Spectatorship theory

 

• Films are generally constructed to provide the spectator with a particular viewing position, most often aligning the spectator with a specific character or point of view.

• Spectatorship theory therefore looks at how films address individual spectators through, for example, particular shots, editing, music and performance as well as narrative and genre to engage their interest and emotion.

• Spectators can be 'passive' or 'active' in their responses to film.

Passive Theories: the audiences for films respond in a fixed way that has been created by the techniques of the filmmakers.

• The Frankfurt school (1920-30's Germany) said cinema created the illusion of proximity -  the combination of sound and a very large moving image, experienced in a darkened room, with attention focused on the screen made the audience feel they were in the scene and accept all the storyline as told.

• Christopher Metz (1975) said the reason people enjoyed films is because they can identify with a character on the screen... but the imperfect, distorted reality of the film also creates an idealized, impossible character. This is the physchoanalytic theory - the character as a mirror to the spectator.
• Because of this, Metz believed the spectator was 'constructed' by the film itself.

• Laura Mulvey (1975) focused on male spectators and proposed the idea of the feminist theory, the 'male gaze'. This is the idea that films are made for men by men.

Active Theories: The following theories suggest that the spectators meaning and response to a film is much kore individualised and influenced by a persons experiences.

• Blumler and Katz (1959) uses the gratifications  audiences actively select media to use for their own benefit (as opposed to being passively manipulated)
• They identified a range of different 'uses' that offered specific pleasures (gratifications):
• Education/Information.
• Personal identification (role models).
• Social interaction.
• Escapism/Entertainment.

• Patrick Phillips (2003) we can watch films from different perspective of different selves, each of which gain a particular pleasure from the experience, they are:
• Social self.
• Cultural self.
• Private self.
• Desiring self.

• Rick Altman (1999) different genres offer different pleasure:
• Visceral
• Emotional.
• Intellectual.

• Stuart Hall -  Encoding/Decoding (1980)
• Texts are 'encoded' with an intended meaning by a producer.
• Mistake the meaning, creating a new message/response from the film.

Flower Shop Scene.

This Flower shop scene presenting Madeline as this angelic and perfect woman surrounded by the most luxurious flowers, I a very well fitted dress, perfectly maintained hair and innocent in appearance. 

This could be an example of Blumler and Katz's (1959) Gratification, such as personal identification. People may look at Madeline, especially like young women and idolise her, and set her the standards of themselves.