Animal Characters

I’m sure that most, if not all of you know that one of the primary functions of a main character in a story, whether it’s a book, movie or video game, is to be relatable to the audience. If a character is relatable, it helps the audience be connected with and immersed in the story. When we relate to the characters, we see some aspect of ourselves within them, and as a result get some sort of satisfaction out of them achieving their goals or overcoming their hardships. Of course, that’s an extremely watered-down version, but with even this little bit of knowledge its easy to see why animal characters tend not to work so well and why the entertainment offerings they are involved with tend not to succeed.

We’ve all seen or read a story that has an abundance of animals in the roles of the main and supporting characters. From cartoons to children’s books and even summer comedies, there are more than a few handfuls of stories that involve primarily animals. Almost 100% of the time, these animals are at least somewhat personified, that is, they’re given human characteristics. If it weren’t for this simple fact, almost all stories (there are probably a few exceptions) that involve excessive use of animals would fail outright and utterly. If they weren’t given human traits and didn’t suffer through pseudo-human trials and hardships, then these animal characters would serve no purpose in a story other than being cute and cuddly. Because at its heart a story needs some form of audience connection, the personification of these animals is a necessity.

Even so, personification can only get these creatures so far. No matter how anthropomorphic an animal character is the audience still subconsciously knows that the character isn’t human, and is therefore less relatable. It is this fact alone that is responsible for the lack of success that an animal-driven story has when trying to convey any story that is mildly serious or substantial. They may evoke or imply themes that are more mature and serious, but for the most part, what’s on the surface is fairly simplistic and dull.

This is why animal-driven stories are usually reserved for children’s TV shows and cartoons, books, and movies. In these genres, the characters are usually less relatable anyway. Animal characters excel in particular in cartoons, however, because at their nature they are meant to deliver comic mischief and humor, rather than anything substantial (not to put them down). One might argue that characters like Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Bugs Bunny are just as relatable as any standard human character. Indeed, they are fairly relatable, but in part I believe this is due to their longevity. Anyway, at the heart of their respective cartoons, these characters never really dealt with any serious or complicated stories, we as an audience just simply watched their cartoonish antics and adventures. In fact, these characters are in situations that are so outlandish that by comparison these characters seem more human than others. We’ve simply come to associate with those characters because of the long history and their place in popular culture.

Characters such as these present a special case of animal characters, and I’d like to continue on that further in the next article. Thanks for reading!