Audience

1. Audience By….. Kate Hurst Mark Piper Julie Innes Elly Sheen

2. Objectives • To introduce key audience theorists and explain their ideas and concepts • To show a rough timeline of audience theory development. • To apply the ideas to a chosen film text • Highlight key quotes from the readings • To identify common threads throughout the readings.

3. Our readings…. • Laura Mulvey ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative cinema’ (1975) + ‘Afterthoughts’ (1981) • Martin Barker and Kate Brooks ‘Bleak futures by Proxy’ (1999) • Uma Dinsmore –Tuli ‘The pleasures of home cinema…’ (2000) • Shakuntala Banaji ‘Intimate Deceptions’ (2005) • Bell Hooks ‘The Oppositional Gaze’ (1999)

4. Film Texts... 1994 ‘Million Dollar Baby’ ‘Pulp Fiction’ 2004 ‘The Searchers’ Directed by Quentin Tarantino Directed by John Ford Directed by Clint Eastwood 1956

5. Timeline Introduction of the basic ‘Uses and Gratification model’ Developed by Lasswell - Surveillance - Correlation - Entertainment - Cultural Transmission ‘Hypodermic syringe Model’ Mass Audience theory Passive, homogenous mass, mindlessly receiving media texts Developed by Frankfurt school of thought due to the worries about propaganda during WW1 and WW2 Developed the term ‘moral panics’ 1920’s 1948 1940’s 1960’s ‘Two Step Flow model’ Developed from the presidential election campaign of 1940 Suggests that the media do not have full power over opinions, introduces ‘opinion leaders’ into the equation – they have more effect over people than the media Sometimes referred to as ‘limited effects paradigm’ ‘Cultivation Theory’ Developed by George Gerbner States that media effects are amplified by the amount of exposure to the medium

6. Timeline ‘Reception Theory’ Based on Stuarts Halls ‘encoding/decoding model’ Active audience theory based on the idea that audiences read media texts in different ways although the institutions put forward a preferred reading for the audience to consume. ‘Uses and Gratification model’ Developed from Laswell by Katz and Blumer Audience interaction as an active process where by audiences are used media texts to gratify themselves Uma Dinsmore –Tuli ‘The pleasures of home cinema…’ 1974 1980/1990 2000 1975 1999 2005 Barker + Brooks – ‘Bleak Futures by Proxy’ And bell hooks ‘Oppositional Gaze’ and black female spectatorship Shakuntala Banaji ‘Intimate Deceptions’ Hindi cinema and values Laura Mulvey ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ ‘Male Gaze theory’

7. Uma Dinsmore-Tuli – The pleasures of ‘home cinema’ (2000) • Research carried out for Screen in • Autumn 2000. • Purpose of research– address impact of technology (VCR) on audience viewing habits. • Readdress some widespread assumptions made about viewing films in the home.

8. Methodology • Qualitative • Small scale – 20 interviewees / 70 questionnaire respondents • ‘Passionate about cinema’ – recruited through NFT & Home Entertainment magazine • Drawing on ‘pleasures’ gained from home viewing; particularly the use of the remote control.

9. Assumptions • The act of video viewing is in a constant state of ‘flux’ due to the fluid nature of the medium; i.e. fast-forward, pause etc. • ‘Damage’ is inflicted on narrative by these capabilities of the medium. • The VCR creates an ‘anti-cinematic’ experience.

10. Results…. • Repeated viewings – wide-spread tactic; 97.1% frequently re-watched tapes in their collection. • Sample preferred uninterrupted / undisturbed viewing. • Repeated viewing – encourages deeper exploration and further knowledge of text.

11. Results • Remote often used to ‘complete’ the text. • Environment adapted to provide attentiveness. • Medium helps to forge a ‘respect’ for the text and often provides ownership

12. Conclusion • VCR use can – • Enhance the filmic experience in more intimate and personal ways that the cinema environment ever could. • Provide an intensely focused activity. • Promote informed viewer control.

13. the pleasures of dvd – Pulp Fiction(1994) The name of Quentin’s company is taken from one of his favourite films - Jean Luc Godard’s ‘Bande a Parte’

14. The drawing effect is another homage to the unexpected anti-cinematic conventions of the French New Wave

15. The dance competition is actually inspired by an earlier film Jean Luc Godard’s ‘Bande a Parte’

16. Quentin says his favourite musical sequences have always been in Godard [Films]

17. Jean Luc Godard’s A Bande à parte (1964)

18. + + = DVD special features the text = re-reading / reinterpretation of text encourages re-watching of text

19. bell hooks • hooks is an American intellectual feminist and social activist. • Work focuses on the interconnectivity of race, class and gender and their ability to produce and perpetuate dominant value systems.

20. The Oppositional Gaze • Developed from a socio-economic look at the ‘gaze’ of black people. • Historical development from Slavery. • Reinforced by - Lack of representation of black people - Bad representation of black people - Hollywood/TV industry obsessed with white supremacy

21. The Oppositional Gaze • Although oppositional gaze works with both genders hooks main ideas from this article are based on female spectatorship. • From this perspective black women place themselves outside the pleasure of looking. • Do not identify with the characters/plots • Fully aware of construction

22. Application to a film text – ‘Million Dollar Baby’ • Textual analysis - Subtle differences in colour of robes - Musical intro is different - Background of the black female character can be demeaning - Behaviour of the black female character is negative ‘nasty’.

23. Application to a film text – ‘Million Dollar Baby’ - She is being reprimanded by the ref for cheating. - She is the reason for the main female protagonists downfall, thus we as a general audience are forced into a position of hatred towards this character.

24. Key questions • How would the black female audience of today ‘gaze’ at the character and feel about the way she is being represented? • Can they position themselves within her character? Identify with her? • Do modern audiences in developed countries even notice?

25. Other key ideas • Relate to Laura Mulvey ‘male gaze’ theory - representation of black women • Discusses her interaction with black female spectators of all ages • Lack of representation of black females in feminist theory. • Black female audiences do not just resist, they recreate.

26. Psychoanalysis as a political weapon The love affair between image and self image in childhood – the mirror – loss and reinforcement of ego leading to moments of recognition. The name of the Father and the Law The male language of psychoanalysis Alternative cinema – reacting against these assumptions and obsessions. Sets out to analyse beauty – and destroy it - creating a new language of desire. The magic of Hollywood – skilled and satisfying manipulation of visual pleasure -unchallenged and mainstream. The fragmented body parts in close up: Dietrich’s legs. Scopophilia – peeping tom – voyeurism and that which is so manifestly ‘shown’. Women as image. Women are the one who makes the hero act as he does – in herself she is of no importance. Male role to take the story forward – audience identifies with the male protagonist who controls events – he is a figure in a landscape – free to command the stage. Women – looked at and displayed. Woman as showgirl combining the look within the film and the audience

27. Mulvey Diagram The spectator fascinated by his own ‘like’ - being ‘shown’ the self – giving a satisfying sense of omnipotence as ‘he’ delivers the action. The passive female form laid out for enjoyment – connoting male fantasy. She is isolated, on display and for the male star alone. However… The male protagonist is free to command the stage, articulate the look, and create the action/narrative. The male unconscious can investigate the woman and demystify her. Punish, devalue or save the guilty object, typified by film noir. Anxiety is created by the ascertainable absence of a penis – creating castration anxiety – there are 2 options Turn the object of anxiety into a fetishised beauty, satisfaction based on the look alone Sternberg - achieves the perfect fetish object – broken up into close ups, stylised - both the content of the film and the receptor of the spectator’s look. Her most erotic moments occur in the male hero’s absence. Hitchcock – the hero sees precisely what the audience sees - the man is on the right side of the law – just – the woman on the wrong, the audience are drawn in to share his gaze, voyeuristically. • Summary – the three looks: • - The camera • - The audience • - The characters within the screen

28. The male protagonists on the loose in the landscape – searching for the lost woman… Plot Synopsis: Ethan Edwards, returned from the Civil War to the Texas ranch of his brother, hopes to find a home with his family and to be near the woman he obviously but secretly loves. But a Comanche raid destroys these plans, and Ethan sets out, along with his half-breed nephew Martin, on a years-long journey to find the niece kidnapped by the Indians under Chief Scar. But as the quest goes on, Martin begins to realize that his uncle's hatred for the Indians is beginning to spill over onto his now-assimilated niece. Martin becomes uncertain whether Ethan plans to rescue Debbie...or kill her.

29. The woman – in the domestic setting, waiting. The caption for the first picture is, ‘When a woman talks…’ The second image is reading the long awaited letter from the absent man.

30. Watching and waiting …the return

31. Rescued!

32. Publicity shots for Rear Window – the male gaze at work

33. The fragmented female

34. And now?

35. Barker and Brooks - ‘Bleak futures by proxy’ (1999) Current research strategies are limiting: • Centrality of psychoanalysis • Language of “limits and constraints” imply boundaries • Unidimensional model of textual determinism vs. audience freedom How might we differently understand the ‘text’ if we begin from the range of audiences’ uses and responses?

36. Judge Dredd – Bleak Futures by Proxy 1999 –Barker and Brooks • Questions the research asked? • Snobbery of phsychoanalytical model – we understand what you are thinking/how you are responding… • These attitudes constrain the ways we look at audience response. • How might we differently understand the film text if we begin from the range of audiences’ uses and responses?

37. Methodology • Audiences of Judge Dredd • Group interviews – Film Buffs and teenage boys • General questions to develop discussion: • How films are chosen • Previous knowledge of Judge Dredd • Important factors of the film

38. Findings 14-15 year old boys from a boys’ club: • Pleasures are futuristic technologies, violence, fast pace, FX • Described bleak futuristic imagery – guns, violence, poverty and police out of control - as realistic: “Cos its getting like that isn’t it?” • Pleasure of seeing today’s reality on the screen • Line between past and future is blurred • High expectations of action and FX - the realism of plot complexities slows things down, and many boys were frustrated by this.

39. Findings: • Film buffs/ middle class viewers: • Pleasure is recognised as purely escapist • Distance from their own lives • Violence considered unrealistic and therefore easy to watch • Vision of future described unrealistic – not scientific • Able to identify technology that is impossible • Lower expectations and more likely to be satisfied.

40. Conclusion An important factor of audience research should be the strategy of viewing – preparation, demands and use of experience. For the working class boys FX, action and mucking about in the cinema were important demands of their experience. • “A way of imagining their class situation, in the virtual absence of any languages or coherent experiences of class.”

41. Shakuntala Banaji – Intimate Deceptions: Young British-Asian viewers discuss sexual relations on and off the Hindi film screen, 2005 • Banaji firstly identifies that a film text encourages multiple meanings and is ‘infinitely polysemic’ • She also identifies how meanings can be dependant on internal factors (religion/values), external factors (Nationality/Race) and social contexts. • Banaji refers specifically to Hindi cinema in the article and how Hindi cinema is treading some new ground (values represented within the films) to ensure an ongoing audience. • Banaji also acknowledges from her study some participants saw the value of ‘virginity’ as a universal value rather that specifically Hindi.

42. Jomir (a 16 year old working class British-Bengali) interpreted the scene as being a reflection of chaste cultural attitudes to gender roles and sex in South Asian cultures. His response to the scene is also coloured by a strong belief in the South Asian class system; the main protagonist’s honourable actions being the result of his middle-class status. It could be argued that Jomir’s response may be romantically tinged by dominant encoding of sexual roles found within many Hindi movies • Manish’s interpretation and response to sexuality in Hindi movies is far more complex. A closeted homosexual, Manish has an ambivalent attitude to on-screen representations of sex – feeling that there should be more explicit depictions of sex on-screen to challenge older and more traditional viewers, but at the same time Hindi films should be instructional; teaching audiences about traditional Asian ways and family values. • Ashok’s interpretation is drawn from personal experience of being a gay man in a traditionally sexually conservative culture. He, like many other gay and bisexual viewers of Hindi films, does not feel excluded by films featuring exclusively heterosexual characters, and manages to respond emotionally to the narrative situations.

43. The three main assumptions challenged in the article were: • Snobbery – film critics can interpret the meaning of films for ordinary viewers • Misapprehension- the popularity of a film proves its ideological power over its audience • Prejudice – all non-Western audiences are the same Another openly gay man spoke of ‘Bollywood films (that) have been part of me from day one…I’ll always make time for them…’ and expressed a range of empathetic responses, for the young girl in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, a male character who is the victim of rape, and a spurned housewife. Gay viewers did not appear to feel excluded or alienated by Hindi films’ rigid depiction of sexuality, and responded emotionally to the protagonists. Whilst there was some same sex empathy, girls expressing the fears of young women of being, ‘shamed’, and letting down their families, and the boys’ discussion of the issue of virginity and male restraint, ‘they would be scared, they’d have something inside them telling them not to.’ There was also evidence of a sense of young women’s dilemma expressed by male respondents. Viewers were able to separate their aesthetic enjoyment from their judgemental faculties and even when films were not ‘aimed at’ them, they were able to take pleasure in watching them. The viewers’ response clearly showed that they were able to speak from contradictory positions and sometimes transcend ‘essentialist assumptions …in their ability relish conventional films,’ despite the ‘intersecting subject positions’ they spoke from, in terms of race, gender and religion.

44. The three main assumptions challenged in the article were: • Snobbery – film critics can interpret the meaning of films for ordinary viewers • Misapprehension- the popularity of a film proves its ideological power over its audience • Prejudice – all non-Western audiences are the same Another openly gay man spoke of ‘Bollywood films (that) have been part of me from day one…I’ll always make time for them…’ and expressed a range of empathetic responses, for the young girl in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, a male character who is the victim of rape, and a spurned housewife. Gay viewers did not appear to feel excluded or alienated by Hindi films’ rigid depiction of sexuality, and responded emotionally to the protagonists. Whilst there was some same sex empathy, girls expressing the fears of young women of being, ‘shamed’, and letting down their families, and the boys’ discussion of the issue of virginity and male restraint, ‘they would be scared, they’d have something inside them telling them not to.’ There was also evidence of a sense of young women’s dilemma expressed by male respondents. Viewers were able to separate their aesthetic enjoyment from their judgemental faculties and even when films were not ‘aimed at’ them, they were able to take pleasure in watching them. The viewers’ response clearly showed that they were able to speak from contradictory positions and sometimes transcend ‘essentialist assumptions …in their ability relish conventional films,’ despite the ‘intersecting subject positions’ they spoke from, in terms of race, gender and religion.

45. Common Thread 1 • The extent of the audience’s identification with the protagonist, whether male or female, and the willingness of the viewer to attach themselves emotionally to the active protagonist.

46. Common Thread 1... • The protagonist as male – commanding the stage and the audience • Mulvey draws attention to the fact that it is often a male protagonist who carries the flow of the narrative and creates the action in film. This is referred to critically in the Mulvey article; the male figure is seen actively in the landscape, and carries the interest of the viewer, whilst the female figure is fragmented, punished or gazed at voyeuristically. ‘It is the male role to take the story forward… the audience identifies with the male protagonist who controls events…he is a figure in a landscape, free to command the stage.’

47. Common Thread 1... • The protagonist as action hero – doesn’t matter if he’s a she • The Barker and Brookes article makes the point that audiences are able to dissociate themselves from the sex of the main character in Action-Adventure movies, as long as the hero is effective and able to commit to the action, ‘none of these (working class) boys we interviewed had any difficulty with the idea of female heroes in such films – as long as the hero, whoever s/he was, was adequate to the task set.’ These films and their heroes were seen as a challenge to authority.

48. Common Thread 1... • The viewer as critic – respect for the narrative drive • Possible identification of audience to/with a protagonist is more tenuous in the Dinsmore-Tuli article. Here the research shows the audience’s willingness to subsume themselves to the narrative. Despite the viewer having the ability to fragment, or control the narrative of the films they watch at home, they choose not to, they showed respect for the director and the narrative drive, ‘to express this respect in its most heightened form, the viewers set aside the ego based activities of manipulation, and surrendered themselves to the pleasures afforded by the director. …the effects of such surrender are powerful, and continue to exert their force during repeat viewings.’ Todorov

49. Common Thread 1... • Intersecting viewpoints – transcending assumptions • In the Banaji article the audience response shows a strongly felt identification with both the female protagonist, and the issues surrounding her, as well as the male protagonist’s role, in which the importance of restraint, of not ‘doing’ is commented on by many interviewees. The question of the moral stance of the hero seems to be one that engages the audience more deeply than is shown by some of the other articles. Despite an oppositional view being expressed by some viewers ‘the perception of hypocrisy on the part of certain members of South Asian communities,’ this did not appear to stop a warm sense of identification.’ Many of them (the interviewees) spoke from intersecting subject positions that made their on screen…identifications appear contradictory…at other times it allowed them to transcend their essentialist assumptions …. In their ability to relish conventional films and see beyond…’ their ‘gender ‘their’ religion, gender or ‘their’ race.’

50. Common Thread 1... Incognito - a film by Julie Dash – a black woman director • The oppositional gaze – on guard • The bell hooks article shows the development of an oppositional view, a lack of identification, for the black woman viewer, engaging only partially with cinema whilst remaining ‘on guard… I could always get pleasure from movies if I didn’t look too deep.’ She talks about a process of interrogating the work, and becoming actively oppositional, ‘black female spectators have had to develop looking relations within a cinematic context that constructs our presence as absence,’ absence and misrepresentation leading to a complete inability to engage on a real level with the protagonist, male or female.