Spectatorship Flashcards
What is a spectator?
A viewed/member of the audience
What is Mulvey’s male gaze theory?
The male gaze refers to the way women are objectified by the camera lense in Hollywood movies because men are in control of the production process and make decisions that appeal to their own values and interests.
What is Stuart Hall’s theory?
Encoding/Decoding
Directors use various elements to encode meaning according to their ideologies and resources into their films. This meaning is then decoded by the viewers
What is Christian-Metz mirror theory?
Metz applied the ideas of Sigmund Freud and Lacan to cinema. The screen acts as a mirror to the spectator and the reason we enjoy watchin films is because we both recognise and identify with a character on screen, whilst also seeing them as an idealised perfect character.
What is Murray Smith’s theory?
Recognition - recognising the values of the characters and what their motives are
Alignment – When you want what the character wants
Allegiance – A stronger bond where you root for the character. This is a cognitive and emotional response.
What is the multiple spectating selves theory?
Social self - gains satisfaction from having a similar response to other spectators, with similar values.
Cultural self - ‘gets’ the references and meanings generated by the memory of other films, tv shows, news, etc.
Private self- generates personal and unique meanings based upon personal memories.
Desiring self – brings un/conscious energies and responses that have little to do with surface content
What is Daniel Chandler’s Gaze theory?
The spectators gaze – the viewpoint of the camera, usually offering voyeuristic pleasure
Intra-diegetic – the characters look at each other
Extra-diegetic – the characters look at the camera and are aware they are being watched
Camera’s gaze – the film reveals the ‘mechanics of the gaze’ reminding us we are watching a film
Text-within-a-text – the characters are also watching/making a film and for a time we see what they produce.
What is Bulmer and Katz’s uses and gratifications theory?
We choose watch films to fulfil one or more of the following: Personal Identity, Information/ Education, Entertainment and/or Social Interaction.
What is passive spectatorship?
A passive spectator is someone who, when watching a film, reacts in the same way that a Mass audience would. They accept the director’s preferred meaning and don’t question the messages presented to them. They enjoy the immersive experience and don’t seek to engage beyond a superficial level.
What is an active spectator?
Some films (often Independant films targeting more niche and highbrow audiences) encourage spectators to become more active producers of meaning by having to think about how to feel and respond to the film. When an active spectator watches a film, they watch it as an individual , and can take their own meaning from it. Active spectators generally analyse films and their meanings. Active spectators can react differently to a film due to their personal experiences.
What is a preferred reading?
When the audience responds to the film in the intended way.
What is a negotiated reading?
When the audience accepts and rejects certain elements
What is an oppositional reading?
When the audience understands the preferred reading but chooses to reject it
