Andy

[author_by_night]

As in Andy Dwyer of Parks and Recreation.

A forum I go to had some discussion about Andy's characterization, and I wanted to reply but it wouldn't let me. So I decided to do it here; this LJ really is supposed to be for fan related stuff anyway, despite my not having used it for that purpose in... ages. And truth be told I kind of miss it, but that's another ramble. (Though you will be seeing more FAN SQUEE from me. I miss FAN SQUEE. I don't miss random ALL CAPS. So sorry about that.)

A lot of people have pointed out that Andy has gotten dumber, and I think that's partly true, though I think he's been pretty thick since the second season. But in the last season and in the most recent episode, he has seemed exceptionally, well, dumb.

I think some of this might be the retcon of certain characters between season one and season two, and this applies to everyone, really. But season one Andy is actually pretty cringeworthy - IMHO he's borderline abusive of Ann, given that he lied about his injury so she'd keep doing stuff for him. And even in season two he pretty much stalked her, although by then he was written as oblivious to how wrong that was. So in many ways I like this Andy better, and prefer to pretend he never did those things. On the other hand, there are times he's almost a bit too dumb to be real.

I do think that by having him give Leslie that speech, they're trying to make him a bit brighter. I also somehow wonder if he's not one of those people that acts less intelligent than he really is - partly on purpose, partly because that's his personality. We've seen him be clever before in his way, and I hope we see more of that. I do love his relationship with Leslie. It affirms my belief that the reason he, Ron and Ben all solved Leslie's Valentine puzzle is because all three of them are, in a sense, her "guys" - it's just that Ben's the romantic one. In any case, I do like that they're almost like brother and sister. With Ben and April in DC they'll probably need each other.

(That said though, I do hope we get more Leslie and Ann this season than we did in season four. I sort of missed them. Is it weird to have a platonic OTP of sorts?)

Comments

[crackers4jenn.livejournal.com]

I think what's happened with his character is, in a sense, sort of what happened with most of the Community characters. Which is, they were initially presented one way, the way Dan Harmon (and his vision for the series) intended, but then, upon realizing what the actor's comedic strengths were (and what the fans were responding to), kind of had the characterization fine-tuned to that. Troy, for example, started out as this egotistical jock, but he's been warped into a completely different character, and a large part of that is because of Donald Glover.

I think that's pretty applicable to Andy here. Chris Pratt seems way more comfortable playing the 'dumb' character than the weird, directionless ex-boyfriend.

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

Ah, yeah, that's a good point. Troy did go from being a jerk to actually being a closet geek, although my pet theory is he was always a bit like that and Abed just brought it out in him. I want to write a fic about that, actually. But it's on my list of about 87 fics I was going to write...

And yeah, I think Chris is more comfortable being a bit ridiculously dumb than he is being the weird ex. And as I said, in many ways I like that.

[victorialupin.livejournal.com]

That's generally my assumption about Troy's characterization, and it's a good way to reconcile his behavior early on with his behavior later in the series. I don't think it's necessarily what the writers initially intended -- I doubt Harmon thought of him as a closet geek when he conceived of the character -- but in retrospect it's a good explanation, and I think it has some support from later episodes (e.g. in the S2 Halloween episode Abed is clearly the one who's more comfortable being a geek, whereas Troy's still adjusting).

[midori-yee.livejournal.com]

Good point about the evolution of Troy on Community.

Chris Pratt's strengths seem to be physical comedy and his naiveté...like when he took the course on lasers at community college, which was actually a theoretical physics class. "One of the most significant bummers...of my life."

[midori-yee.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I find Andy's buffoonery to be a bit tiresome after awhile. They've been leaning really hard lately on his short attention span for quick laughs. One of the strengths of him acting so dumb is when he unexpectedly says smart things, "What it called when a few clerics run an entire country? Oh ya, religious oligarchy!" or when he says, "If a balloon popped, we would all die. Gases fill the size of whatever container they're in. School."

I've heard that the way that Chris Pratt approaches the character is basically as a golden retriever. He's not so bright, but he's lovable.

[pixiestick-cc.livejournal.com]

I think this is how it is with most TV shows. If you ever watch 1st seasons of any show a lot of the times the characters aren't really developed and it's the actors that eventually give them a voice. In the beginning all they have is a description of what the character is like and what the writers are writing for them. The longer a show is on the air the more comfortable an actor is at developing that character and finding out who they really are.

I don't mind Andy so much now. In fact I didn't really cared for him early on. Now even if he is silly and somewhat dumb, he is loveable.