Lovable Losers

When in doubt, make your main character a lovable loser.

That’s the lesson that was driven home to me by the new FX/Hulu comedy series Adults.

In some ways, it’s a Gen Z version of Friends. Remember Friends? Their jobs were a joke, they were broke, and their love lives were DOA. Kind of the same thing here. If not more so.

It’s a classic approach to comedy. Nothing is working in a character’s life (or at least one very major thing isn’t). And although they might be flawed, even unlikable in some ways, you can’t help but love them.

And the fact that they are always losing (and yet wanting, and trying, so hard) helps with that.

But this is not just for comedies…

I would submit that “lovable loser” is a good starting point in most genres of TV and movies.

Think of “hero’s journey” adventures like Star Wars, Harry Potter and How to Train Your Dragon. Aren’t all three of those main characters essentially “losers” in their worlds, to start out, and for quite some time once things get going? While also lovable?

Even John McClane in Die Hard begins the movie as somewhat of a lovable loser. Sure he’s a wise-cracking badass, but he’s mainly defined by his marital problem that he can’t seem to solve or get past. And of course whatever progress he makes in the middle, he’s still by far the underdog throughout.

Or John Wick. His woman has died, and then (SPOILER ALERT!), his dog. Of course he’s a “winner” when it comes to killing people but that comes later. What we relate to and what makes us care is the loser-ness. True, he starts to “win” once he goes on the rampage. Which to me is a weakness of the film. It gets less compelling, in a way, the more he succeeds. Even if you enjoy watching all the action scenes.

To me it’s about defining the character around something they want but can’t have, that the audience can’t help but feel for. Because you need them to feel. It’s not enough that they’re interested. They have to strongly care. So do industry readers, who believe it or not, also have hearts.

And the best way to get them caring is to present a character they can’t help but wrap their hearts around. Who is usually “losing.” Take the recent script Goblin that sold to A24. I managed to find a copy. Guess what? the main character is a lovable loser.

Or the American version of The Office, which turned its main character Michael Scott – despite how terrible he can be at times – into not just a loser (unaware of it as he might be), but a lovable one.

I Didn’t Come up with “Lovable Loser”

Now to give credit where it’s due, I didn’t make up this term. It comes from Scott Sedita’s book The Eight Characters of Comedy, which I’ve blogged about before.

“Lovable loser” is only one of the 8 classic types we see in comedy series. But crucially, the main character of any story (who we’re focused on trying to solve or achieve something important to them in a given episode) usually feels like a lovable loser during the scenes about that.

When they’re secondary in a story, some of their other comedic attributes might come out – where they’re defined as “Neurotic” (Monica on Friends), “Materialistic” (Rachel), “The Dumb One” (Joey) or “In their own universe” (Phoebe).

Speaking of Friends, the one thing that I think feels most dated about that show in terms of the characters (and their effectiveness comedically today) is how dumb they would sometimes make Joey and how in her own universe Phoebe could be. (I know there are many other cultural things that also make it seem dated.)

This comes from a long tradition of such types in TV, but it is an area where I think we’ve moved on, somewhat. There are still characters in comedy defined in such a way, but there’s also a trend toward more dimensionality. And less of a need for such constant laughs from a character who says silly things a lot.

Part of the issue is that this doesn’t seem believable, often, to today’s audiences. No one is that dumb or that ditzy. Right? The other characters are all exaggerated too, but not that much. It’s a fine line to walk.

Back to ADULTS

So a show like Adults (single-camera, 8-episode season, and thus a far cry from the demands of a Friends) doesn’t need one or two characters to just always voice that one ridiculous trait. Instead, they make all five essentially lovable losers. You might not believe some of the things that happen on the show (my wife couldn’t watch beyond episode two for that reason), but for me, the lovability and the laughs got me through despite that.

Yes, it is all subjective. Nothing pleases everyone all the time. I’m sure I’ll find that out as the responses come in on my own just-released film, which happens to focus on two lovable losers living together. (And a third character one of them might date, who is definitely lovable, though arguably not a loser.)

My point is to advocate that you find a way for your main character to be fundamentally losing, and have attributes that make us love them. Which might to a large degree stem from that losing. They might have great skills and talents, but the key thing is to get millions of strangers inside their situation and mindset so much that the start to “become” them – to feel what they feel, and want what they want.

Often the key to that is their suffering, their struggle, their shame, their deepest fears about themselves.

Because aren’t we all “lovable losers,” to some degree, in our own heads? And it’s satisfying to take a journey with our compatriots on screen, who entertainingly, with vivid specificity and a strong passion for whatever it is they are pursuing, fall on their face, get humiliated, hit rock bottom, and generally, well… lose.

But somehow are still okay in the end.