suspense, laughter, violence, hope, heart, nudity, sex, happy endings. mainly happy endings. griffin...
TRANSCRIPT
“Suspense, laughter, violence, hope, heart, nudity, sex, happy endings. Mainly happy endings.” Griffin Mill (in Robert Altman’s The Player, on what a movie needs to make money).
Cinema’s Power to Persuade Movies are a form of
entertainment They are also a business (show
business) they are also a form of
persuasion Movies reach large numbers of
people potential for mass influence
Movies are told in a narrative form stories possess an aura of
believability
Cinematic influence People may not expect to be persuaded
during a movie“willing suspension of disbelief”
Film may persuade intentionally.Michael Moore’s filmsInconvenient TruthBrokeback Mountain
Film may persuade unintentionally.JunoSuperbad
Movies and social modeling
Movie characters model risky behaviors. Smoking
○ Smoking rates in cinema are disproportionately higher than for the public at large (Omidvari, et al., 2005).
Alcohol abuse○ Movies frequently depict underage drinking
and driving. Unsafe sex
○ 98% of movies with sex scenes make no mention of safe sex (Gunasekera & Chapman, 2005).
Violence○ Gratuituous violence is commonplace on the
Big Screen.
Social modeling: thank youfor smoking
Smoking rates in cinema are disproportionately higher than for the public at large (Omidvari, et al 2005).
Over the past six years more than half of the movies geared toward children feature characters smoking. In more than a quarter of the movies, actors light up cigars (AMA, 2008).
Teenagers are significantly more likely to start smoking if they watch movies featuring stars who smoke cigarettes (Dalton, 2003)
89% of smoking is initiated during adolescence (Johnston, O’Malley, & Bachman, 1996)
http://www.screenit.com/search_movies.html
Movies and risky behavior More negative social modeling Unsafe sex:
○ 98% of movies with sex scenes make no mention of safe sex (Gunasekera & Chapman, 2005):.
Drug and alcohol use:○ Movies with cannabis (8%) and
other non-injected illicit drugs (7%) were less common than those with alcohol intoxication (32%) and tobacco use (68%)
Buckling up:○ seat belt usage in movies is quite
low, typically between 10-30% (Jacobsen, Kreuter, Luke, & Caburnay The national average is closer to 70%.
Positive social modeling occurs too
Finding Nemo normalizes disabilities○ Nemo has an underdeveloped
“lucky” fin○ Nemo’s father suffers from post
traumatic stress syndrome○ Dory has short-term memory loss○ Bruce the shark is in a 12 step
program○ A squid has incontinence (cannot
retain its ink)
More positive modeling Blindside demonstrated interracial compassion, caring Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner tackled the subject of
racial integration. Milk chronicled a leader of the gay rights movement. Tomb Raider, the Terminator films, Resident Evil, and
other films portray smart, tough, empowered female protagonists.
Cinema and social changeFilms often advance cultural awareness and social change
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
Easy Rider
Thelma & Louise
Brokeback Mountain
Influential Movies It Happened One Night (1934) The Seven Year Itch (1955) Easy Rider (1965) Saturday Night Fever (1977) Annie Hall (1977) American Gigolo (1980) Flashdance (1983) Boyz in the Hood (1991) Pulp Fiction (1994)
How movies persuade: stealth advertising Product placement- the practice of inserting
brand name items into the movie scenes is commonplace
brandchannel.com (lists placements in movies) Types of placement
Visual Spoken Usage
Apple has placed products in more than 1,500 TV shows.
Apple is just as popular on the big screen, showing up in hits from "You've Got Mail" to "How to Lose a Guy in 10 days.""
Films are carefully crafted, detailed works of art
How movies persuade: Promoting viewer identification
Stories in films overlaps with viewers’ own experience, so they can relate to the message in the movie
viewers identify closely with characters who face a crisis or adversity example: Movies like Rudy and Seabiscuit
champion the little guy.
Viewer identificationRocky, Rudy, Slumdog Millionaire
championed the underdog.Napolean Dynamite, Pretty in Pink,
Superbad, championed social outcasts.
How movies persuade: exporting American culture and values American movies export Western
cultures and values around the globe Movies are one of America’s
three leading exports Negative side- foreign audiences are
not too thrilled with the emphasis on materialism, sex, and violence in the movies.
Positive side- movies can embrace values such as freedom, equality, and human rights
Fashions, hairstyles, lifestyles are often imitated› Leg warmers› Platform shoes› Stirrup pants› Daisy Duke shorts
Movies are vehicles for advertising
Exporting American culture Exporting American culture and valuesand values
Exporting Cultural Values
Western movies promote positive values. democracy equality freedom justice
Western movies promote negative values. materialism promiscuity violence
Movies and violence Movies often serve as guides for
social behavior viewers often act out, model,
imitate what they see on screen Research on violence in video games,
television, movies, and the Internet found that those exposed to movie violence demonstrated more pro-violence attitudes (Funk, Baldacci, Pasold, & Baumgardner, 2004).
26 per cent of adults still have "residual anxiety" many years after viewing horror movies in childhood.
Movies and violence
Hollywood routinely recruits teenagers and children (some as young as nine) to evaluate its story concepts, commercials, theatrical trailers and rough cuts—even for R-rated movies.
The FTC studied 44 restricted films meant for adults, and discovered that 80 per cent were targeted to children under 17.
Cultural and Gender Stereotypes
Hollywood frequently typecasts minorities, cultural groups, and women, overweight people, the elderly, and other groups into limited roles
Legally Blonde perpetuates the “dumb blonde” stereotype
Shallow Hal gives people permission to make fun of fat people
Jackie Chan fills the image of the martial artist who is sexually/romantically awkward
Arab American community refers to the “Three Bs” syndrome. Arabs in movies and on TV are:
bombers
belly dancers
billionaires.
Sexism in cinema? Heavy male actors
Jack Black Jason AlexanderTom ArnoldJames GandolfiniRicky GervaisJohn GoodmanJonah HillPhillip Seymour HoffmanKevin JamesSeth Rogan (now slimmer)Steve SchirripaGeorge Wendt
Heavy female actresses› Kathy Bates› Nikki Blonsky› Judi Dench› Kathy Kinney› Queen Latifah› Mo’nique› Gabourey Sidibe
Granted, there may be others, but chubby sidekicks don’t count. The double standard is for leading roles.
Hollywood blazes a path Oscar winning actor,Morgan Freeman,
brings a sense of authority, dignity, and gravitas to the roles he plays.
He played the role of president of the United States in the movie Deep Impact (1998) and the role of god in God Almighty (2003).
Is it possible he made the idea of an African American president more “thinkable”?
Dennis Haysbert and D.B. Woodside also played the Commander in Chief in the Fox TV series 24.
Can Obama’s election be seen as a case of “life imitates art”?
Cultivation Theory Cultivation Theory predicts that heavy
exposure to movies and TV may cultivate attitudes more consistent with the media version of reality than with reality itself.
“Heavy” viewers have a more distorted view of the world than “Light” viewers Heavy viewers develop a view of a
“mean, scary world” Movies and TV provide biased,
stereotyped depictions of reality, which can distort the beliefs of heavy viewers
Based on a true story? Plotlines and details may be “loosely
based,” or may be based on false assertions
Amityville Horror: “The truth …was finally revealed when Butch DeFeo's lawyer, William Weber, admitted that he, along with the Lutzes, created this horror story over many bottles of wine.” (www.snopes.com)
Texas Chain Saw Massacre: “there was no real family of cannibalistic chainsaw murderers slaughtering people in Texas, nor any actual series of chainsaw-related killings.” (www.snopes.com)
Documentaries
Bowling for Columbine: documentary or “mock-umentary”?
Supersize Me: documentary or “shock-umentary”?
Beware of docu-dramas Time compression Composite characters Re-shot footage (example, reaction shots
filmed at a different time)
Resistance to Cinematic Persuasion
Do not let your guard down Realize “it’s only a movie”
not real life Be aware of product
placements Assume the director will opt
for a good narrative over accuracy
Be informative and seek knowledge