Billions of people watch TV every day, soaking up the magic of the stars. We love watching charismatic people perform. Those of us who don’t watch TV programs most likely play games, watch movies, read books or comics. We are all gripped by at least one form of entertainment, and the reason is clear: we love larger than life, exciting and charismatic characters.
Hanah Marin from Pretty Little Liars and Master Chief from Halo 4 don’t have a lot in common, except being two of the biggest characters in 2012
Characters Make Entertainment
On TV, every show has a lead character. That character is the icon we are drawn to, the person who keeps us coming back for more. Whether it’s Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin, Emily Fields or Hanna Marin, Caroline Forbes or Damon Salvatore, we all have a character we love and that character keeps us coming back for more
In games, we literally step into the very shoes of our favourite characters. Whether its Marter Chief from Halo 4 or Marcus Phoenix, Mario or Ratchet, Chun Li or Asuka, we get absorbed in gaming characters and they can carry us through tens if not hundreds of hours of gameplay.
The same is true for sports with great characters like John Cena and Usain Bolt and movies, with amazing heroes like Batman and Frodo.
We love characters, and we get so wrapped up in characters that we come to regard them as close friends, almost like your fictional BFF.
What makes us love characters so much is the way in which they are portrayed, and the way in which they are portrayed is essentially communication.
A character communicates personality, and by the laws of science (and more specifically psychologically) the way a character is portrayed is exactly the same as the way a person is portrayed.
So, how exactly is a character portrayed?
Albert Mehrabian (a body language researcher at the University of Califronia) famously proved that human communication is 93% nonverbal, with 55% of all communication being body language.
Over half of everything you see in your favourite characters is body language. More importantly, more than half of what you see in other people, and, conversely, what other people see in you, is comprised entirely of body language.
Just as a character in a TV, move or game is brought to life through the way they move and the way they hold their body and gesture (in other words, their body language), so are you. And, just as an actor, presenter or artist can create loveable, charismatic and attractive persona through nonverbal communication, so too can you.
A character is not just a fictional creation, it is a reflection of the expression of personality that you yourself can achieve through the mastery of nonverbal communication.