How Do You Make A Show/Movie Where Everyone Is Unlikeable Work?

[Timothy Hunter]

What do shows like The Sopranos and films like A Clockwork Orange and Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer get right what countless others do wrong?

[green_garnish]

You do it like seinfeld or The Jeffersons

[Holt]

They tow the line of making the characters likable and entertaining enough that you want to watch them despite being terrible.

It's Always Sunny and Curby Your Enthusiasm both make this work on a comedy level. Larry (at least the fictional version of him) is not someone I'd ever want to interact with in real life, but he's still absolutely fucking hilarious.

[GozertheGozarian]

You copy All in the Family.

[The Gold Stream]

- give character(s) some level of relatability
- sympathetic backstory/justification for actions
- create a bigger evil the characters are against

[John Venus]

Even if you make a cast where everyone is unlikeable people will gravitate towards the character they feel is 'less worse' than the others. I suspect this is why Rorscharch is still popular. Push it too far and people will just stop watching. The best way is to give everyone some level of relatability and sympathetic moments.

[Immortal Weapon]

- give character(s) some level of relatability
- sympathetic backstory/justification for actions
- create a bigger evil the characters are against

American Psycho didn't have any of these things and Christian Bale character was still amazing

[Hellion]

If you're Armando Iannucci, the winning formula has several ingredients:

1. Have at least one character the audience wants to see succeed despite them being terrible because they're actually competent at their job.

2. Include as much creative profanity-laced insults and erudite humor into the rapid-fire dialogue as possible.

3. Blend situational comedy with above-mentioned dialogue and throw in plenty of physical comedy as well.

[The Gold Stream]

American Psycho didn't have any of these things and Christian Bale character was still amazing

i like to think in satirical works the characters or usually caricatures are used as tools against the 'greater evil' that is the satirized subject

that said likeable might be a broad term but id suppose sheer entertainment value would make the cut

[Frobisher]

Succession sort of hangs on the fundamentally decent but way out-of-his-depth shoulders of Cousin Greg. Every other character, including the desperately obsequious Tom, will regularly disappoint you every time you think they are showing even a hint of regard for anyone other than themself. Possibly it could work without an audience surrogate character, as it already has quite a cynical British sensibility to it but still found its audience.

[Powerboy]

Married with Children. It needs to be comedy and maybe have one character way more unlikable than the others.

[Thezmage]

I feel like the crucial step is making sure other characters react reasonably to someone so unlikeable. It's easier to enjoy a show where the unlikable character is insulted and pushed back upon than one where everybody somehow loves them

[Godzilla2099]

Family Guy easily comes to mind. (sort of)

I loved the first seasons (but there were some characters that I liked before they went downhill)

Current seasons? I haven't laughed at a Family Guy Episode since Stewie and Brian ran a brothel. However, if a character gets attacked you either feel no sympathy or a satisfying feeling because they're all jerks and kind of deserve whats coming.

[Cyke]

If you're Armando Iannucci, the winning formula has several ingredients:

1. Have at least one character the audience wants to see succeed despite them being terrible because they're actually competent at their job.

2. Include as much creative profanity-laced insults and erudite humor into the rapid-fire dialogue as possible.

3. Blend situational comedy with above-mentioned dialogue and throw in plenty of physical comedy as well.

The YouTube algorithm keeps showing me short videos from The Thick of It and In the Loop. I ain't complaining.

One thing I've found Ianucci to really excel at is giving his characters seemingly (at first glance) contradictory character traits to further develop their humanity and groundedness. Malcolm Tucker is a major ******* and bully, but he's also not power hungry. And because he's not power hungry, he'll be a major ******* and bully on behalf of working class citizens. So then it's more that he's antagonistic to the norm of false pleasantries and posturing and things government officials are prone to do. On the other hand, he's pretty kind to staffers that are really just trying to get through their unappreciated jobs, like custodians.

[Hellion]

The YouTube algorithm keeps showing me short videos from The Thick of It and In the Loop. I ain't complaining.

One thing I've found Ianucci to really excel at is giving his characters seemingly (at first glance) contradictory character traits to further develop their humanity and groundedness. Malcolm Tucker is a major ******* and bully, but he's also not power hungry. And because he's not power hungry, he'll be a major ******* and bully on behalf of working class citizens. So then it's more that he's antagonistic to the norm of false pleasantries and posturing and things government officials are prone to do. On the other hand, he's pretty kind to staffers that are really just trying to get through their unappreciated jobs, like custodians.

I find Iannucci also does this well with Terri Coverley. Everyone who works with her considers her to be useless and in fairness she does tend to put minimal effort into her career but when it really matter, she does know how to competently do her job and even tries to advise her superiors on the proper course of action but is constantly overridden or ignored by them.