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

[Immortal Weapon]

The movie or TV show needs to trick the audience into liking the unlikable character. The cast of mob movies tend to be assholes. You can bypass this by making them personable, charismatic, a reasonable authority figure, whatever it is to mask the monster that's in front of you.

[ChrisIII]

Seinfeld kind of did this too, although at times Jerry and Kramer 'tried' to do good things only for them to usually backfire. The characters usually get their comeuppance of some kind though, although it isn't until the finale where they all end up in jail.

[batnbreakfast]

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

Game of Thrones
The Suicide Squad

[CliffHanger2]

I don't think you can. Larry David, Al Bundy, Tony soprano are not unlikeable. I mean I guess they're dikheds but still likeable, personable in some way. The closest I've seen come to it is maybe The Boys. But even that show has it's sympathetic characters.

[Anthony W]

Given what's popular in about a decade the question is going to be HOW DO YOU MAKE A SHOW/MOVIE WHERE THE MAIN CHARACTER ISN'T AN ASSHOLE?

It's kind of funny Superman gets knocked by writers as being too much of a goody two shoes but then you have characters like Goku and Tanjiro that make Clark look like James Hetfield*. And they seem to do just fine. There just seems to be this belief held by the people who make our entertainment that we want all badass characters all the time.

*Look it up.

[sunofdarkchild]

Given what's popular in about a decade the question is going to be HOW DO YOU MAKE A SHOW/MOVIE WHERE THE MAIN CHARACTER ISN'T AN ASSHOLE?

It's kind of funny Superman gets knocked by writers as being too much of a goody two shoes but then you have characters like Goku and Tanjiro that make Clark look like James Hetfield*. And they seem to do just fine. There just seems to be this belief held by the people who make our entertainment that we want all badass characters all the time.

*Look it up.

Goku is not a goody two-shoes. He's an incredibly selfish person who is obsessed with one thing - fighting - to the point that he will neglect his family and take any risk to get the chance to deck someone strong in the shnoz.

[TheRay]

Everyone is expendable.

[Immortal Weapon]

Goku is not a goody two-shoes. He's an incredibly selfish person who is obsessed with one thing - fighting - to the point that he will neglect his family and take any risk to get the chance to deck someone strong in the shnoz.

I never got over how in the ending of DBZ how Goku abandoned his family so he can train the reincarnation of Buu in the hyperbolic time chamber. Goten was still young and he had a granddaughter. I don't know how anyone in his friend circle tolerates him

[TheRay]

You do it like seinfeld or The Jeffersons

Well..I..okay you have a point.

[AndrewCrossett]

Seinfeld got it right with the show's motto... "No hugs, no learning."

Make the jokes funny, and make us laugh at the characters rather than with them.

[ChrisIII]

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

Kind of felt that way about Grand Theft Auto V. Trevor and Michael in particular are pretty nasty criminals but also there are scenes that show their kind of more sympathetic side, and some of the villains are far worse. (Although to be fair some of this relies on the player's choices)

Red Dead didn't seem to have as much of a problem as the characters-apart from a few (Micah, the debt collector guy) seemed generally good natured and sympathetic. Even Dutch in the second one before he kind of lost it.

[phonogram12]

If it's a comedy, you really have to make them funny as hell and make the audience relate to them despite themselves. One of my favorite shows of the past 10 years was You're the Worst and they were all more or less selfish assholes, but they were really funny, each having a sympathetic moment every now and then and the occasional self-realization that they were indeed assholes.

[Scott Taylor]

Pick a subject matter that is badass or represents some kind of twisted wish fulfillment, in American culture. Sopranos involves the mob, always a mysterious and compelling part of society. Clockwork Orange was anarchy against a system everyone knows is broken. Same goes for Hair, back in the day. Zombie movies play to the issues everyone has with crowding and people just being inconvenient.

Its just making the premise appealing.

[TheRay]

It should be easy enough to just always make sure they get their comeuppance.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

https://www.writeyourscreenplay.com/...eries-halston/

One of my writing teachers explored this topic through looking at "Halston".