Likeability

Last night I watched The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants. (Full disclosure: I haven’t read the book.) (Fuller disclosure: I’ve seen maybe two episodes of The Gilmore Girls, which probably comes as a shock to some people, seeing as how I write books set at Yale.) I’m going to leave aside for a moment that there isn’t a Wal*Mart within fifty miles of Bethesda, Maryland, and talk instead about the lightbulb moment on character likeability I expereinced while watching it.

First of all, I learned that a lot of times, it doesn’t have anything to do with the character. For instance, Sailor Boy and I really like the show Joan of Arcadia, which starred Amber Tamblyn, who plays Tibby in Sisterhood. (I have also said elsewhere that I think Amber Tamblyn would play an excellent Amy, were there to be a movie of Secret Society Girl.) So I was predisposed to like Tibby, especially since I found her character so like Joan. (At one point, I turned to SB and said, “this is kind of like a really long episode of JoA, isn’t it?) So yeah, she was a little rebel-without-a-causey, and I thought the snob attitude was a bit offputting (especially since most of the people she supposedly interviewed also don’t live anywhere near Bethesda Maryland, which is a really, really ritzy suburb of D.C.) but I liked her anyway.

I also like the show Ugly Betty, which stars America Ferrera, who plays Carmen in Sisterhood. I find Ferrera to be one of the most charming young actresses around. I like seeing her on screen. I like her voice. I like her presence. I just like watching her. So I was predisposed to like Carmen’s character, and that was BEFORE she proceeded to have the most sympathetic storyline in the whole movie and Josh Lyman started being a total asshole to her. (I also like Brad Whitford.) She’s SO pretty. I mean, they obviously can’t hide how cute she is in Betty, and so have to make up for it by dressing her in ridiculously unfashionable clothes (come on, just because she’s “ugly” doesn’t mean she’s blind!), but here she gets to be really cute.

As I mentioned previously, I don’t watch The Gilmore Girls, so I’m not very familiar with Alexis Bledel. I had a really rough time getting behind the character of Lena in general, and I suspect it’s due in equal parts to how little I empathized with her situation (come on, a fifty year old feud about fish? If someone had murdered someone, I’d understand all the animosity…) and how little I liked Bledel’s portrayal. I’m not really tempted to give GG another try, even though I hear that there’s this whole secret society plotline once Rory goes off to Yale. Question: does she always talk like that?

Finally, we have Bridget, played by Blake Lively. Now, I was not a fan of Lively’s character in Accepted. Nothing against the actress. And again, nothing against the actress here, but wow, did I not like Bridget. I felt a bit sorry for her at the end, but mainly I think she was the architect of her own unhappiness. However, I really liked Lively’s portrayal and hope I get to see her do a character I actually like one of these days.

Predisposition counts for a lot — if you are expecting to like a character because of previous work, you’re probably more likely to do so, and vice versa. And sometimes, no matter how much you are told to like a character, if something about the voice is off to your ears, you won’t. And at the same time, if the voice is right, you may hate to love a character. Hmmmm…