Dump the Ducky
Resist the urge to explain and sentimentalise.
Contemporary drama often works hard to reassure us that a flawed character is not evil — that their worst behaviour is the result of damage done to them.
Typically, somewhere late in the story, the character acknowledges and confronts their traumatic wound.
This powerful and useful idea has an unfortunate side effect – the writer’s impulse to explain the trauma and its impact on the character. You’ve done all the work of creating a backstory, now you want some recognition.
This impulse was memorably described by Sidney Lumet and Paddy Chayefsky as the “rubber ducky scene.”
I’m allergic to sentiment, so here is my cynical, exaggerated, anti-sentimental version of what they meant.
There’s a serial killer about with a strange penchant for red-headed Irish women. He has finally been tracked down and cornered by an obsessive, lone, redheaded Irish policewoman (of course). While she waits for reinforcements to arrive, they make conversation (as you do).
The serial killer tearfully confesses, “When I was three, I had a redheaded Irish babysitter who loved to taunt me. One night when I was playing in the bath with my yellow rubber ducky, she wanted me to get out right now so she could dry me, put me to bed, and watch TV.
“But I refused. So she took my rubber ducky and threw it out of the window into the next-door backyard, and their bulldog tore it to pieces. Ever since then, whenever I met a red-headed Irish woman…”
“You bring them home?”
“Yeah.”
“Where you keep your two bulldogs?”
“Uh-huh. Trained ‘em myself.”
“And the remains? Where do you bury them?”
“What remains?”
Of course, real rubber ducky scenes are usually far more sentimental than this — designed to make you feel sorry for the character and to show that the actor can cry on cue.
Don’t explain the character. Instead, reveal them through their choices and actions.
It might help your process to create a detailed backstory for the character, but resist the impulse to share those thoughts. Reveal your knowledge through the character’s choices and actions, and let the audience build their own picture.
Don’t Explain, Reveal!
Dump that Ducky!
The Exception that Proves…
Much as I hate sentimental reveals, I love characters who use pseudo-sincere sentimental reveals as a weapon.
For example: The mob-boss who tearfully reframes a part of the investigating detective’s life story as a shared experience to disarm them – ‘You know, my Mum died when I was in kindergarten too…’
Real rubber ducky scenes beg for sympathy.
Fake rubber ducky scenes weaponise it.
