In most films minor characters exist only to serve as foils for the stars. Nobody cares about the people blown away by an action hero, the victims of Borat's sadistic humor, the unsympathetic stock characters who interact with the hero only to show us how cool the star is, etc.
Recently, however, some film-makers have begun to take a different approach to "fringe characters." Craig, the "man from Porlock" [I thought Coleridge's original reference was to a "person" from Porlock] takes notice of this trend and has some interesting things to say about it. He makes the argument that you can gauge the humanity of the film-makers by noting the way fringe characters are treated.
Read his little essay here.
