I was watching Raiders of the Lost Ark last night for the first time in 20 years (1981, people!… I know, I know…), and it struck me that you can kill as many baddies as you want, as we don’t see them as people, but as members of a category.
There’s a danger here that writers and speakers need to be aware of.
We don’t easily care about categories (unless it’s ‘our’ category). We do care about the individuals.
That’s why filmmakers and storytellers (and politicians… Hillary and Obama, anyone?) have to make sure that the ‘bad’ individuals in their story are thoroughly evil, otherwise we care when they have bad things done to them.
Which leaves who? Indie and Marion, maybe John Rhys Davies.
In fact, one of the major flaws I see in movies and novels is not making us care about the characters. We’ll get 45 minutes into a movie and Stuart and I will turn to each other and go, ‘Who are we meant to care about?’
So, when you’re writing and speaking, it becomes obvious that if you want people to care about you, you gotta be an individual. If you’re speaking as a representative of a company, or as a role (accountant, salesperson, mother, coach), we don’t care if you get killed off in the first 5 minutes.
Don’t be a disposable extra. Be your weird strange self, and we might follow you through to the end.
