Audience Theories

Propp

- he was a formalist who was trying to uncover the building blocks of folk tales and stories
- he analysed 100 folk and fairytales to identify how characters are used to move the narrative forward.
- the emphasis was on looking at characters not arepresenting real people but as functions whose role was to move the narrative forward.

Roles:

1. The villain (struggles against hero)


2. The hero (or protagonist that overcomes misplaced connotations or 'goodness' that go with 'hero', strictly speaking, the protagonist has the role of driving the narrative).
3. The donor who provides the hero with a magic gift


4. The helper
5. The princess


6. The princess' father


7. The dispatcher (who sends the hero on his way)


8. The false hero
   

Example: Anastasia

1. Rasputin
2. Anastasia
3. Grandmother
4. Puka (dog)
5. Anastasia
6. Nicolas (dead)
7. Vlad
8. Demitri (her love interest)

Todorov:

Basic narrative theory

• A state of equilibrium (level)


• Disrupted by an agent of change


• Leads to a process of final resolution
  
• Return to a new equilibrium
  
  

Extended theory:

1. Exposition (background information/intro. to characters)
2. Development (of situation)
3. Complication (main event and action)
4. Climax (confrontation)
5. Resolution (restoration of equilibrium)
   
   

Example: Scream

1. Exposition - Casey is introduced showing that she is a high school student. Currently, she is at home but immediately the plot expands into something bigger as she gets killed.


2. Development - The plot develops as a high school student is killed one by one after we find out that the students that get killed are close to protagonist Sidney.


3. Complication - Sidney accuses her boyfriend being the killer and once she finds out he isn't, more accusations takes place, creating distrust between each character as they continually get killed off one by one.


4. Climax - Soon only 3 characters are left to accuse. Sidney finally finds out and confronts who and why the attacker is killing off people close to her. She confronts Billy and so he eventually gets killed.
   
5. Resolution - It ends with the survivors being treated in the hospital, implying that it will seemingly all go back to their normal high school lives.
   

Flaws:

• He ignores character, tone and mood in his analysis which differentiates one tale from another.
  
• Levi-Strauss was a main critic as he came from the structuralist approach of seeking meaning in those tales which Propp does not do.

Paul Well's Research

- small focus group study: 12 members, 4 age groups

• 16 - 25 (1975 to 1984)
  
• 26 - 40 (1960)
  
• 41 - 55 (1945 to 1955)
  
• 56 - 80 (1920 to 1944)
  

Conclusions:

- The relationship to being frightened changes with age and relates to broader factors affecting emotional responses.

- 1970s - 1990s more anaesthetised to explicit special effects, 'monster' films in 20s and 30s have strong personal response to images and iconography of horror (cinema was new and unknown)

- Young audiences are becoming harder to shock


Limitations:

• Change of audience over the years


• Experience


• Small minority of people
  
• Development of horror conventions and technology
  

Noel Carroll

• Horror films have a three basic act structure: onset; discovery; confrontation


• Some sub genres of horror, like the vampire sub genre, conform to a complex discovery plot onset; discovery; confirmation; confrontation

Carol Clover (1992):

• The pleasure of horror are masochistic for both males and females


• Audience responses involve a wide spectrum of emotional responses from laughter, joy in being scared, to white-knuckle horror.
  
• It is also important to consider how the genre is promoted and sold. A fuller knowledge of audience activity is needed.


• Her close analysis of narrative and style in the horror film led her to conclude that horror is 'far more victim-identified than the standard view would have it'.