Applying Audience Theory (Mr Love)

1. Richard Dyer – does your genre offer ‘Utopian solutions’? Yes or no, plus explain why.

The films that come under the genre romantic comedy movies tend to be utopian solution like endings as they often the stories endings are ideal in their outlook in most cases, this is because the aim of a romantic comedy is to make the audience laugh and feel entertained by the lives of characters as represented in the movie. The majority of films as per Torodovs theory of equilibrium have disequilibrium, a portion of the film where the story focuses on a problem, this part of the film can vary greatly between films even in romantic comedies as the narratives in each film will be different. Where one narratives disequilibrium could be heart-breaking, for example in ‘Life As We Know It (2010)’ where the disequilibrium is created from the death of the two main characters and love interests best friends die and they, a man and a woman who hate each other, have to come together to bring their dead best friends child up. This disequilibrium is not utopian in any sort, the characters are shown mourning their friends and being constantly reminded of their death by the child. However, the end of the narrative becomes utopian as they fall in love and help a child who means the world to them grow up. The other side of this coin is films where the disequilibrium is light-hearted, not emotionally breaking, for example in How to Lose a Guy in 10 days where the disequilibrium is the aim of both the main characters to do completely opposite things. The man trying to woo the woman and the woman trying to drive away the man. This representation of a story offers possibly utopian solutions as they are trivial issues to have or at least they could be seen as trivial compared to some plot problems in films.

2. The Frankfurt School – is the audience sometimes passive in your genre? Explain why.

I agree that occasionally the audience to the genre Romantic comedy genre is passive in their consumption of media. Films in the genre are seen as casual and easy to watch. They do not tend to have long thought out theories behind them from fans of the story unlike genres like Super Hero where dedicated fans discuss plot points and story lines and try to put their own theory’s up into the air. Romantic comedies are loved by a wide range of people but usually lack the massive fan base who argue and fight over favourite characters.

3. Blumler & Katz – what are the uses and gratifications for audiences of your genre?
•  Entertainment & Diversion

This fits the genre romantic comedy the most as people often watch a movie from the genre to escape from the real world. The ideal situation or a story in which they can lose themselves and forget about their own problems for the duration of the movie.

• Personal relationships/ social interaction

Romantic comedies tend to follow the relationship flow or break of a young couple. These representations of young relationships and social interaction form what a lot of people can begin to relate to as romantic comedies often have themes which follow the experiences of young people like moving away from each other, relationship troubles, bully’s or more common things young people deal with in life.

• Personal identity

The inclusion of common problems faced by an audience makes a movie more relatable. An audience being drawn to media which represents them. The relatable nature of Romantic comedies is what draw people to the genre as people are interested on how people other than themselves would deal with a situation.

• Information/Education

Many new films focus on difficult issues of the world which are hard to watch and worrying to learn about however romantic comedies have a reputation for being light hearted and used for distraction so they are expected not to house difficult topics, however they are likely to include some current news like unemployment.

4. David Buckingham – if the audience of your genre is young people, how does this theory apply?

•       The theory of David Buckingham’s creative audience theory fits the genre of romantic comedy because young people watch the media texts which fall into the genre category to escape the world and learn certain ideas from the experiences of other people through the representation formed from the creators of the media text. Young people also experience a romantic comedic film to help attempt organising their own life as per the advice from the films characters. This means a film has to be careful during the production of the film to make sure young audiences are responsible with the knowledge or that they as the producers limit the effect the film could be on the audience. the genre also stays true to the part of his theory in which he states “Many of their interactions with the media are not contrived, committed or concentrated but fleeting, visceral and meaningless.” Because as I have said previously the audience and fan base for a romantic comedy film is often short lived and uncommitted, especially so if you were to compare this to another genre like super hero or mystery.