Antagonist

Character Role Analysis

Tabitha and Birdman

Tabitha and Birdman are pretty similar. Okay, so maybe one is an older lady who works as a theater critic while the other is a dude in a bird-like spandex superhero getup…but they sure tell Riggan very similar things.

Tabitha tells him he's an entitled celebrity who doesn't know the last thing about art. Birdman tells him that he's a joke; everybody is laughing at him. Both of them convince him to drop the act and quit trying to be something he's not: a real actor and true artist.

Of course, their solutions to Riggan's problem are a bit different. Birdman wants him to make a glorious comeback to the big screen. Tabitha, well, she doesn't have much of a solution other than Riggan leaving the theater and never coming back.

But both of them give Riggan a heaping portion of self-doubt and self-loathing and maybe even a little motivation to prove them both wrong.