Many, many times in a notes session with an executive I’ll hear, “Your character is so unlikable. He’s so mean at times. Why is that? What’s making him act that way?” Studio people love to give a motivation as to why a movie character is an asshole. I say, leave my asshole alone! There always has to be a reason why one of your characters acts the way he does. Even if your character is a villain they still want some sort of backstory about WHY he is so villainous (I always want to reply to this with, “Does knowing why Hitler nearly eviscerated an entire race of humans make what he did any better? Are you going to be okay with the Holocaust now?”). They can’t just be mean or act selfish because they are human. No, there always has to be an event that happened earlier in his life that makes him act that way: *If he’s greedy, it’s because he grew up poor and money has become very important to him. *If he’s a male chauvinist, it’s because his first love left him for someone else. *If he has anger issues, it’s because he was raped in prison.

The problem is that it just doesn’t matter. There are a lot of d-bags on this big blue marble and not once have I ever wondered what makes them so d-baggy. They just are. And even if there was a “legitimist” reason for why they are such pricks I still wouldn’t fucking care. I’d still hate them regardless. Knowing someone’s motivation for being a fuckhole doesn’t make me all of the sudden like them or have sympathy for them – I just want them to stop acting like fuckholes. Perfect example: If someone cuts you off in traffic do you think, “You know, that guy almost killed me but I’m sure he had a very good explanation for cutting me off.” Hell no! You think, “Jesus fucking Christ! If I had a lead pipe I would take it to that guy’s skullcap right goddamn now!” And you would honk you horn. And conversely, when you honk your horn the guy who cut you off isn’t thinking, “Wow, that guy sure is honking loud. I must have done something wrong.” No, that guy is now thinking, “Fuck you, dick teeth! I’ll kill you with a butter knife!” What’s really interesting is that once you take the note (and you always do, cause you’re just a writer) and give a reason for why a character is so awful, the execs get so excited.

“Yes!” the say, “Now we know that your character fucked his wife’s sister and beat up his brother-in-law because he was lonely as a child! Excellent work!” Which I guess sums up Hollywood pretty well: It’s okay to be a douchebag as long as you’ve got an explanation for it.