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The Plural Protagonist. Or: How to Be Many and Why

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Abstract

Individualised psychologically driven protagonists as hypothetical human beings are the dominant type of characters in films. When societal issues are addressed in stories, this type of characters almost always fall short because they primarily function in an individualised framework. Some films, therefore, build protagonists that transcend boundaries of the single character. This plural protagonist moves from I to we. It consists of a group of characters that share the same issues surpassing an individual scope. Through case studies and premising on what literary theory, performance and screenwriting studies can teach us, I aim to offer elements for a dramaturgy of the plural protagonist but also to highlight its value for the growing number of scriptwriters who are eager to discuss social issues in their writing.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Jannidis (2021) also provides a concise, general introduction to the concept of character.

  2. 2.

    As Duvignaud points out, the dual character functions in conjunction with an episodic plot construction. On Brecht and Fo’s use of episodic dramaturgy, see Russo (1998).

  3. 3.

    Orig.: “Le portrait de femme se conjugue au pluriel” (author’s translation).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium

    Ronald Geerts

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  1. Ronald Geerts
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Correspondence to Ronald Geerts .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Stage and Screen, University of Greenwich, London, UK

    Rosamund Davies

  2. Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK

    Paolo Russo

  3. Institut für Theater-, Film- und Medienwissenschaft, Universität Wien, Wien, Austria

    Claus Tieber

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Geerts, R. (2023). The Plural Protagonist. Or: How to Be Many and Why. In: Davies, R., Russo, P., Tieber, C. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Screenwriting Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20769-3_32

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