Spectatorship Theories

Question 1

Passive Spectatorship

Answer 1

the filmmakers tell the audience to respond in a particular way through a variety of filmmaking techniques.
- the spectator absorbs everything the filmmaker wants them to absorb

Question 2

Christopher Metz

Answer 2

• cinema screen acts as a ‘mirror’ to the spectator
• we create an idealised character on the screen because we are focused entirely on the action on the screen

Question 3

What did surrealists believe about cinema?

Answer 3

it is the closest art form to dreaming
- subtexts in a film can uncover hidden meanings and desire: reveals the ‘subconscious’. like how psychoanalysts can mine beneath the surface of dreams

Question 4

Why did Metz say people enjoy films?

Answer 4

• the spectator can identify with a character on screen
• the distorted and imperfect reality of the film also creates an idealised and impossible character
• we can immerse ourselves in the sensory world of this idealised self
• believed the spectator was ‘constructed’ by the film itself

Question 5

Laura Mulvey: Male Gaze

Answer 5

• the idea that films are “made by men, for men” and produce a patriarchal view of the world
• in the ‘male gaze’, male characters are active and capable protagonists and women are passive, incapable and sexually available
• “men act, women appear”

Question 6

What did Mulvey say was the reason male audiences enjoy male gaze films?

Answer 6

• they ‘narcissistically identify’ with strong and idealised male characters
• they feel like they can sexually own (by voyeuristically objectifying) the passive, weak and eroticised female characters
• the combination of sexual desire and power over the female characters reinforces the neurotic male sexual ego. makes them feel sexually confident and strong

Question 7

Hypodermic Needle Theory

Answer 7

• the study of effects of the media on behaviour
• media ‘injects’ it’s contents into the audiences lives directly, which influences their behaviour
• this theory views the audience as passive, homogenous and impressionable

Question 8

Active Spectatorship

Answer 8

spectator engages with a film and is urged to personally interpret it based on them as a person

Question 9

Blulmer and Katz - Uses and Gratifications theory

Answer 9

• Audiences actively select media to use for their own benefits
  1. Escapism: escape from routine or problems, emotional release
  2. Personal relationship: wanting to be friends with a character
  3. Personal identity: reality exploration, reinforcing value, viewers recognise a character that reflects similar values to them
  4. Surveillance: forms of information seeking eg documentary or biopic

Question 10

Multiple Spectating Selves

Answer 10

1. Social self: gains satisfaction from having a similar response to other spectators with similar values. usually films you watch in a group
2. Cultural self: gets references and meanings generated by the memory of other films/tv/news (eg reboots or sequels)
3. Private self: generates personal and unique meanings based on personal memories. eg films you watched when younger
4. Desiring self: brings un/conscious energies and responses that have little to do with surface content. watching something and aspiring to be like someone in the film

Question 11

Stuart Hall’s Reception Theory

Answer 11

• a film only has meaning when it’s received and decided by its audience
• filmmakers are the encoders of the film, audience are decoders: find their own meaning and interpretation
• not all viewers will view a film in the same way

Question 12

3 different readings according to the Reception Theory

Answer 12

1. Preferred: one intended by the author
2. Negotiated: the reader recognises the intended meaning but might not entirely accept it
3. Oppositional: viewer might deliberately mistake the meaning and create a new message from the text

Question 13

David Chandler’s gaze

Answer 13

Challenges spectator to reflect on their own spectator ship
1. Spectators gaze: viewpoint of camera, usually offers voyeuristic pleasure (viewing someone’s life without them knowing we’re watching)
2. Intra-diegetic: characters look at each other
3. Extra-diegetic: characters look directly at the camera, aware they’re being watched (eg ending shot of This Is England)
4. Cameras gaze: film reveals ‘the mechanics of the gaze’, reminding us we are watching a film (eg Inception)
5. Text within a text: characters are also making/watching a film, for a time we watch the film they are also seeing/constructing (eg scream 3)