Task 4: Horror Films and the Audience Article Part 2

In this article I am going to talk about two films the purge and the conjuring, in these I will tell you about the active and passive spectatorship, reception theory, role of social media and why is horror film more popular with women and audience under the age of 25.


Active v Passive Spectatorship

One of the media theory is that of the audience is made up of active spectators or passive spectators who don’t think about what they watch and just watch what they are told and don’t answer any questions about what the message behind the film that they are watching. Active spectatorship theory suggests that they don’t just watch film that they are told to watch and they will question the film and react in different ways as everybody is different. Also they may not accept the message that the film is giving and may think they is a different message in the film.

Passive spectatorship theory is that we are all the same and our intelligence, life experiences and everything else that makes us individuals does not affect what we watch, therefore they accept what the message of the film is telling and they don’t question anything. They accept what the media gives them and watches what they think you should work.

Filmmakers try to mainly turn to passive spectators by making their films very obvious and simple preferred reading. Other film making may make the film more geared to active spectatorship therefore they make the film more open and to individual interpretation, so that it easy for audience to read the film differently and to be able to discuss the different meaning the film may present to them and also respond to the film in a different way than someone else may.

Active v Passive in The Conjuring and The Purge

The Purge is a film about all crime is legal is 12 hour which you can go off and kill anybody you want to , I feel like this would not happen is our life time now, but if it did than the world would properly be a very different place, in the purge the reasoning for doing this is because scientist said that everybody has a nerve in their brain that wants to kill people and if we let that out once a year than the country would be a better place and death rate will be reduce in the year. As a active spectatorship you may not agree on want the characters do in the film, for example you may of not understand or aggressed with the boy who let out the screaming man, as he didn’t know who he was, and he could of been a kill, which in the film we find out that he isn’t a killer and a group of high school students are trying to kill him. But as a passive person you may understand of why the boy let the man inside the house, and agree with his decision I think women and under 25 year old would like this film because it has a strong male and female character and at the end of the day, the woman had to step up and protect her family, also women may relate to the young daughter as she has her first boyfriend and her dad doesn’t like him, therefore she trying to get her dad approval for her new boyfriend.

In the conjuring the film is about a family  being haunted from a ghost in the house which is put into a doll, as this film was based on a true story I think it makes the film become more scary as you may think that this could actually happen to you. This film is based to a passive audience because if you don’t believe in these paranormal activities that are going on in the house, this may make the film less interesting. But if you are an active person than you may think that some of the activities that were happening in the house could be real but then think that maybe the story had a different meaning. I think that woman an under 25 year old would like this film, as it is scary and new meaning  are always popping up in the film, also the maternal instinct of the mother trying to protect her children and the strong role the male character was in the film, make the film more appealing. 

Reception Theory

Is normally referred to the audience reception in analysing a message or something hidden in a film and how an individual interprets a film.

Is when a producer or director put a encoded hidden message or a meaning in the film which is convey across the film. If the director or producer put this in correctly than it may be easy to be pick out straight away, therefore the audience will have to remember this throughout the film.

The three types of audience message are dominant, negotiated and oppositional.

Dominant is about what the audience wants to hear from the characters with little knowledge of what the subject is, therefore the producer wants the audience to agree with the message and what is it conveying. Negotiated is when the audience agrees, disagrees or question something about the film or what a character is doing or saying, so the producer wants the audience to agree with the text but disagree with other area in the text so that they are form their own opinion and oppositional is when the audience recognises the dominant message but then rejects the message due to culture or political opinion, so a person has already made up they mind on a person or the subject in a film.

Reception Theory in The Purge

The hidden message in the purge is that not everything is what it seems, as people in the wealthy community act like everything is happy and everybody is grateful for what they have but in the end people are also jealous of what they don’t have and what other people have, and if for one day people can go mad with power and do whatever they want for 12 hours the majority of people will. A example of this in the purge is that most people in the wealthy community were jealous of one family who father did everybody security system and they thought that all the money he got from them he was showing off that he did by making his house bigger and flaunting it which in fact he was not.  Also it shows how divided the country is from rich and poor as the rich are all protected from the killings but the poor are not, and most people who die in the 12 hours are the poor people and not the rich people, who are in there cosy houses. An example of this is that the man who the little boy let in his house was a poor person who couldn’t protect himself from the high school people who were chasing after him. 

The Role of social Media

Social media has a big role in film and television, this is because nowadays everyone has a social network therefore social media has a huge impact in film promotion. Most people are on their phones or computer watching video on YouTube or on Twitter or Facebook. 79% of people are watching television and also are on Facebook. In a study 88% of people view social networking sites like Facebook as a new form of entertainment therefore they watch less television and they watch thing on their phone or computers. A lot of consumers are listening to music and on social networking sites than watching full length movies or television programmes.

8 Hours: Visiting social networking sites,
8 Hours: Listening to music
7 Hours: Watching full-length television shows.
4 Hours: Watching full-length movies.
4 Hours: Watching video clips (e.g. YouTube)
4 Hours: Instant messaging

Here I have shown that 24 hours are spent on social networking sites, music and messaging and only 11 hours are spent watching a full film.

Social media is provided for fans to communicate over their shared love of films therefore they are big fan based on twitter or FaceBook where people will talk and share post about a new film. For example twilight was one of the first films on social media which reach 1 million followers on twitter, this means that the producer or director has a huge audience to market to and build hype about the film. By using this you can build up a film longevity, so you can produce more series to a film and it will still be interesting and create a big hype, also meeting the needs of their audience.

The Role In Social Media In The Purge

It had a lot of rule in social media as the trailer was released and posters were put up on bus stands and build boards. This created a lot of hype for the film. also Facebook and twitter groups were created to talk about the film and what to except in it, what actors and actress who were playing in the film. The mask from the film you can buy and wear for Halloween which made the film more popular.  The premiered was at Stanley film festival and then after was released in cinema and had one of the biggest gross in cinema, the day it was released. 

Why horror films so popular with women and audiences under the age of 25?

Women like horror film because they feel that they can relate to what’s going on, when the woman is a main character, for example if she is going through trouble with her family and she feel like they don’t understand her, or if they have a new boyfriend or the first time you have sex and all the emotion that come after. For example in the film It Follows, she is lying in her boyfriend's car in her pink bra and panties. She and her boyfriend have just had sex for the first time. She's lying across the back seat, head out the car door, gripping a flower that has sprung up from the concrete. She is talking about how she imagined all this when she was a girl, holding hands with a hot guy, going on dates in his car.

"It was never about going anywhere, really," she says, "Just having some sort of freedom, I guess.

Women may be able to relate to that as it may what we imagined when we were younger and everything that comes after, and they have to understand why this has happened in the film. Also we like to understand what we are afraid of, it not just about the physical fear of death or torture. Women like to understand the character and by this the audience is in the same position that the character is in so it makes the film more frightening. But sometime women like horror film because of the thrill, to get your heart pounding, the adrenaline and the suspense. Therefore the film may have a strong female character, which is not always scared or acting stupid but instead survives. Women like more psychological horror for example a film called Dark Water which is about Dahlia who wants to move away from her ex-husband, Kyle and therefore takes her daughter, Ceci with her. Relocating to a dreary tower block, Dahlia and Ceci discover eerie, dark water leaking through the ceiling of their new apartment. Dahlia asks the building's owner to fix the leak, yet it only gets worse. Now having nightmares about the dripping, Dahlia is driven to confront the problem herself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcpJVEp047Q

Then a gore film like wolf creek which is about stranded traveller fall prey to a murderous bushman who offers to fix their vehicle, then takes them captive, but don’t get me wrong lots of women may like gore more than psychological horror.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm8duRDsS8E

Violence horror films are more geared towards male audience because they seek more thrill, blood and gore more female audience does.

Horror films are also geared to an audience under 25 because they are still developing themselves and learning new things about the world therefore they like to experiment with different emotion and feeling. They like to seek the rush of life and seek the thrill that a horror film gives them.

Horror Genre Gender Profile

 In the conjuring 53% of female and 59 percent under 25 watches the film, this means that more women watch the film than men, and in the purge 56% were women and 56% were under the age of 25. This is because more women like less gory horror and like to think about the situation that the people are in. Therefore they like to relate more to the person, as in these two film you can, for example in the conjuring you can relate to the mum and dad as you will want to protect your family from the evil demons who are trying to kill your family, and in the purge you may be able to relate to the daughter with her first boyfriend or the son who doesn’t want to see a man die and the parent who again want to protect their family from bad people. 

Intertextuality 

          This is important to the director, writer and audience. This exists is all types of media not just films, it can be on posters and adverts. Everything in media is inspired by things and people around the world, all the creativity helps you to create something.  For example in the Simpson when they are walking across the road it was inspired by when the Beatles walk across the road.  Also another example is the swinging chair in the conjuring and when the person looks at the chair no one is their but when the person looks away and then turns back to the chair they is a women sitting on it.
      It is an idea that text can be influenced and shaped by text that have come before it. Therefore no film exits on its own, something may have been borrow from another film in the past or present. Nothing exists on its own.

The conjuring is based on a true story, which is from the warren paranormal investigators, who investigated is a lot of paranormal activity. This film is directed by James wan and like of a lot of horror film, some parts of the story may have been real, other film that he made are Annabelle, which was the first beginning of Annabelle which is in the conjuring.  Other films which are based on paranormal activity and possession are the exorcist, Insidious and the orphan.  Some parts of the conjuring could have been taken from the woman in black, for example the part with the person in the rocking chair.  The purge also relates to other film like 10 cloverfield lane and  supremacy were you have to decide whether you want to live or die by killing or not and trust. 

Preferred Readings

When the audience reads a book or reads a book of a film, in the way the director or author wants the audience to read it. This helps the author or director to find out if the audience understand the book as the director or author wrote it and therefore they can improve on the next book they write. Preferred reading is basically in a movie where the director is giving his version of the story and what the audience should think it’s about. Stuart Hall created preferred Reading and they are two types they are negotiated reading, which is when the audience agrees with the product and oppositional reading which is when the audience totally disagrees with the product, message and meaning.

The conjuring people can be negotiated reading who believe in demons and everything that happened in the film but may have questions about the film or they can be oppositional reading who don’t believe in anything that the film is about as they don’t believe in ghost or demons. When watching this film I personally thought  some parts of the film could have been real but also back in the day they didn’t have all the medicine and scientist as we have know, and how we how more about illness which can affect your mind set and body language. 

Pre and post-viewing experiences

This is how a viewer watches the film, and where they watch it. Pre is when the viewer has watch the trailer and interview before and post is when the viewer does it afterwards. For example if the viewer watches trailer, clip and interview it will give the viewer a high expectation of the film, therefore this mean that the film can fail to meet the high expectation of the viewer. Also some film put the best parts on a film for example the best parts in action films or the funniest part in a comedy, this mean when the viewer comes to the film it is not  as entertaining when you watch the film. Also before watching the film people may read comments about it and this may stick in there head therefore this may affect the viewer’s enjoyment. They place where you watch the film may affect the way you view the film because if you go to the cinema you are watching the film on a big screen and the lights are off, and the sound is loud, this will give the film more of a definition, which may allow the film to be more entertaining than watching the film on your phone or on the television, which may give the film less of an impact, therefore this will affect the visual and audio experience of the film.  

The Conjuring by watching the trailer, looking at websites and talking to friends you may already have your opinion of the film which is that a woman get possessed by another demon and tries to kill her daughter but when you watch the film you find out that it more than that and they are all different events and meaning of why this is happen to this family and what happened in the past, this is what I find that they is always two sides of a story, and watching the film after reading comments and talking to friend may influence what you think about the film or as it did for me, give me more to think about and try and answer question in my head of why all this is happening to this family and why. As watching this film after watching the trailer and taking to my friend about it personally I think it was better than she describe it was, as she thought that is wasn’t very scary , but I thought it was, as personally I don’t really like horror films, therefore they scary me more than other films would.

The Purge by watching the trailer, looking at websites and talking to people about it, it give me the opinion that it good versus bad and poor against rich, which when I watch the film it was as a group of rich high school students were after man poor man, and a family were being targeted for helping this man and also it was about jealous from the other rich family as they thought that this family had more than them.