Charater Theory: Vladimir Propp and Erving Goffman

Vladimir Propp's Character Theory:

Propp suggests that every narrative has eight different character types:

1. The Villain 
2. The Dispatcher 
3. The Helper
4. The Princess or Prize
5. The Donor 
6. The Hero 
7. The Princess's Father
8. The False Hero

The Villain - a character who struggles against the hero, typically they have quite a scarring past, the choice of costumes in films for villains are also chosen to juxtapose the difference between the hero and the villain, so for example the villain would wear dark clothing, with mysterious colours and also typically not considered very attractive, whereas a hero might have a quite clean-cut look, with bright colours and possibly a uniform, like for example Captain America (image on the right)

The Dispatcher - is a character who invites the hero to eliminate the evil threat. They may been seen as not the leader of the hero/ group but he is the one to send them in the right direction. So for an example of a dispatcher would be characters such as 'Nick Fury' in the film 'The Avengers Assemble'. He is the character who goes to collect each 'hero' to send them to fight the evil that is threatening the World.

The Helper - is a character who helps the hero fight evil, often seen as 'the sidekick' rather than the helper, they are not as important as the hero and never the main character, they are often seen as humorous and loyal to the hero. In some films the hero and the sidekick are very easily separated and the audience knows who it is that we are meant to follow as the hero, in other films it may not be as simple. For example in Kick-Ass we know that the main character is going to be Kick-Ass however, the 'sidekick' Hit girl is given a back story and her own scenes just as much as Kick-Ass is, so we see them as nearly equal to each other. (Images on the left) 

The Princess/ Prize - is a character who the main protagonist needs to save or rescue from evil. Sometimes the princess or prize can surprise the audience by 'holding up their own' also meaning that they deny the help off the main protagonist, which does not normally happen in films. For example going against this theory is the film 'Hunger Games' where the main protagonist is a female and she is the one who 'saves' her male leads and who the audience also look to, to save what we see as the evil. A great example which agrees with this theory is 'The Amazing Spider-Man' where the main character's girlfriend is always threatened by evil, and to be honest this is quite an obvious stereotype, as most of the films like this always have the main character's love interest under threat. However you could also say that this depends on the type of genre you are watching, films like these where they have that essence of Rom-com are likely to have the main protagonist saving the love interest, whereas in genres such as horrors the love interest is not so blatant. (Images on the right)

The Donor - a character who provides some sort of help to the hero by providing an object(s) that will help the hero in their fight/ quest. An example of this is 'M' from 'James Bond' who is in-charge of Bonds' jobs and also is the one to give him, his list of glamorous cars and gadgets. They are often seen by the audience as humorous, however they uphold a sense of authority.

The Hero - this is the most common character type, they have the role of eliminating the villian/ evil and saves the princess or gets the prize. An example of this would be 'Spiderman' the original trilology is a great example of this theory. 'Spiderman' defeats evil and marries his love interest. In the genre of film that I will be doing, the role of 'hero' is not quite as present, so for example in a film trailer analysis I have started, you can't really name the main protagonist as a 'hero' however she is the character we want to get her love interest, and her mother is the evil, however some can say that she is also the evil in the film. So in conclusion the 'hero' character really depends on what type of genre film you are watching or analysing.

The Princess's Father - this is the character who gives the task to the hero and sometimes identifies the false hero. Propp came up with the idea that the princess and the father can sometimes be hard to identify. Protective over the princess.

The False Hero - a character who pretends to be good and turns out to be evil. An example of this can be the Winter Soldier in 'Captain America: Winter Soldier' in the first Captain America film he was seen as a good character and then in this follow-on film he is the 'evil' character that the hero has to fight

Erving Goffman:

1959, his character theory suggests that there are four main types of characters:

1. the Protagonist
2. the Deuteragonist
3. the Bit Player
4. the Fool

The Protagonist is the leading character or one of the major characters in a play, film, novel ect. 

The Deuteragonist is the second person of importance to the protagonist in a media. 

The Bit Player is a supporting acting role with at least one line of dialogue, in British Television they are referred to as under sixes (fewer than six spoken lines) also used to describe an aspiring actor who has not yet broken into major supporting or lead roles. 

The Fool can be defined as a person with poor judgement, however it can also be defined as a person who fools other people into believing they are someone they are not. So for example if you are fooled into thinking someone is very nice and kind, and it turns out they are really horrible and mean.