The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

• Directed by Niels Arden Oplev 
• 2009 
• Swedish, will use this as our foreign film to compare to 
• A journalist is aided in his search for a woman who has been missing, or dead, for forty years by a young female hacker. 
• Mikael 
  

• Lisbeth 
• Harriet Vanger disappeared forty years ago from a family gathering on the island. Her body was never found, yet her uncle is convinced it was murder and that the killer is a member of his own dysfunctional family. He employs journalist Mikael and the tattooed, ruthless computer hacker Lisbeth to investigate. When the pair link Harriet's disappearance to a number of grotesque murders from almost forty years ago, they begin to unravel a dark and appalling family history. The Vanger's are very secretive and Mikael and Lisbeth are about to find out how far they are prepared to go to protect themselves. 

The Male Gaze

The male gaze in the film can be picked up on when Lisbeth's new guardian questions her sexuality, asking her if she has a boyfriend, how many men she has slept with, her favourite positions etc. The screenshot below presents this scene and how audiences are forced to look at Lisbeth. The camera keeps switching between Lisbeth and her new guardian which forces audiences to keep returning to her face and noticing her reactions to the questions in which he is asking. The use of close up's on her face also force audiences to align with her as they are feeling very close to her and feeling the intensity of the conversation between the two characters.

Female Gaze

Lisbeth is presented as a powerful woman from the beginning of the film and can be seen as a role model to spectator's. She appears as a hardened character who doesn't take anything to heart and is seen as knowing exactly what she is doing around computers from the very first scene. She is the main character within the film which shows her power and control of the film. She is presented as a very smart woman, seen when she can find everything that she wants on the internet; a real strength for this character. 

The scene in the underground where Lisbeth has a fight with the tough, male characters can also be seen from a female gaze. These male characters pick on her with little reason and start acted very roughly towards the female character, however Lisbeth puts up a tough fight and lets them get away with little damage. From a female gaze she is presented as a very strong character who won't put up with this. Although they cause some damage to herself, she is more bothered about her laptop which shows the idea that her job is more important than other things to her and perhaps also that she feels no harm has been done to herself and shows her strength again. 

 

Homosexual Gaze

Emotional, visceral and intellectual pleasures 

Lisbeth is presented as a hardened, technologically savvy woman who lives life as a bisexual hacker. She provides an "uncommon commentary about femininity and sexuality that rivals modern social constructions". She appears to have a character flaw that is linked to her gender, "even as empowered women, they are not immune to love and ultimately are misguided by their emotions". Rather than praising the achievement of this woman, the camera seems to objectify the character. Within the film there are multiple scenes that present Lisbeth in various states of undress as on multiple occasions she seduces Mikael, prompting full-length nude body shots of Lisbeth while only displaying Mikael from the waist up. When Lisbeth spends the night with another woman, both are portrayed in full body nude shots showing every angle of the female form, this shows how these women's bodies are supposed to give pleasure to the spectator. In these sex scenes Lisbeth is gazed at from the character's within the film, the camera and the audience. 

Salander finds herself in a similar situation when her new guardian takes brutal advantage of her to fulfill his own sadistic fetish. Her unusual and fetishized appearance somehow makes it justifiable for a contemptible person like Bjurman to rape his ward as a form of payment.

In all of the sex scenes, Salander is the instigator and dominant person in the relationship, clearly demonstrating that it is an individualistic choice of empowerment and desire rather than a submissive act. While the rape scene is unjustifiable and her being fetishized is equally irrefutable, it is important to understand Salander’s intentions; she returned to Burjman with the intent to illicit blackmail worthy material. Although she momentarily and detrimentally lost control, she not only achieved her goal, but also returned once more for revenge as an act of pleasing herself—and only herself. 

Male Gaze in Clockwork Orange

As seen from the image to the left, taken from the opening shot of the film, women are subjected by being seen as a decoration rather than a functioning character. Due to the Male Gaze, women are reduced to objects to be looked at and used.

The first real woman we see within the film, is the woman who is used as a sex object to be sexually assaulted, as seen in the images to the left. In this scene Alex is wearing a strange mask with a long nose, a phallic image to accompany the violent act. Through this mask, many people see this as though he is hiding his own identity during this scene.






Throughout the above scene, we are aligned with Alex through the use of the cinematography using close up's of Alex's face and Alex speaking directly to the camera. Because of this, we give him our allegiance and see his point of view so are unlikely to change this throughout the film. 

Django - The Black Gaze

Active vs Passive Spectatorship

Active spectatorship theory suggests each viewer is different and many people in the audience will question the film and react to it in different ways to others, not just blindly accepting the messages. Active spectators do not just consume what they are told to watch by marketing that is aimed at them but instead choose different films to watch for different reasons. The passive spectator theory on the other hand suggests we are all the same and our intelligence, life experiences and everything else that makes us individuals does not affect our reception of the film.

Diversion is probably the most common reason people choose to watch films. Quite simply many viewers will watch a film just to get away from the problems and reality of their own lives. This is why most big Hollywood blockbusters offer pure escapism. They tell easy to understand stories where good usually triumphs over evil and people can go home feeling good. They can provide us with emotions we may not always feel in the mundane routine of our everyday lives, making us laugh, cry or scream. Many films even take us to fantasy lands like Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings or far off planets like in Star Wars, allowing us to completely escape the reality of our lives.
Some people may use films as a substitute for personal relationships. A classic example of this is a viewer choosing to go and see a romantic comedy because they are single. The idea of a relationship or finding a happy relationship is played out in the film. Similarly films that are about groups of friends may help a person to feel like part of a group. In films like the American Pie series or The Inbetweeners, viewers might find characters that they would like to be friends with and watching a film is like being in their company. I’m not sure I fully agree with this one and think it may apply more to TV shows like soap operas rather than films.
On a perhaps more concerning note, many people may watch a film for reasons of personal identity. This is where a viewer watches a film because they see themselves reflected in it, whether it be one specific character or a certain subculture of lifestyle. Stoner comedies are a perfect example of this. People who smoke certain substances are much more likely to relate to the stoner comedies of Jay and Silent Bob, Cheech and Chong or Pineapple Express. Similarly some people chose to watch violent films about football hooliganism such as Green Street and The Football Factory because it is a lifestyle that they can relate to. The viewer may even learn some of their values from the text. 

Factors that would affect viewing experience.

Things that may affect your viewing experience may include:

• Location
• Gender 
• Class
• Religion 
• Age
• Interests 
• Education 
• Personal Experiences 

Alignment

• The process of adjusting parts so that they are in relation position. Alignment is the process of identification with something/someone. 
• Spectators are encouraged to relate to characters emotions as well as adapt their points of view, through aspects of micro and macro. 
• The emotional impact of a film commonly depends on spectators alignment with central characters. 
• The filmmaker can align spectators to characters through: Cinematography - a close up positions the spectator closer to a character and alternatively a wide shot would put a distance to the spectator and character, Sound - certain sounds or music are used to highlight and guide our responses, Themes/Content - depending on the subject matter of the film we can be manipulated if the issues portrayed affect us on a personal level.
• Film makers often use existing genre conventions, the 'under dog' story, sympathetic characters and situations, place characters in realistic scenarios, use realistic emotions and play on audiences fears to affect the spectators emotional response. 

Audience - a group experience who share the same or similar meanings. 

Spectator - an individual experience characterised by certain personal connections to the text. 

Reception Theory and Key Terms

• Studying audiences concentrating more on those who consume a text. 
• The audience decodes the message in multiple ways and this is dependant on the cultural background of the person. 
• States that an audience may respond in one of three ways; Preferred Reading (taking an intended reading of the film and agreeing with all the messages encoded in the text), Negotiated Reading (the viewer identifies most of the meanings encoded within the text but doesn't agree with or take the full meaning), Oppositional Reading (the viewer does not identify the meanings encoded into the text and their own personal experiences form an alternative within the text). 
• Dictates that a film doesn't have any meaning without the spectator and meaning is only generated when the spectator views the text and 'decodes' it. 

Most films are constructed in a way that enable us to suspend our disbelief and emerge ourselves within the narrative through the use of slick cinematography and invisible editing and audiences buy into the 'reality' of the film, forgetting the film is a 'film'. However other films draw attention to the film as a 'textual construct', for example Wayne's World which frequently reminds audiences that they are watching a constructed reality. 

 

Aesthetic - Concerned with beauty or the appreciation of beauty

Cognitive - The mental processes of perception, memory, judgment, and reasoning, as contrasted with emotional processes 

Coherence - Overall sense and understandability 

Disparity - Inequality and difference 

Allegiance - pertains to the moral evaluation of the characters by the spectator 

Allegiance is another form of identification with a character based on your attitudes towards class, race, nationality, age, ethnicity, gender and experiences.  

Fandom

• "The behavioural patterns of fans can often be related to the behaviour of those who practice any form of religion or faith. The intensity of the fandom differentiates between each person and can range anywhere from the die-hard fan to the occasional follower. However, the most interesting similarity between both faith and music is the way both uniquely shape and develop the ideas and understandings of those who follow these idols. Those who adore certain idols will often take the messages of their idol at face value, hoping to be more like the person they idolise." 
• "The relationship between fans and professionals in these genres has always been close, and the evolution of the genres cannot be fully described without including fan history as well... Fan culture had its own language, sometimes can "fan speak", where words and phrases have been adapted to create a jargon that only other fans fully understand, and there are also rules of society to fandom (for example levels of hierarchy within the community and dress codes). Fans create their own forms of literature and art called "fan fiction" and "fan art" respectfully, and even have their own form of music, called filk songs... [Role Playing Games] a group of fans would come together to physically act out or write in the point of view of a particular character... The crossover between fandoms has not lessened since Warner's time, and the lines between fandoms have blurred even more over time... Although predominately believed to be a genre by and for men, science fiction fandom has increasingly been dominated by women for the last half century... the ways in which the internet is impacting both the fans and how fandom operates... Jenkins calls fans 'Textual Poachers', a term commonly used in fandom research, because they 'construct their own culture from borrowed materials'. " 

How does fandom affects spectatorship?

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1990.tb02264.x/abstract

> Interesting extract from 'Journal of Communication' Volume 40, Issue 2 "The Effects of Race, Gender, and Fandom on Audience Interpretations of Madonna's Music Videos"

Fandom allows spectators to have more freedom with the film and encourages audiences to become more involved. By having the fans getting more involved with the film by dressing up and creating their own image based on the characters of the film, they are increasing the alignment they have with the characters as they may feel more inclined and have more of a personal relationship with this character. By increasing this alignment, they are impacting their own spectatorship as they may have a deeper or different understanding of the messages within that film. Fandom allows wider audience ranges as it is noticed with science-fiction films in particular that through fandom, female audiences have become more involved and by the directors and producers of the films seeing the increasing involvement between these spectators and film, they may adapt the ways in which they create these films and the characters to keep these female audiences involved. Fandom also breaks down the barriers between film and real life, meaning it may make the film become more "real" to spectators which would interfere with the ways in which they see the ideas and messages within the film. 

Black Swan

Male Gaze: 
The women in the film are always being watched and men are always watching them with power. The male gaze appears to control Nina and her life. Nina is displayed as a seductive character, particularly seen when she is dressed up as the Black Swan; the white powdered face, dark red lips, and eyes hidden within the painted black-silver swan wings are noted to be seductive to many male audiences. It is noticed that Black Swan focuses on the main female  character's body and ways that she can achieve perfection with this.

The male gaze is the symbol of Thomas who orders Nina to behave in the ideology of the male gaze. Nina is seen as the innocent and 'sweet girl', but Thomas demands Nina to be sexual, the male gaze is seen as women needing to be pure and lustful at the same time, things that contrast one another. Several times within the film the audience observes Nina's dancing from Thomas' perspective and the camera is often shot from his point of view or from the back of his head. We hear him critiquing her dancing and we witness him groping Nina's body, something that makes some audiences feel is sexual assault. Nina sexualises herself, by touching herself, in order to appear perfect in Thomas' eye and she slowly kills what is left of herself in order to return his gaze.

There are two scenes within the film in which we also see this male gaze, when Nina is on the train home and the older man smacks his lips at her and grabs repeatedly at his crotch and when Lily is in the restaurant and gets asked if it is juicy enough; in both of these scenes the male gaze violates the female body by sexualising it. The pornographic scene of Nina and Lily having lesbian sex, shows that the film objectifies women to please men in our patriarchal society as to see two attractive women having sex together is visually pleasing and sexually provocative for men.

Female Gaze: 
As well as the general cinematography of the film, the fast-cuts, high-contrast and vivid imagery breaks up the male desire. The film is led by female characters and is a story completely about a woman. A female reading of the film is seen as a woman's struggle for perfection, this has gained many female audiences attracted to the same experience they have had in their lives. When looking at receptions of the film, both young and older women aspired to look like the character of Nina and her ballerina body became a role model for female audiences. The female gaze picks up on how Nina's most important role in the film is her role as a woman in our world. Audiences notice how Nina's mother expects her to act in certain ways, as the white swan, but this is suppressing who Nina really is and who she wants to be; we see that she dresses in pink and white and sleeps in a bedroom decorated for a young girl.

From this I see how from a female gaze, Nina's character acts as a role model for women and creates the idea that women should be able to have freedom and independence to do what they choose, this can be seen with Nina trying to break free and being her own person, not someone who her mum told her to be. Female audience's often read this film to be about the social pressures and difficulties within their lives that this film discusses.

Fraud's psychoanalysis 
Nina is the character in the film whom is seen to have a split personality, she is a ballerina and is struggling to become the "Black Swan" as she is seen to be such a sweet girl. She then meets a girl named Lily, who is the contrast to Nina, she is casual, chaotic and sexual, like Nina needs to be. Under the pressure of being a ballerina, Nina becomes psychologically sick and she Lily is made to be her imaginative enemy. At the end of the film, Nina kills "Lily", whom is actually herself and achieves the perfect performance of the Swan Queen. Nina tries to be her mothers "sweet girl" until she meets Lily and the temptation within her body of being sexual is released. Nina chooses Lily over her mother, seen when she slams the door in her mother's face and runs out to a nightclub with Lily, showing her desire taking her away. In the end, Nina finally becomes the black swan as she has more characteristics of the black swan than the white swan; the dark side of her ego has totally eroded the white side.

Mirrors 
In the film, the director uses many mirrors to reveal the complex mind of Nina's psychological Dissociative Identity Disorder, the movie presents special visual effects when mirrors don't reflect the reality but the distorted reality. There are many mirrors used in this film, in the dancing room, the bathroom and fitting room, and every time we see a mirror we can tell the dissociation of identities of Nina in the mirror. There are a few scenes in the film where Nina is looking at the mirror and the mirror doesn't reflect who she really is but what she wants to be (the dark side). There are also imaginative mirrors in the film, for example Lily is a mirror of Nina, she is the "perfect" self in Nina's mind and Nina wants to be like her. The director uses mirrors to develop the distortion of character but also a dream created by the character; Nina see's things that are unreal and did things that didn't happen.

Avengers Fandom

Avengers fans, often known as Loki's Army, are always seen as dressing up as the characters and getting very involved in the films. Universal Studio's, Florida, encourage this fandom by having a Marvel Superhero Island in which the rides are based around the Marvel films and there are people walking around dressed as the characters to encourage fans to have photos taken. This park can be seen below. 

 

 










The fans of Avengers Assemble are very varied; the director choose to use specific stars for this reason as Samuel Jackson brings in an african american audience and Robert Downey Jr brings in audiences of over 40 years old. However, the main audience of the film would probably be males aged 16-30. This can be noted through the merchandise that was produced from the aftermath of the film, male clothing in sizes for teenagers and above. There was also a lot of merchandise produced for young boys too, creating the idea for fathers to purchase for their son. The film did also attract a lot of female attention and there appears to be quite a few females who are also joining in on this fandom. The demographic breakdowns showed that everyone could enjoy The Avengers; families watched the film during the daytime, young adults and teens watched the film later and couples dominated the evening business of the film. 

The fans intense dressing up (as seen in the images below) show how the films got increasingly more popular and noticed. Disney helped market the film and with their promotions aimed at women, this increased the market of women going to see the film, statistics show that women made up 40% of the audience. 

 

 

Something else that is picked up with the Avengers film is the fan art (examples of this can be seen in the images below). Fan art is where audiences and fans have created their own images of the characters in the film and sometimes their own scenes from the films. This is breaking down the barriers between the director and spectator, creating the spectator to have more involvement within the film, and becoming a consumer. This helps director's as they can then see how their audience's interact with the films and how to make the next film better by incorporating the audience's ideas. 

Fandom is significant to our studies on spectatorship as by the fans getting involved within the film and dressing up and creating their own image based on the characters from the film, they are increasing the alignment with the characters, making them have a deeper understanding and possibly a different understanding and creation of meaning from the films. Fandom helps involve the fans more into the film, breaking down these barriers between film and real life, it may help the film become more "real" to them, interacting with the way that they see the film. 

From looking at Fandom within the Avengers Assemble film, it shows me that both male and female's are getting involved with the film this way and seem to both think the same way about the film and it's ideas as long as they are both involved and interested in the same film. Their gender doesn't appear to affect their spectatorship with a film that they are largely interested in. However with regards to this film, many female audiences feel that the marketing can be slightly sexist in the amounts of male merchandise produced and less for females, showing how the directors possibly didn't expect the film to be popular with female audiences? 

How significant is gender to a spectators experience and what evidence do you have for your argument?

How significant is gender to a spectators experience and what evidence do you have for your argument?

Gender appears to be important with a spectator’s experience, as with the spectator’s gender they are able to align with the characters easier and specialized to themselves. Your gender affects the ways in which you see things and understand things, as your gender affects different experiences.

Freud’s psychoanalysis theory is argued to affect the way our gender affects our spectatorship as different genders have different conscious thoughts that they want to repress so would see things differently, depending on their own conscious and unconscious thoughts. Freud argued that women were envious of men’s penis’, with this view it may affect a female’s experience of a film as if they were envious they may dislike the male characters, causing them to not align with that character and this may create them to have a different view and understanding of that film entirely.

The male gaze theory affects the ways spectators view something, as all spectators are seeing the same event through the perspective of a male and the sexualized female on screen. We are seeing things through a voyeuristic view where the spectator cannot help but look.  This can be applied to the film ‘Black Swan’ as by having the male gaze in this film, male spectators may be awarded with some sort of sexual gratification with the images and voyeuristic camera shots we have of the main female character. The scene in which her dance instructor touches up Natalie Portman’s character whilst he is supposedly helping her is an example of this as there are extreme close up’s of parts of her body. Heterosexual females may not see this voyeuristic look on the female character so may interpret this in different ways to which male characters did.

The ways in which the spectators connect with the film affects their viewing experience and this can be argued to be affected by their gender. Males and females align with different characters as they have different feelings towards characters which is affected by their own gender, often due to feeling sympathetic towards certain characters, finding aspects of yourself within the characters and aligning with them this way. Emotional response is also affected in the same way as your gender may affect the ways you see certain things happening with the film and your gender can affect the ways you respond to this and your understanding of messages from this.

There are also oppositional reading’s that we can see, for example for the female gaze theory. This can be seen in the film ‘Magic Mike’ in which there is sexual gratification but for females as we are seen looking voyeuristic at the male characters. However, it is noticed that the female gaze is not as direct as the male gaze is in Black Swan as perhaps this is not seen as acceptable so it is more rare and causes much more of a fuss over it. This female gaze would affect the spectator’s viewing as female’s may have some sexual gratification by watching male’s stripping.

The Female Gaze in Magic Mike

Magic Mike is a film about male strippers in which female audiences are encouraged to look at the male characters with pleasure, and is argued to focus almost entirely on the straight female gaze. 

 

The film sexualises the male characters as they are seen as objects, like women are in the male gaze, we are encouraged to look at and watch these characters with pleasure. The male character's job is to be a stripper and sexually please the audience with their appearance.

As the director expected, he made a huge profit with female audiences watching the film at cinemas the first weekend in which it was released, the marketing had clearly hit it’s target. However, many viewers of the film stated that the scenes in which the actors were not stripping bored them, making them restless, and that they wanted to see more of the stripping scenes. Although other women viewers argued that this was not what women want to see within a film and expressed their disappointment with the thoughts of what women want to view, this is quite different though to the amount of women who viewed the film for their own purpose.

It is noticed by many how little male nudity (partically full-frontal male nudity) we see in this film and many other films too, contrasted with the high amounts of female nudity that is shown in mainstream movies. Some audiences question whether this is because women are so used to seeing the female body sexualized on screen, that they are unsure how to react to the sexualized male body.

Other viewers compare the ways in which the male strippers in this film are portrayed and the ways female strippers are portrayed in Hollywood movies. The camera never lingers, pauses or isolates the male body as it does in films that star women. The director did not use extreme close up’s of individual body parts and uses long shots to capture Channing Tatum’s talent and gift when he dances. Peter Bradshaw, the Guardian's film critic, notices that "they are taken seriously even when they get into trouble... it's a movie which takes itself quite seriously and I think that's part of it's success as a massive box office hit", this is showing how the male characters are not only seen as sexualised males but professional men who have jobs. 

Amanda Klimczuk (a researcher at the Institute for Mind and Biology) stated that seeing male strippers is “seen as something ‘naughty’ – like eating ice cream right out of the carton – so doing it with friends may be pleasurable, but may also instill giddiness because they’re all doing something ‘taboo’ together.” 

However, women seemed to enjoy looking at males in a pleasurable and sexualized way, as seen by the reviews of the film and the ticket office sales, so perhaps if it wasn’t so uncommon and rare it would be seen more acceptable.

5th March - Full Metal Jacket interaction with characters

This lesson we were looking at the interaction and identification with characters in Full Metal Jacket and looking at the recognition, alignment and allegiance with the characters. 

-> by Beckie and Layla. 

Unit F633: Global Cinema & Critical Approaches

Section B: Critical engagement with film and cinema

• 1 hour question 
• 3 areas of study - 2 question choice (Regulation, Authorship, Audience experience/spectatorship)
• Apply critical approaches