Spectatorship

Question 1

What is the spectatorship model?

Answer 1

Active and Passive

Question 2

Name the three readings of a film

Answer 2

Preferred, negotiated, oppositional /aberrant

Question 2

The Frankfurt School (1920s-30s Germany)

Answer 2

Their theory discusses how cinema gives the illusion of proximity, making the audience feel immersed and part of the scene.

Question 3

Christopher Metz

Answer 3

His theory states that the cinema screen acts as a mirror to the spectator, creating an idealised character within the distorted reality of the film, believing the spectator was ‘constructed’ by the film itself.

Question 4

Laura Mulvey

Answer 4

Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1973) the Male Gaze Theory: the darkness of the cinema creates a sense of privacy which allows men to gaze at female characters without shame.
“men act, woman appear”.

Question 5

What do Psychoanalytic film theorists think?

Answer 5

Inspired by Surrealists, they believe that cinema is the closest art form to dreaming. Dreams reveal hidden meanings and desires, so they believed they could reveal the subconscious of a film.

Question 6

What is ‘libido’ and ‘thanatos’.

Answer 6

Sexual desire and power, which the male characters have a combination of in films over female characters which “reinforce the neurotic male sexual ego.” -Laura Mulvey

Question 7

Define passive spectatorship

Answer 7

The idea that spectator response is fixed and created by the techniques of the filmmaker.

Question 8

Define active spectatorship

Answer 8

The idea that spectator response is individualised and influenced by cultural capital.

Question 9

Blumler and Katz- Uses and Gratifications

Answer 9

Proposed that audiences actively select media to use for their own benefits, and the uses offer specific pleasures/ gratifications such as watching a film genre you know you enjoy.

Question 10

Name the four Multiple Spectating Selves

Answer 10

Social Self
Cultural Self
Private Self
Desiring Self

Question 11

What is social self?

Answer 11

gaining satisfaction from having a similar response to other spectators

Question 12

What is cultural self?

Answer 12

understanding references and meaning generated by memory from other media

Question 13

What is private self?

Answer 13

generates personal and unique meanings based on personal memories

Question 14

What is desiring self?

Answer 14

brings un/conscious responses that have little to do with surface content.

Question 15

Stuart Hall and ‘Encoding/Decoding’

The readings of a film

Answer 15

The idea that the filmmaker encodes an intended meaning which the spectator decodes and the preferred reading is the one created by the filmmaker.
A negotiated reading is where the spectator recognised the intended meaning but may no accept it.
An oppositional/aberrant reading is where the spectator deliberately reinterprets the film, creating a new meaning.

Question 16

David Chandler and the Gaze

Answer 16

He identified a number of different ways that the ‘gaze’ can be produced and represented in a film.

Question 17

Spectator’s Gaze (David Chandler)

Answer 17

the viewpoint from the camera. How does the camera offer voyeuristic pleasure? Does it linger or gaze on the subject?

Question 18

Intra-Diegetic (David Chandler)

Answer 18

the character’s look at each other. How do characters look at each other? Is the audience positioned within this look? When is the shot reverse shot
used and why?

Question 19

Extra-Diegetic (David Chandler)

Answer 19

the characters look directly at the camera. Do characters break the 4th wall and look at the spectator? How do we react to it? Is it threatening? Is it to involve us in a joke? Is it combined with a voice over?

Question 20

Camera’s gaze/ self relexive

Answer 20

the film reveals the mechanics of the gaze and reminds us that we are watching a film. Do we see the process of filmmaking? Do you see
the crew? Or is the spectator invited into the edit suite?

Question 21

Text-within-a-text

Answer 21

the characters are also watching/making a film

Question 22

Situated culture

Answer 22

The conditions in where you watch a film

Question 23

Cultural Capital

Answer 23

How were are socialised in society

Question 24

Alignment

Answer 24

physical connections

Question 25

Allegiance

Answer 25

connection created through shared ideologies, values and behaviour

Question 26

Reasons for uniformity or diversity in responses from difference spectators

Answer 26

Gendered Response (Laura Mulvey) Race (White Gaze- bell hooks) Multiple Spectating selves- Social, Cultural, Private, Desiring Political Allegiance