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Blog #4-April 8, 2022
Analysis
At the beginning of my research, I attempted to use a multitude of different types of data to make my analysis as quantifiable as possible. They were:
Number of movies the character participates in
Overall screen time for the character
Screen time as a percentage of the total run time of the film
Screen time for a character that’s devoted to furthering the plot
Amount of dialogue
Interactions with fellow characters
Overall character progression/story (over one and multiple films)
I ended up only using two of these data points by the end of my analysis. I didn't use #1 and #2 since I quickly realized that the data wouldn't provide any relevant information to my analysis and would be skewed and biased due to my selection of the movies/characters examined. #4 was not used due to its extreme subjectivity to the fact of the plot and what qualified as "furthering the plot." #5 wasn't used as its feasibility within the timeline just was not realistic. Finally, #7 wasn't used because the comparison of the characters to one another would have been too subjective for my analysis.
Blog #4-April 8, 2022
Analysis
At the beginning of my research, I attempted to use a multitude of different types of data to make my analysis as quantifiable as possible. They were:
Number of movies the character participates in
Overall screen time for the character
Screen time as a percentage of the total run time of the film
Screen time for a character that’s devoted to furthering the plot
Amount of dialogue
Interactions with fellow characters
Overall character progression/story (over one and multiple films)
I ended up only using two of these data points by the end of my analysis. I didn't use #1 and #2 since I quickly realized that the data wouldn't provide any relevant information to my analysis and would be skewed and biased due to my selection of the movies/characters examined. #4 was not used due to its extreme subjectivity to the fact of the plot and what qualified as "furthering the plot." #5 wasn't used as its feasibility within the timeline just was not realistic. Finally, #7 wasn't used because the comparison of the characters to one another would have been too subjective for my analysis.
Screen Time Analysis
As seen in the previous update, the percentages for each character in their respective movies was shown. I utilized a chi-square analysis on this data to determine if there was a statistically significant difference between each of the given characters. Shown below is the table of my calculations.
The Degrees of Freedom was determined by the total amount of categories (6) minus one to find the value. The observed values representing the average percentage of screen time each character obtained within each of their appearances. The expected values are the average percentage of screen time for all characters examined in all of the examined movies. The "x squared" value was then compared to the value on the table. If the x squared value was greater, than the value found on the table, it's highly likely that there was a statistically significant difference in the screen time of the character to the expected screen time.
However, the only character whose x squared value exceeded that of the value found on the table was Okoye, not helping me to make any sort of conclusion.
Character Interactions/Relationship Analysis
To quantify this data, I looked back through each of the movies notes and determined relationships determined by common character archetypes throughout literature consisting of:
Love interest-a romantically entangled partner
Mentor-a person who taught the character something
Best Friend-the person who is closest to the character on a personal level
Best Ally-the person who is closest to the character on a professional/superhero level
Parent(s)
Villain 1-the main villain who is similar to the final boss of the movie
Villain 2-the secondary villain who is usually presented as an obstacle rather than the final goal
Rival-a professional competitor
This is the link to my spreadsheet where I kept track of each character's interactions with the given roles.
Some of the overall trends observed:
T’Challa, Okoye, and Natasha Romanov did not have mentors of some kind. This is interesting as both of the black characters in my research didn't have a mentor figure in their films.
Tony Stark, Natasha Romanov, and Carol Danvers had best friends.
Tony Stark, Natasha Romanov, and T’Challa had parents that appeared in the films.
Stephen Strange and T’Challa had a rival that appeared in the films.
Natasha Romanov and Carol Danvers did not have a love interest at any point in the movies I examined. This is interesting as both of the female characters in my research didn't have a love interest in their films.
All movies examined included two villains (the main and secondary)
Tony Stark had the most commonly seen major relationships in his appearances.
Okoye had very limited relationships in her three separate appearances.
Conclusion
Despite the fact that there was extremely limited data, the data, although there were minor trends, did not indicate that there was any inherent or direct change to the writing/screen time of a given character due to the diversification of the given character.
Credit for Avengers: Endgame picture: https://www.pocket-lint.com/tv/news/disney/147514-mcu-timeline-best-marvel-movie-show-viewing-order
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