How are Heroes Made? Characters and Stereotypes

Program: / Holly’s Heroes
Year Level: / Year 4 to Year 8
Curriculum Study Areas: / The Arts; English; Studies of Society and Environment (SOSE)
Themes/Topics: / Film language, character, narrative, bullying; self, relationships, stereotypes
Description: / Students further explore characterisation and the construction of stereotyped characters. They discover how stereotypes are created using simple short cuts to represent a group and use these techniques to create a new positive stereotype teacher character for the TV series.
Resources: / Holly’s Heroes(DVD)

Lesson plan:

Taking a closer look at these characters

Following on from activities in the previous lessons “Who are the Heroes?” and after watching Episodes 1 and 2, discuss with students how well they think they now know the Holly's Heroes characters.

Discuss how these characters were created as part of the process of developing the series. Explain that, underpinning each of the main characters is a comprehensive background description. These character backgrounds are an important part of the Holly's Heroesseries “bible”. This “bible” provides all the information needed by the scriptwriters to write stories about these main characters.

The “bible” includes a detailed description of who the character is, what sort of person they are and why. It may include a character “back story” which describes significant events and things that have happened in the character’s life in the past, prior to this story starting. A back story can be one or two pages long for a main character and a paragraph or two for a minor character. It may include information about where they have lived, or about significant events which may have an impact on who they now are and why they behave in a particular way. Only the people making the film usually have access to this “bible”.Other people usually are given brief character outlines called a “pen picture”.

Below is a back story of Holly from the Holly's Heroes series “bible”.

How would this back story help the scriptwriters to create the character of Holly?

Why is it written in the first person?

What elements of Holly’s personality in the back story appear in the series?

Students use worksheet 2A Character Pen Picturesto match the pen picture character descriptions with the correct names.

Once the pen pictures are correct, have students think of one word to describe each of these characters. This word could be used as a short cut caption under a publicity photo.

Ask students to imagine they are a character in a TV series. Have them use worksheet 2B My Back Story to write their own one page back story, and create a personal pen picture.

Holly’s back story


Character and audience — who do we like and why do we like them?

An important part of a filmmaker’s job in telling a story is to have the audience identify with the main characters - so that we become interested in them, feel something for them and want to keep watching to see what happens to them. To make the drama work, the filmmaker wants us to like some of these characters and to dislike others.

Discuss ways in which the filmmaker does this and record responses on the board or a chart. For example:

  • What do they see?Consider: acting, production design such as clothing, accessories, hairstyling, colours, casting — choice of the actor
  • What do they hear?The dialogue, what they say and how they say it.

Using worksheet 2C My Favourite Character, students analyse their favourite character and explore in detail the ways in which the filmmaker has created this character.Students then describe what they like about this character’s appearance and personality.

How do you know?

List all the features used by students to find out this information — focusing on components such as acting, props, camera work, colour, sound and music.

Discuss this list and encourage students to add any other ways in which meaning can be communicated through television and film. Have students group these features into categories which belong together. This can be made into a classroom chart. Leave room for additional features to be added as students learn about them. For example:

Understanding a TV Story
  • Sound: sound effects, dialogue, music, narration
  • Editing: sequencing of shots, number of shots in a sequence, length of shots
  • Lighting: time of day, mood and atmosphere, colour, location
  • Camera:
  • framing – what you see in the shot
  • shot types – close ups, medium shots, wide shots
  • camera angle – high, eye level, low
  • camera movement – zoom, pan, tilt, crane shot tracking
  • Acting: performance, body language, facial expressions
  • Casting: selection, typecasting, prior knowledge of actors
  • Design: set design, locations, props, set dressing, costume, make-up and hair

Explore film language in more detail in the Live Action Kitin the Learning Centre.

Use this model below to make a class chart, listing the most popular characters. You might also record how many class members selected each character and rank them from the most popular choice to the least popular.

Class Chart

Character’s Name / Male/Female / What we like about his/her appearance / What we like about his/her personality

Discuss this information and ask students to comment on the choices made and the reasons for them, using questions such as:

  • What are the most popular features noted about the characters’ looks? What might this mean?
  • What are the most popular features noted about the characters’ personalities? What might this mean?
  • Are there any similarities between the most popular characters? What might this mean?

Which characters do we dislike and why?

As before, this time using worksheet 2D My Least Favourite Character, students analyse their least favourite character and explore in detail the ways in which the filmmaker has created this character. Students then describe what they dislike about this character’s appearance and personality.

As a class, discuss and create a class chart using the model below to combine and record this information.

Unpopular characters
Character’s Name / Male/
Female / What we dislike about his/her appearance / What we dislike about his/her personality / Chosen by:(# of boys, # of girls)

Analyse this information and ask students to comment on the choices made and the reasons for them, using questions such as:

  • What are the common features noted about these characters’ looks? What might this mean?
  • What are the common features noted about these characters’ personalities? What might this mean?
  • Are there any similarities between the most disliked characters? What might this mean?

How can we change the way the audience might respond to these characters?

Choose a popular character from the first list and have students work in pairs to suggest some changes that might make the audience respond less positively to this character. For example, this could be a change of body language, facial expression, clothing, casting (choice of actor) or physical appearance. Draw a character sketch showing the new look character and write a one to two sentence pen picture based on the original in the worksheet 2A Character pen picturesbut incorporating the change.

Have students repeat the same process with a selected unpopular character, looking at making one significant change to their appearance and personality to try and increase their popularity with the audience. Draw a character sketch showing the new look character and write a one to two sentence pen picture based on the original in the worksheet Character pen pictures but incorporating the change.

Short cuts to stereotypes

Because most television programs are quite short, the audience needs to be introduced to the characters’ personalities and relationships as quickly as possible. To do this, television writers often use stereotypes to quickly show a type of person but with not a lot of detail. These characters need to be quickly identifiable but they are not very realistic. To work effectively, stereotypes are usually more flawed, or more perfect, and are usually more predictable and obvious in their actions and behaviour than real people in real-life situations.

In TV production, stereotypes are created using simple short cuts in communication using a selection of characteristics to represent a group. Stereotypes depend upon value judgments about groups of people that can be positive or negative. Sometimes these stereotypes are inaccurate and misleading.

List some common television stereotypes on the board and brainstorm ways in which these stereotypes are created. Consider how characteristics such as clothing, looks, the way a person talks, or the groups to which he or she belongs are used to develop easily identifiable characters — stereotypes. Look at:

  • the heroine
  • the hero
  • the villain – female
  • the villain – male
  • teacher
  • bully
  • popular girl
  • popular boy
  • nerd or geek

Students identify characters from Holly’s Heroes who may be considered stereotypes: (Coach Peterson, Jacinta, Nick, Joel, Trish, for example).

Discuss how the filmmakers have created these stereotypes. Use worksheet 2E Short Cuts to Stereotypes to analyse these characters and to identify any short cuts that have been taken to get a message about this character across to the audience quickly.

View the Holly's Heroes trailer again or Episode 1 to get more information about these identified stereotyped characters. Pause the film on a frame for each character, observe and discuss any short cuts taken by the filmmakers in getting across a message to the viewer about this character.

The character of Coach Peterson offers an interesting opportunity to study the creation of a negative stereotyped character.

What stereotype is he based on? What is it about him that makes him such an un-likeable character? What things does he say and do to create this impression? Look at body language, dialogue and the use of the camera. How is he first presented to the audience? Does he exhibit bullying behaviour?

It could be argued that this series gives a negative representation of teachers based on Coach Peterson.

As a class, discuss how students feel about this representation of a teacher. Is it fair? Is it accurate? Is it realistic?

Have students draw on what they have learned about creating stereotypes in TV from these activities, to create a new positive stereotype teacher character using the worksheet 2F Creating a Positive Stereotype – Holly’s New Teacher.

© Australian Children's Television Foundation (except where otherwise indicated). You may use, download and reproduce this material free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes provided you retain all acknowledgements associated with the material.