in number as the
pursuers. Emma Stone plays a lot of them, and they tend to be similar
to, but not quite the same, as pixies. Smart girls are firstly smart,
both book smart and character smart. They have a protective edge of
snark around them which keeps dumb guys away and tend to use a lot of
sarcasm.
Smart girls still
follow a lot of the rules of classic romance, they still want a guy
who will make the first move but they want someone who sees them for
who they are and isn't afraid of their intelligence. Smart girls
often are trying to find Mr. Right while also pursuing some dream
career. They don't necessarily have wild and crazy quirks, but will
often let loose at least once in a movie often with the aid of
alcohol. Once they are being pursued they make it difficult for the
man but that's part of the point. Smart girls aren't easy.
Pros-Firstly
they're smart. Any smart female character is to be celebrated and
smart girls tend to be comfortable being alone and won't tolerate a
bad relationship. They are driven, have personality, and are the most
realistic of the types I'll list.
Cons-None. I love
smart girls. Ok, there have to be some cons. Smart girls tend to be
leads, we only see their perspective. There's not much from the other
side which serves as a problem. Also smart girls, for all of their
intelligence, somehow always wind up with the old nice guy. So
essentially, Smart girls, while awesome, still exist in an older
romantic context.
The Dark Brooding Guy
We'll go straight
to Twilight on this one. Edward and Jacob fulfill this role, as do a
lot of the love interests you see in supernatural, fiction. The Dark
brooding guy isn't going to tell you what he feels, and even if you
want him to stay away, he's going to be around. They say everything
you want to be told but could never admit, and do everything you want
someone to do but would never tell. They get you because they're
obsessed with you.
Pros-Who doesn't
want to be someone's obsession? Dark brooding guys often see through
the flaws of a character to their core, and understand a person
fully. Plus dark brooding guys have secrets, often powerful secrets.
And they're masters of the bed room.
Cons-I've never
seen a dark brooding guy character who didn't read like a stalker.
Being mysterious often isn't due to a person having secrets, it's due
to a person not having anything worth saying. And dark brooding guys
often are emotional train wrecks, transferring through emotions at
the drop of a dime.
The Bad Girl
This is again a
shift, because the bad girl has always existed. Currently the bad
girl is seen in movies like Fight Club,
xXx, Bad Teacher, etc.
Modern bad girls don't give a fuck and they don't care if you know
it. Bad girls will tell a character what's what which will often be
infuriating but also what they need to hear. They will often have
their own style and odd hobbies/behaviors, but in the end a bad girl
learns something and sticks with the person who can tame them.
Pros-Much like the Pixie bad girls aren't afraid to make the first
move but unlike the pixie the guy has to already be in a state to
handle the bad girl or else nothing gets initiated. Bad curls push
characters to their limits, they reveal truths to characters, and
they are more interesting than more normal girls ever could be.
Cons-bad girls are often crazy. If you encountered one in real life
most instincts would scream run and they'd be right. Bad girls
generally have serious issues which need resolving, and often drugs
are involved.
The Geek
Obviously shows like the Big Bang theory employ the geek archetype,
but we also see them popping up more frequently now. The geek isn't
so much a new as it is evolving. Now they get to go on romantic
adventures as well.
Geeks embody a lot of the nice guy, though unlike the nice guy don't
have the confidence to employ it. They have lucrative careers, busy
lives, and generally exist within their own geek worlds. Geeks are
mostly seen in more heavily comedic roles because they make way more
mistakes than the other archetypes, but they also tend to have the
biggest rewards.
Pros-Geeks have their stuff together. They offer much of the rewards
of the nice guy but they also have better senses of humor. They'll
often encourage characters to break away from their constrained
worlds and experience some of the strangeness in life.
Cons-Delegated to comedic roles, geeks don't get a lot of opportunity
to break from the stereotypes of geekdom. Since they share most of
their traits with the nice guy, they can often be confused, though
there are plenty of the new nice guys who are not geeks. They also
tend to not go for geek girls much like how the smart girls go for
the not as smart guys.
So there we have it, some new archetypes to consider. Of course I
might have gotten it wrong but lacking other reading on the subject I
felt I'd add my analysis to the game.
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