Robert McKhee’s ‘Substance Of Story’ raised some very interesting points on characters desires and narrative structure. One particular idea has had me thinking for days: “the protagonist must be empathetic; he may or may not be sympathetic”.

McKhee defines “sympathetic” as being “likeable”, and “empathetic” as “like me”, or relatable. This week’s Workshop revealed that some who watched shows like Breaking Bad, Dexter and House Of Cards lost interest because the main character isn’t ‘likeable’ enough. But is this purely because they aren’t ‘sympathetic’ characters?

I’m of the belief that today, a characters likeability is now determined by both the audiences sympathy and relatability. The death of cinema is happening because of this shift; you wonder why the most popular films today are kids or action films, where the main character(s) are there to please the audience. Nobody went to see Anomalisa or The Lobster because audiences now go into films knowing how they want to feel at the end of it. For TV, none of the mainstream networks sell shows where characters are deemed ‘unlikable’.

I think about the TV shows I like (Mad Men, Girls, True Detective, House Of Cards), and I like them because the characters aren’t there to please. Who wants a character to be likeable? How boring. I want sensationalism. I want Don Draper to be a man of indulgence, I want Hannah Horvath to be the selfish, entitled person she is, I want to hear Rust Cohle’s nihilistic ramblings and I want Frank Underwood to kill more innocent people. For me, the further they are detached from reality, the more ‘likeable’ they become. This, is great art.