When I first moved to San Diego, I played with the (now sadly defunct) longform group the “Ugly Truth”. At the time, that group was playing around with different forms – some of them very Harold like, others not so much – when we got to talking about some shows we had seen that we had wanted to emulate. Those shows at the time that were mentioned in particular were “Seinfeld”, “Arrested Development”, and “It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia”, though now you could also throw “The League” on that list of shows about groups of friends acting like idiots. Our conceit was that these shows were endlessly funny, and seemed to have natural, organic scenes, with very fleshed out, fully realized characters; we didn't want to do an “improvised Seinfeld” per se, but we did want to figure out how to incorporate that kind of storytelling stylistically, to be able to walk out into a scene and instantly have these kinds of arresting, filled out inter-personal dynamics.
My initial hypothesis about what common traits these shows had was that they were about selfish people. This does, on the surface, appear to be a unifying element to all shows: Gob is typically only interested in pursuing either his own magic or sex related desires, Kevin underhandedly messes with a suspect pre-trial to get a better draft position (in the first episode no less), and Seinfeld et al go to jail because they can't be bothered to help someone being mugged. These shows seem to be riddled with examples of being being completely self-serving to only their own ends. And yet, this explanation didn't feel quite right – my teammate Chris Rubino accurately pointed out that this didn't sufficiently explain these characters completely, or even mostly. These people do act selfishly at times, but to call them blanket “selfish” wasn't precise.
My next theory was that the status differences between all the characters is very narrow (an explanation I love; see my previous essay), and this is true – none of those various characters really has a very high status over anybody else, and even when there are, there are lots of status shifts: George Sr. runs the company, then Michael, then Gob, then back to Michael. All the members of the various groups of the League and the Sunny folks don't have a leg up on each other, ever, really, and they're always joining forces and then dispersing, so the status balance is always dynamic. This does explain a lot of the relationships in all the shows, but it's an incomplete explanation, more functional than philosophical, and that's the point I needed to get to. Perhaps the stakes are the issue; in all those shows, the matters at hand are often trivial or inconsequential (“Seinfeld” is, after all, a “show about nothing”), but this also falls short, as the stakes are high for the characters (i.e. the things going on are important to them), and in “Arrested” can often be quite actually high (“mild treason”, anyone?).
Then, I found the heart of what makes the characters functional in the ways that they are (I should point out this is two years after I originally asked the question, so kudos to me for sticking it out) – these characters are vain. Vanity – plain and simple – the need to feel attractive, talented, smart, loved, respected, feared, is what constantly drives these characters. It's not enough that Dennis Reynolds thinks he's gorgeous and rich, he needs other people to feel those things too; Ruxin will fight tooth and nail to feel superior to his friends, and even Michael Bluth wants his father to give him control of the family business, because he feels he's earned it (a characterization that drives a good chunk of the show). These people are vulnerable, low, petty creatures, that just want to feel like they have a leg up on those around them. The only other archetype is the “idiot” (Kramer, Taco, Charlie, and Tobias-Gob-Buster), a foil that is often not even aware that they are doing strange things – all the better to set off the status grubbing other characters.
This lead me of course, to my final realization about how these characters work: they're human. What James Bond, John McClane, Luke Skywalker, and countless other action heroes have in common is that while they can be physically injured, and potentially emotionally affected, these people don't really have basic desires. Our other characters of interest are far more human: they have weaknesses, bad habits, and foibles. They're irrational and quick to make rash decisions. Sometimes they just want a marble rye or the waitress – these characters are fascinating to watch because they are so unabashedly human, and playing them is as simple as not being perfect; flaws are what make us so damn interesting. Doing a show that plays these kinds of dynamics is as simple as being human, and being affected.
Three years to figure out that good characters are human? Yeah, that was time well spent.
