I’m officially no longer a “target-audience” movie watcher
I’ve seen a few films recently and have found two of the quite forgettable. I also find myself diametrically opposed to the “critics”, which isn’t all that unusual now that I think about it.
The first was Borat, which was regretably unforgettable the way that the amputation of a limb might be unforgettable. Sure, there were plenty of times when I laughed out loud. But at the end of the flick, I was left feeling unsatisfied. And rather unclean. Rotten Tomatoes is currently showing a 92% critical rating on this flick. I think they failed to move the decimal one place to the left.
Next was Stranger Than Fiction, a movie which we saw by default because The Fountain wasn’t playing at the rinky-dink theater in Sedona. What a great movie. No, that bears repeating and restating: I really enjoyed Stranger Than Fiction in a way that I rarely enjoy “mainstream” movies. Funny. Smart. And who knew Will Farrell could act without acting like… Will Farrell? And on this flick, Rotten Tomatoes currently shows a 76% critical rating. When I was a young whipper-snapper, that was a low C. And this movie is anything but average.
November 28th, 2006 at 4:30 pm
Like you ever fit ‘their’ demographics Evo
November 28th, 2006 at 8:35 pm
Some critics I agree with pretty often; others I don’t. I mostly read critics’ reviews to find out what the movie is about.
I’m not part of the target audience anymore either. I rarely make it to movies, unfortunately. I wish I had time to go to more movies even with the decline in the quality of movie audiences.
November 28th, 2006 at 8:36 pm
BTW, the whole “movies versus home viewing” might make for a topic for a WI episode. So long as there is disagreement, that is. Otherwise everyone just nods in agreement and takes another drink. Boring.
November 29th, 2006 at 3:44 am
I have been teaching audiences and communications in Media Studies this semester at Uni. One thing that I really noticed was the fact that none of the students had seen anything in the way of movies at all. There might have been one or two with in the last year and thats it. None of them had seen anything that was older than 2 years. I have never felt so out of place when teaching media. I mean what the hell are kids doing these days that one of them watch TV or film. When teachhing Genre I had one student that didn’t watch: Westerns, SciFi, Comedy, Drama, horror or Anime. So rather than thinking yourself out side the Target Audience, think more that in todays market, there isn’t a target audience at all (unless it has Reality in the title).
November 29th, 2006 at 2:04 pm
I think Nigel is absolutely right. There is no such thing as mass media anymore; there are only niche audiences of size one.
It is possible to produce a completely individualized entertainment environment. Your mp3 player acts as your personal radio station; your tivo/youtube/video ipods mean that you can be watching things no one else is watching. Your information about the outside world can come from RSS feeds or clipping services. No one’s entertainment doesn’t need to have a significant overlap with anyone else’s. And we pride ourselves on that, feeling ourselves individualistic and unique.
A more interesting question to me is why this splintering is occurring. Technology makes the trend possible and in turn is driven by the desire for individualistic entertainment. But why is it that 50 years ago, such individualistic entertainment would have been thought strange and now mass entertainment is the strange phenomenon?
November 29th, 2006 at 10:29 pm
Its postmodernism Barry. More importantly, the Internet has fragmented the audience. Yet the multi-nationals still insist on promoting a traditional structure top down tirer system. The moment the audeince gets the chance to make their own content (podcasting for example) you will find the arbutures of traditional cutural systems attempting to eradicate it. (remember that bill Evo was on about, where content would go to the ISPs rather than the producers). There is a constant battle between differing cultural ideologies. And for the first time, popular culture and its audience are really starting to make a signification impact on control of content. Yet here too traditional institutions such as Rupet Murdoch are trying to take old of audiience contnet. Murdoch’s purchase of My Space highlights both the potential of audience content and the desire for institutions to control that content. Just be thankfull that they all missed the boat on the most important interphase of them all. The Internet.